Admitting when you're wrong; and how to boost your confidence

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Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" pretty much laid out the template for what what we now call "influencers" (although his book, published a quarter of a century ago, used the terms Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen).

He's one of those big-thinkers who popularises behavioural psychology - his books are always on the non-fiction racks at airports, grabbing the attention of readers who want to download some wisdom on their trip. (He also has his own podcast Revisionist History - one I might feature in a future Pick of the Pods).

"Tipping Point" now has a sequel, and Gladwell was on LinkedIn 's #HelloMonday podcast to talk about it.

?? So this week, if you listen to one podcast about pop psychology...

Make it Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

LinkedIn's Senior Editor at Large Jessi Hempel has some great guests on her Hello Monday pod (check out Jesse Eisenberg from last week) and she lets them talk.

A couple of pearls of wisdom on the Gladwell episode appealed to me, one was the benefits of evolving your thinking, and admitting you were wrong:

In my original Tipping Point, I had a chapter on the decline of crime in New York City. And after rereading it after 25 years, I realised, I was wrong ... I think that we I think that that's a really useful practice and I would encourage other people to do it. It's not nearly as hard as you think it is.

People you think you can lose face with with other people in your circle if you say you were wrong. The opposite is true. I think people actually appreciate it. It sets an example that I think is really wonderful and kind of freeing in an organisation. So I do think I would say, first of all, that that process of self-correction and re-evaluation is much, much easier than most people realise.

And, answering a listener's question about ways people can boost their confidence, Gladwell said: test your ideas with a constructive listener before you put them out into the wild.

I've made sure I've done it early enough in the process that I haven't already put a stake in the ground. So you got to start early.

And, two, you have to make sure that the people who are responding to you are well intentioned. You must trust them. They need to be aligned with the goal of making you making your ideas better. A lot of criticism is not well intentioned and I think you need to recognise when it is not and avoid it.

But those two principles I think are really, really important: start early; and expose your idea to people who are well-intentioned. And that that is an enormous confidence boost. When I finally publish a podcast or a book. It's been through enough iterations that I'm at least confident that I'm not embarrassing myself.

Want more wisdom? Linda Lacina has that, on her latest #MeetTheLeader with Simon Freakley of AlixPartners - available, as always, on all podcast apps, via this link: https://pod.link/1534915560, but also in glorious vision as a video podcast:

Want a teaser?

And Linda joins me tomorrow on the last #RadioDavos of 2024 as we pick a handful of our favourite episodes of the year. Get that, when it drops, here: https://pod.link/1504682164. All our podcasts are available at wef.ch/podcasts

Thanks for listening - and please do send me your podcast recommendations in the comments.