• Narrator: Now listen to two students discussing the opinion expressed in the letter.

• Man: Did you see Paul's letter in the paper about the new sculpture?

• Woman: Yeah, but it was totally unconvincing.

• His reasons for opposing the plan are just totally off.

• I'm glad we'll finally have some nice art on campus.

• I'd like to shake the donor's hand and say,

• Thank you!

• Man: What do you mean the donor?

• Woman: You didn’t know?

• An anonymous donor is paying the bill for most of the sculpture.

• Man: Not the university?

• Woman: No. His assumptions about who's paying for it are all wrong.

• Man: Still, I wonder if he has a point about the space it will take up.

• Woman: Well, you know why Paul is upset.

• He and his friends are always out there on the lawn,

• right where the sculpture will be, kicking around the soccer ball.

• Now they'll just have to use another part of the campus to play.

• Man: Oh, so he just doesn't want to have to move.

• Woman: Yeah. For him,

• it's sculpture versus convenience.

•Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a business management class.

•Professor: So let me tell you about my own experience with this when I was working for a computer company a couple of years ago.

•So one day, a coworker and I suggested we should give our computers a design makeover, make them look more up to date.

•Market research was showing that new customers said they would be more interested in buying our computers if they looked cooler.

•Our technology was advanced,

•but the outside design looked really old-fashioned.

•At first, more than half the group supported us.

•There were a few senior managers there, though,

•who didn't support the design change.

•One of the senior managers said,

•"Our focus has always been on technology.

•Changing the look is an unnecessary cost."

•Almost immediately,

•some of our supporters changed their minds.

•Even my coworker changed his mind.

•When I asked him why after the meeting,

•he told me he didn't want to make a bad impression on the senior managers.

•He thought that disagreeing with them might jeopardize his chances of getting a promotion by not looking like a team player.

•What about me?

•I hate to admit it, but after a few hours of discussion,

•I started wondering if it was worth everyone's time to argue about this.

•As more people sided with senior management,

•I started to feel like I was the only one holding up the vote.

•Everyone else seemed to think change wasn't necessary,

•so I voted against my own idea in the end.

•So we unanimously decided to stay with the current old looking design.

•But this decision ended up costing us a lot of money.

•That same year,

•our competitor came out with a new design that attracted some of our customers and prevented us from profiting on potential new customers.