The Dangers of Being Right (a lot)

[Bob Steele]

Be careful

Those that think they are the smartest people on the planet usually aren't

The more you understand... the more you learn...
the more you learn the more you understand that you really don't know much of anything.

As a teacher I can tell you that much of the time the kids that really think they are smart.... are NOT the ones I would hire....or trust in a quick decision.

There are ALL kinds of smart....
book smart
mechanical smart
emotional smart
politically smart... (not sure about this one though....)
street smart.

Recognize your strengths and your weaknesses .... because if you think you don't have any weaknesses you are wrong.

The world needs all sorts of people...
celebrate the diversity....

[GaryVoshol]

If everyone else in the world is an idiot, you may need to recalibrate your idiotness scale.

And I still gotta spread more rep before giving to Ike again.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

And I still gotta spread more rep before giving to Ike again.

Yeah, me too.

[Akash Rastogi]

Something my brother always says

"The more you know, the more you know you don't know s***t"

A little vulgar but it gets the point across.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

Those that think they are the smartest people on the planet usually aren't

One of our engineers teaches a class on systems engineering to local teams. He always asks the question "How many people are the smartest person on the planet".

The point being that you can always find someone smarter then you to review your work, unless you happen to be the 1 smartest person on the planet.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

One of our engineers teaches a class on systems engineering to local teams. He always asks the question "How many people are the smartest person on the planet".

The point being that you can always find someone smarter then you to review your work, unless you happen to be the 1 smartest person on the planet.

Very true, but 90% of drivers are above average drivers....

As far as checking your work goes (great point), here is an interesting example. If the average factory worker assembling a car is 99% effective (does his job right 99 times out of 100), and it takes 1000 people to put a car together, then there would be 10 problems/car. The industry average is around 1.2 issues/car (last I checked the IQS scores a couple years ago). That either means that everyone is 99.9% effective (some are), or ..... There are people checking their work. Like Joe said a second set of eyes is great!

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

One of our engineers teaches a class on systems engineering to local teams. He always asks the question "How many people are the smartest person on the planet".

I used to use a similar line with some of the research and technology groups with which I worked. I would ask them "how many of you are the smartest people in your field?" Invariably, about half the hands in the room would go up.

Until the day when one particularly bright bulb in the back of the room looked around at all the raised hands, and responded "I don't know about being the smartest person in my field, but I am dang sure I am the smartest person in this room!"

-dave



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[Kims Robot]

This is a great discussion, and I've been in a weird position with this for years. I think a lot of people at first glance/discussion will think that I always have to/want to "be right" or that I always "think I'm right", because to be honest, I tend to debate a lot. But Ive thought about this a lot in the last few years, because Ive never really felt like I was the smartest or felt like I was always right, so I was trying to figure out why I come across that way.

What I realized is that embedded deep in me is the drive to always reach higher, do better, and get others to reach their potentials. What that has caused for me with my FIRST team is that I am constantly pushing and challenging everyone on my team to do more, be better, live up to potentials they may not have realized they had. But often my way of doing it is challenging their ideas, asking questions, and forcing them to think harder, which I think sometimes comes across as me "thinking Im right" or "thinking that I have a better answer". When in reality, I likely dont know the answer, I might just have an instinct that a better answer is out there, and I want them to find it. So now I am trying to find more effective ways to make my intentions clear and hope that I dont get caught in the stereotype of "those that think they are always right" .

So that was my story, I find it really interesting that so many mentors have chimed in here. So many of us have learned the hard way, or had time to introspect. I know when I was in high school I would always say I was smart enough to know that I didnt know much of anything, but I think in reality I always felt like I knew so much more than the next guy/girl. I've learned since then that we all have our own areas of specialty, and we all must rely on eachother. Im certainly not a mechanical engineer, so I will rely on my mechE's for the detailed calculations, Im not a programmer, so I need to rely on the programming team to even make the robot drive left... etc!

But the definite best advice here is really learn to know your strengths and weaknesses. Use your strengths for everything they are, learn to develop what weaknesses you can, and make some really good friends who can fill in the weaknesses that just arent worth working on as you will be so much more productive focusing on what you are good at, but knowing what you dont know/arent good at... :-D

[JaneYoung]

Nice thread topic, Ike.

I'm going to think about it for a few days and read each of the posts a few times.

What I'm thinking about at the moment is narrow thinking. Is that one of the dangers of being right (a lot)? Also, to go with narrow thinking, is inflexibility. Would that also be one of the dangers?

This is a great thread for a pot of coffee and some donuts.