In response to the article on the Entrepreneurial Generation, I’ve been discussing with friends a specific part:

AND that, I think, is the real meaning of the Millennial affect — which is, like the entrepreneurial ideal, essentially everyone’s now. Today’s polite, pleasant personality is, above all, a commercial personality. It is the salesman’s smile and hearty handshake, because the customer is always right and you should always keep the customer happy. If you want to get ahead, said Benjamin Franklin, the original business guru, make yourself pleasing to others.

It has made me wonder whether it makes sense to try not offending people with strong positions and opinions. Do nice guys get ahead by not taking a position?

I’ve often not ventured a strong opinion as it’s rare to find a situation without a lot of nuance and oftentimes in discussions I have nothing to gain by being offensive. It’s far easier to state the sides than take a side. In fact, I’m never forced to take a strong position unless I’m making a decision for business. I’m beginning to rethink this general approach and in fact embrace the idea of taking only strong positions in anything I elect to opine or make a decision on. I’m inspired by something incredibly insightful and powerful that one friend wrote back to me:

Strong opinions are important because you need to believe in something to guide your decisions in order to accomplish anything. It’s the difference between being an author and a book reviewer. The author has to decide what is important and what should be cut and what the point of the book is.  Every word that is in the book is there because the author decided it should be there.  The book reviewer can read a book and comment on the decisions that were made by the author, but he will never be able to write a book because he can not make the important decisions, he can only comment on the decisions others have made.  Being well rounded and understanding that both sides of an argument have pros and cons is easy.  Its moving past that and making a decision that is hard. As an entrepreneur by definition you can’t be content to accept both sides of the coin and sit idly by.  You have to consider both, and then fully commit to one.  Strong opinions lead to vision, because only when you have made a decision about what is important and what is right can you start to see how the future should be.