The Secret Plan: Listen, Think and Learn

Posted on March 11, 2007

Too often we favor our own ideas, to our detriment. Here’s my secret plan:  ask, listen and learn as a first step in most things. But my listen and learn secret plan can be difficult to follow.

Living life can be humbling. It seems like every time I talk to someone, listen to them, observe what they do, how they run their business, or how they run their life, I realize that they’re ahead of me in some way. They’ve figured out something that I haven’t yet. They have great ideas that never even occurred to me. They know more about certain issues than me. They are more gregarious than I. Their marketing and PR far exceeds that of my companies. Their company is more nimble, or bigger.

Someone always knows more
I’m not just talking about my competitors, but all the industry friends I have, and those top-flight, seasoned executives that serve with me on various industry organizations. The list of really smart people and great ideas surrounding me goes on and on. At a recent trade show, the flow of good ideas and opportunities from the people around me came so often and so fast that my brain over-filled and nearly locked up.

It happens to me in my offices, too, with my staff that are better than me at their jobs (and sometimes mine), or come up with great ideas way outside their area of expertise. For example, my shipping crew came up with a great marketing idea that really worked. And it happens at home too, with my wife and kids as regular contributors.

But I think I’m on the cusp of a breakthrough. I’ve a secret plan to listen to all those good ideas, thank the donors around me if I can, and incorporate the best of those ideas into my life and company. Then I’ll catch up and will have all the good ideas! And of course, I’ll pass along my good ideas to others, in an effort to repay the world for all the lessons.

Sadly, I’ve had this secret plan since I was 17. It was then that I looked back upon the prior year and could so clearly see how little I knew then, compared to how much I knew at that moment as a mature, wise 17-year-old. I thought life would be easy from then on, but then the same thing happened at 18, then 19, and every year thereafter. This year, too.

Check that ego
But my listen and learn secret plan can be difficult to follow. I, like most of us, have an affinity for my own ideas – because they are my own, of course. It can be a struggle to keep quiet, and let my brain absorb ideas and truly assess them, before my mouth acts prematurely to protect my ego. And sometimes it takes a lot of thinking to figure out how to adapt someone else’s great ideas and practices to my own situation or need. Other times I have to get past personalities that irritate or bother me to extract the value they bring to the table.

Whenever it gets tough to follow the secret plan, I remind myself that it’s the results that count, not whether it was my idea or not. In the past, no matter how often I had given credit where it was due, in the end, if great results came, I got more than my share of credit and my ego needs were completely fulfilled. I can always tell myself that I was smart enough to surround myself with great, smart, intelligent people from whom I can learn, and that I was smart enough to listen to them and garner value from my association with them.

All you have to do is listen, think, and learn.

Takeaways:

• There are always people smarter than you and/or know more than you.
• Listening to them carefully and drawing out their wisdom will help you learn the most.
• Avoid any bias toward your own ideas, and choose the best option – you’ll get plenty of credit for doing the right thing, regardless of whose idea it was.