Humility... an accelerant for learning

As a kid I was really good at maths. Our teacher played a game with us where she randomly selected four kids, each being sent to one corner of our class room. Then she asked math questions. Whoever answered first, would move one corner - similar to moving bases in baseball. Whoever got four answers right first was back at their initial corner and the winner.

I loved this game, as I was very competitive both in sports and in school... and I always won.

One day, our teacher announced that the teachers had decided on a school wide competition to determine who was the best in our school and that person would be sent off to compete against other schools in my hometown of Aachen. I was thrilled.

I won the competition in our school and became the representative for our school. I was certain I would win the next round as well. Actually, I was so certain that I told my dad I'd bet money - I was in elementary school and did not have much - on me winning.

You can probably see where this story goes... I lost. I lost, because there was another kid who was brilliant. He answered the questions even faster than me. He was not older - so no excuse on that end - he was just better.

Later that day, my dad asked me whether I won or not. I had to admit that I lost the competition (coming in 2nd), and that I had lost the bet against him. Of course, he did not take my money ;-)

But he reflected with me and helped me learn a very important lesson:

We have not done something,

until we have actually done it

In many cases we pretend to be sure about being able to do/achieve something... but in reality it turns out we are not there yet. This should not be a discouragement, but an opportunity.

An opportunity to aim for growth. An opportunity to learn and develop. An opportunity which helps us become stronger than we are today.

I carried that lesson with me through school, medical school, my work at Bain, and building businesses. That lesson helped me develop humility which is not shying away from things or lacking confidence. It is more about acknowledging what we have proven we are capable of and what is still to be proven.

The other day, I posted some thoughts about coaching and how I believe the ICF definition of coaching where one assumes that the coachee has all the answers and the coach just needs to ask good questions doesn't make justice to the need of many people being coached incl. senior executives.

Of course there was some backlash... which is fine. What I found interesting though is that several people believed or assume they can do work they have never done before. They haven't proven this to themselves and they haven't proven it to the outside world.

Now, one can say that this is irrelevant... I actually believe it hurts mostly the person who holds these beliefs and makes these assumptions. Similar to product development, we can assume our product will be successful when it hits the market and create fancy presentations around it. But we will only know once we ship...

As a coach we can't assume that we can successfully coach a Fortune 500 CEO until we have done it. Yes, coaching less senior people can give us an indication... but indications are not proof. We - or at least I - need to provide more evidence to consider something is proven. Maybe that is the scientist in me ;-)

Again, this is not about thinking less about oneself. It is not about lacking confidence. But it is about understanding where we have demonstrated certain skills and the ability to achieve results and where we haven't done that yet.

The moment we acknowledge that we do not have the experience yet, what do we do? We move from "I know it all" to "I need to learn it" mode. We invest extra time to prepare. We might reach out to others and get their perspective. And through that process we not only learn, but we also increase our chance of succeeding with that new task that haven't done before.

For me, humility is an accelerant for learning. Humility is the foundation for openness. Humility can create the desire to walk that extra mile. Humility will increase not reduce the chances for success.

Many years ago I saw this video which I had to think of while writing this text...

Humility helps us remember: from nothing comes nothing.

Enjoy your weekend!

Sohrab