Three traits of entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Ingvar Kamprad according to Malcom Gladwell

Author Malcolm Gladwell, who has sold close to 4.5 million books, says that famous entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad became successful thanks to a rare combination of personality traits. At the World Business Forum in New York recently, he revealed those traits as – being open to experience, being conscientious and being disagreeable. Gladwell says the combination of openness and conscientiousness is as scarce as it is powerful. There are lots of people who are creative without being conscientious, Gladwell said. And there are lots of conscientious people who aren’t creative – like, he says, an accountant.

“It’s rare to have those two qualities in combination, to be both someone with an imagination to dream up some radical way of doing things and the relentless focus to make it happen,” Gladwell said. “Add to that the third thing: You also must be disagreeable.” Why disagreeable? Here’s Gladwell in his 2013 book David and Goliath: Crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable. They are people willing to take social risks – to do things that others might disapprove of.

That is not easy. Society frowns on disagreeableness. As human beings we are hardwired to seek the approval of those around us. Yet a radical and transformative thought goes nowhere without the willingness to challenge convention.

So what happens when you have openness, conscientiousness and disagreeableness wrapped up in one person?

You have Steve Jobs, who had no worries about stealing the graphic user interface from Xerox PARC. You have IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, who outsourced his manufacturing to Poland during the height of the Cold War, which Gladwell says earned him the moniker of “traitor” in his native Sweden. Kamprad – open enough to invent new methods of making furniture, conscientious enough to relentless expand his business – was also disagreeable. So he dutifully ignored his haters.