How Biting Your Tongue Can Help You Think Outside the Box
Years ago, while I was at business school, I managed to correspond with Fast Company magazine and organized for two of their staff writers/editors to come and engage in a Q&A with my cohort of fellow learners in Victoria, BC. Well, most learners. You see, there was one fellow student who loudly proclaimed his expertise on magazines by declaring, “Fast Company? Never heard of it, must be obscure crap.” Clearly, he came from the school of thought that says, “if I don’t know it, I’m not interested, because I KNOW what’s important”.
Dee Hock, founder of Visa credit cards - once said “We all fall in love with the things that we think are true.” …and we all know what happens when we love something, we hang onto it and defend it. It can become part of our makeup, our DNA.
And so it goes. We hear half stories about an idea, a person or group of people and we sort and sift it and we fit it into our existing schema of the world, we confabulate it and then…bam! It’s our truth, and then we are talking as if we are experts and we have indisputable “truth” and then we feel free to share this truth, or defend it, or just hide out from opinions that differ. It’s safer that way. We need a foundation from which to operate and if everything were shifting, man, our anxiety would be through the roof! So, think on this. When was the last time you discarded an idea, opinion, or concept because it was too unfamiliar or did not fit your mental model? If you can think of a specific time, what was it that prompted you to dismiss it?
As leaders, it is important to be seen to know. When a tough decision needs to be made or a problem needs to be solved, traditional leadership models would have the leader provide direction and wisdom and the underlings would breathe a sigh of relief, be ever so grateful for the brilliance of the leader and carry on with their day, unfettered with worry. Right?
Wrong.
If our identify is caught up in knowing, and we attach any form of prestige to that, then by extension we will defend our position. If we do that, several unhelpful things unfold:
1. We create a mystique around leading as being associated with being a knower, and as a result, we…
2. Stifle innovation from across the team, and as a result, we…
3. Miss opportunities for learning and growth, for ourselves and others, and as a result we…
4. Hang on to the status quo.
If we engage in this four-step cycle, we are acting in a way that says “we are doing enough” - and the element of curiosity is lost. Put bluntly, knowers stifle innovation.
So, assuming that “doing enough” is not a long-term tactic for growth either personally or organizationally, then the alternative to showing the knowing is to bite one’s tongue and seek to understand what others can offer. By not showing how much of a “knower” one is but instead showing how to be a “learner” or “discoverer” then ideas from others that have been hiding in the shadows can move to the light and be shared. This collective contribution will support new solutions to sticky problems, including ways to think outside of the box!
If this sounds like a skill you would like to lean into and learn more about, book a discovery call with me and let’s chat!
By Dave Harrhy CEC ACC IRG Associate Coach