The Utility of Humility
The Utility of Humility
It amazes me how many people quit actively pursuing learning when they finish the formal educational process. Mark McCormack, the pioneer of sports marketing and author of What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, commented,
An education, as part of the ongoing learning process, is at best a foundation and at worst a naïve form of arrogance.
The best lesson anyone can learn from business school is an awareness of what it can’t teach you—all the ins and outs of everyday business life. Those ins and outs are largely a self-learning process.1
Everyone needs this. I call it the utility of humility.
“Learners approach life with an attitude of humility; they understand how much they don’t know.”
The authors of the book Business Think explored the reasons behind failed business decisions and failed businesses. They determined that more than 50 percent of business decisions are bad decisions. They discovered that 82 percent of businesses go under before their tenth anniversary and that 95 /percent of new products fail. Yet their leaders are highly confident in their ability to make good decisions.2
Why? What is the solution to this troubling information?
These experts formed seven rules to counter the grim reality of these negative statistics. Their first rule was “check your ego at the door.” The second rule was “create curiosity.” The segue between these two rules was that “nobody knows everything they need to know to make crucial business decisions in something as complex as business. . . . The cure for ego is humility. . . . Contrary to popular belief, humility is not weakness. In fact, by our definition, humility is incredibly powerful.”3
We hired architect David Price to design our new church campus. David is nothing less than brilliant. His architectural degree is from Harvard University and he studied art in Italy. His father, Buzz Price, was one of Walt Disney’s confidants and one of the creators of Disneyland and Walt Disney World. David brings unique experiences and knowledge to his work.
When we were working on the initial stages of this design, we had a meeting with some of the stakeholders in our community, including the mayor, the township attorney, planning officials, and others. We wanted their insight early in the process about how our new campus would impact the community.
David made a tremendous presentation, articulately describing his vision. He then subjected himself to a multitude of questions from this wide variety of people. Some questions were a bit elementary in light of David’s broad knowledge of planning and architecture and his inspired ideas. But David stood there
smiling, engaging in the appropriate dialogue, establishing a genuine rapport, and answering all their questions as if he had all the time in the world.
After the meeting was adjourned, I thanked him for his willing cooperation and patience. I’ll never forget his response: “What a good architect needs is a sense of humility.”
David wasn’t just answering questions. He was simultaneously listening and finding out about the community. He wasn’t just teaching; he was also learning.
Lifelong learners approach every situation with humility and see it as an opportunity to expand their own base of competence.
I was struck by an article that chronicled the dangers of the absence of doubt and a “grandiose sense of self-importance.”4 I’m a faith guy. I’m easily able to visualize a preferred future, but I have come to understand that, paradoxically, I have to practice humility that acknowledges a healthy degree of self-doubt. Not God-doubt, self-doubt. I have to do due diligence. I have to seek wise counsel. I have to form well-considered strategies and plans. I have to make sure I am learning what I need to know in order to be successful.
What have you learned lately? Drop a comment and let us learn from you.
1 Mark. H. McCormack, What They Don’t teach You at Harvard Business School: Notes from a Street-Smart Executive (New York: Bantam, 1984), xi-xii, emphasis in original.
2 Dave Marcum, Steve Smith, and Mahan Khalsa, Business Think: 8 Rules for Getting It Right—Now and No Matter What! (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002), 17-18.
3 Ibid, v, 33, 47.
4 Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky, “Managing Yourself,” Harvard Business Review, June 2002, 8.
Adapted from Live Ten (Thomas Nelson) by Terry A. Smith. All rights reserved.
Download your copy of “The 5 Welcomes of Hospitality” today.
Photo by Sven Mieke on Unsplash