Be the Dumbest Person in the Room
If you want to get better and learn more about anything, you can’t ever be the smartest person in the room. Your ego doesn’t matter here. If you spend all your time trying to be the Know It All, you will soon know nothing worth knowing. And much less than you should if you want to be the best manager or leader you can be. The solution is simple. Be the dumbest person in the room. Maybe not literally, but you get the idea. Surround yourself with people who know more about whatever it is you want to do better. Find the most educated, wise and capable people and just listen. Learn to ask the best questions. Never ask “how” to do something. You can find “how” in a manual. Focus on why and when and where they learned. Let people tell you stories about their successes and failures. Listen for the wisdom in their words. More often than not, the “how” parts not covered in the manual will be uncovered in their wisdom. Determine what builds your trust and look for people that offer you that.
Everyone has a different trust threshold. Learn what causes you to trust someone’s word. Is it education? Experience? Reputation? A combination of these and other things? Find out and look for people who possess those attributes. Seek out what they have to offer, so you don’t have to learn the hard way. Listen to the people you hired for their skills. It does you little good as a manager to invest intense time, money and effort bringing in the Best Person For A Job then hamstringing that person immediately by forcing them to do it The Way You Want. Listen to their input, ask them questions … let them be the expert you hired. Limit your hard knocks. A lot of dumb people like to brag about their education in the School Of Hard Knocks. Sure, you will have to learn some things that way, but there’s no rule that says you have to learn everything the hard way. Scars may make for cool stories, but you know what makes for better ones? Doing it right the first time. Roman Temkin is a real estate developer from NYC.