Hey everybody, I want to spend the next few minutes talking about the importance as a leader of not being the smartest person in the room.

And I thought of this because I was recently guest lecturing at my alma mater, Rice University, to an engineering class. And it was around engineers thinking about going into kind of management or more business oriented jobs. And one of the things I always say to engineers, but it really spans beyond engineers, it can be kind of the bright kind of type A people, but I specifically say this to engineers, “Be really careful, if you want to be effective, about not focusing on the right answer and being the smartest person in the room.” Because that doesn’t mean that your idea is going to be listened to. It’s, you know, the old saying that, “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” And so it’s about how you fit in with the team and how effectiveness is getting a team to walk out and do what you want them to do ultimately, or, be engaged in kind of creating the best idea. I think that’s an important concept for individual contributors. But  as you reflect on that, in terms of being a leader or a manager, you can kind of take that to another level, in the sense of, you have the opportunity to pick who is in the room with you. And if you create a team where you’re the smartest person in the room, I think you have to really, really think hard about, “Are you doing your best to create the most effective team?” I’ve always thought a lot about who’s on the team and not just kind of raw IQ. I know we’re kind of using that as a bit of a shorthand, but really think about the people in the room and what do they bring? And how does that augment the team? And you know, I think, as a leader of a team, that’s the most important thing you need to do. Your job is to kind of orchestrate a group of extraordinary people who together can do things, you know, that you can’t do. And so again, going back to this notion, I think a lot of leaders want to walk in and say, “I’m in charge, I’m driving this and I’m kind of coordinating out things that I could do myself.” You know, if you’re doing that, you probably aren’t creating the best possible team that you can. So again, think really, really, really hard about how you are hiring people that can do specific tasks better than you and constructing those into a group of people that can do things that you can’t couldn’t imagine doing on your own. Hope that helps. Talk to you soon.

[To hear more of Jim’s views on culture and open leadership follow him on LinkedIn to see his video series, “An Open Conversation with Jim.“]

Grayson Best, Longitude fellow, University of Texas:

Thank you Jim.

Jim brings up a great observation in leadership, but one that I think can be good life advice in general. In almost all aspects of life, there is some form of hierarchy, whether it be in the workplace or social. Even in academia, it can be common for a perceived hierarchy of knowledge to be established. While these hierarchies can be normal, they can expose certain flaws in collaboration. In a debate, taking counterpoints personally or becoming defensive can drastically change ones response to criticism and disapproval of ones ideas. It is only too common to see debates become ineffective at communicating ideas when notions like status or emotions come in to play on such topics. This societal pressure holds no place in true progress of a groups’ goals for betterment.

When sharing and executing ideas, the more everyone knows or is aware of, the better. Most things that progress society forward come from a collaboration of complex ideas that require different fields of study or bits of information to effectively move forward. In order to do that, a group of people must be gathered, as it is nearly impossible for one person to know all the things necessary when making a large innovative decision. 

Collaboration is just that, collaboration; no one individual has absolute power, and I think it is this running theme that will become more common in a more constructive society.