A few weeks ago I was back at Duke Fuqua, and recalled those days when we were so excited about learning and growing. When I saw the forever awesome Rick Larrick, I remembered how we learned about intrinsic motivation and how that revolutionized my leadership beliefs. We also attended an entrepreneurial session with the fantastic Jamie Jones, where I learned a great deal about stats relating to entrepreneurship, the notable Duke rooted startups (e.g. Airtable!) etc.
When I reflect on this experience, combined with our daily pursuit for more knowledge and experience, my question to myself is: how do we maintain this growth mentality? As you all know, I am a huge fan of Satya Nadella’s theory of “know it all vs. learn it all”. So how do you avoid the trap of slipping into a "know it all" and maintain the sharpness of a “learn it all”?
1. Acknowledge that we may not know
Credit goes to https://www.slideegg.com/dunning-kruger-effect-56276
We all know about the famous Dunning Kruger effect chart about the peak of “Mount Stupid”. So never assume that we know better. Depending on the subject matter and the cycle we are at, for the issue at hand, we might as well be at that peak. Just like any good 12 step program, acknowledging that we may be ignorant or even stupid is the first step towards enlightenment.
2. Learn from the people surrounding us
Confucious said, among two other people walking with me, there must be one that qualifies as my teacher. “三人行， 必有我师焉“. Another famous Chinese philosopher, while talking about learning, said, “people may acquire knowledge sooner or later, people may also specialize in different things, (thus we must learn from others). (“闻道有先后，术业有专攻”）People may spend their entire lives acquiring knowledge or expertise in a certain field. For us to assume that we know better is silly. We must stay humble, and learn from them.
3. You only learn by staying curious and asking open questions
This is an old and originally religious statement: God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we need to talk less and listen more.
Religious or not, the truth is you will only learn if you have the curiosity and ask the other person open ended questions. You won’t learn if you are busy talking yourself, or planning what you will say next. The wise folks may not even volunteer the information unless you are sincere and really want to know. So why don’t you just ask? And when they do answer, listen intently and absorb all the good information.
4. Don’t let insecurity, jealousy or rivalry get in the way of learning
Sometimes we don’t want to ask the other person the question we are dying to know or listening to what they have to say because we may think it’s a sign of weakness. Does me asking her a question show her that I am stupid? How come she knows so much about this, much more than I do? Does that mean that she’s wiser or smarter?
In the grand scheme of things, why does any of this matter? We are here to learn, grow and become enlightened. Who cares whether the other person got there first? Not to mention, to my point earlier, everyone has their own expertise, so why do you have to compete to be a “know it all”? Humility goes a long way towards learning.
5. Carve out time for devoted learning
The chart also contains something we all already know: to become an expert in anything you need 10,000 hours.
In this day and age where 15 second videos on tik tok competes for our attention span, we need to be especially intentional about devoting time for learning.
Any complicated subject matter is a system. To fully grasp the system we need to dedicate time and learn it systematically. Back in the day when we were learning Spanish, we spent an entire year for basic pronunciation and grammar. Similarly, law school and engineering school takes 3-5 years to finish. To think you can bypass this systematic knowledge building is delusional.
More importantly, knowing the road is different from walking the road. We must also practice. Every day. Every single bit. Chinese kung fu masters say, one day of practice, one day of growth. One day of no practice, you go back 10 days. “一日练功一日功， 一日不练十日空”。 We must stay disciplined, carve out our time and space for intentional learning. Regarding tips to fight against the noise, Deep Work is a great place to start.
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