Helping Project Managers to Help Themselves

The Scenario: 

Miguel and Carol, two executives who retired from MilanCo last year, are having coffee.

“Miguel, what have you been doing with your time since MilanCo?” Carol asked.

“Oh, get up, watch the news, play a little golf, run some errands. How ‘bout you?”

“Gosh it’s so much fun. Some travel, seeing the grandkids, and I’ve got five women execs at MilanCo that I’m mentoring.”

“Really.” Miguel said.

“Most certainly.” Carol took a sip of coffee. “I’ve learned so much in my career, had some successes, and certainly some failures. I didn’t want all those learning opportunities to stay only with me, so I took it upon myself to reach out to HR and volunteer my time mentoring.”

“You volunteer your time?” Miguel asked.

“Sure do. It’s such a wonderful feeling to hear someone say, ‘Thanks Carol, you really helped me.’ More fulfilling than a paycheck. Have you considered doing something like that?”

Miguel looked down at his coffee. “Nah, my working days are over, time to let the younger ones rise up.”

“That’s exactly why I’m mentoring these women, Miguel. I want the younger ones to rise up; I’m just helping them rise up faster and with a greater likelihood of success.”

After a few more minutes of chatting Miguel looked at his watch.

“Well, gotta run Carol; was great catching up with you.”

“You too, take care Miguel. I’m meeting up with one of my mentees in a few so I’m just going to hang out here.”

“OK, bye,” Miguel said as he got up and left.

“Same selfish Miguel,” Carol thought as she watched Miguel leave the coffee shop.

The Message:

Carol’s view of Miguel’s selfishness was formed years earlier. They shared many similar leadership characteristics except for one; Carol intentionally sought to give back and grow younger leaders (who I will refer to as mentees) while Miguel did only what was required of him by his management. Half the time Miguel canceled mentee meetings last-minute because of some crisis; for those that he kept he appeared preoccupied. Word of how Miguel and Carol viewed their responsibility to scale leaders through giving back got around among the younger leaders, with many of Miguel’s mentees seeking out Carol as a mentor. While Carol wasn’t surprised with Miguel’s attitude during their coffee chat, she was disappointed that Miguel, with all his years of learning, still chose to keep things to himself versus helping others.

Want to be less of a Miguel and more of a Carol? Give this baker's dozen of tips a look:

1. Wisdom sharing doesn’t stop at retirement – Just because you may have wrapped up your career doesn’t mean all of the great learnings you’ve had should die on the golf course. Be intentional about sharing your wisdom with those still in the workforce. You’ve still got something to contribute; so do it.
2. Sharing wisdom is a responsibility and an honor – Being in a position to help grow future leaders is truly something that experienced leaders need to prioritize. The wisdom you can transfer to others can save time, money, and even a career. It’s your duty to share; joyfully embrace it.
3. Courageously and candidly share your wisdom – A mentee shouldn’t just hear about your successes; he or she should also hear about your spectacular failures. That’s where some of the greatest learnings happen; don’t filter things to make yourself look good to the mentee.
4. Allocate time in your calendar – Set realistic recurring time in your calendar to invest in your mentees and share your wisdom. Resist the temptation to chronically schedule other demands over your wisdom-sharing time.
5. Know what your mentee needs and help him or her get it -  Maybe your mentee needs better life balance; or perhaps he or she needs help with calendar management. Take the time to truly understand what your mentee needs to scale up and help him or her get there.
6. Don’t mentor an unwilling mentee – A mentee must want to be mentored. Trying to mentor an unwilling mentee is just a waste of time. Take the time to assess whether the mentee is interested or just going through the motions, then decide if it’s worth your time to invest in the mentee.
7. Call out boasters – A boaster is a mentee who tries to learn about your experiences to prove his or her own superiority. The boaster mentee will tell you why what you did was wrong and what he or she did was right.
8. Don’t let pontificators pontificate – A pontificator will use any experience to prove relevance. A pontificator mentee isn’t interested in hearing what you have to say as a mentor; he only wants to talk about experiences to demonstrate wisdom.
9. Watch the poser – A poser really has no practical experience but will try to impress you with things she might have read or heard about. A poser mentee might be genuinely interested in learning or may simply want to dazzle you with factoids and sound bites.
10. Don’t project a leader caste system – Some may aspire to be great people leaders, others may find a niche as a thought leader, and some may not want to be a leader at all. Don’t project to a mentee that people leadership is somehow more important than other types. Explore with the mentee where his or her strengths and desires are and assist on the journey.
11. Don’t be afraid to pull the plug – Sometimes a relationship either was never meant to be or the relationship has run its course. Evaluate the relationship with the mentee and agree when and if it’s time to part ways.
12. Don’t embellish your experience – So maybe you have a lot of experience in a particular discipline; that doesn’t mean your wisdom automatically transcends to other areas. Stick to your expertise areas and don’t be afraid to admit when discussions drift outside of your subject matter expertise areas.
13. Be mentally and physically present – Taking phone calls, checking email, or appearing preoccupied when in a discussion with a mentee projects that you’re really not interested in the relationship. Make the mentee feel as if he or she is the most important person you could be focusing on.

The Consequences:  Hoarding all that wisdom and not giving back by growing future leaders could lead to the following:

• You can lose a sense of purpose – I’ve known many people who have graduated from their career only to find that they have lost a sense of professional purpose and are quite frankly bored.
• Someone who failed could have succeeded – A potential mentee who could have benefited from your wisdom had to experience a failure that could have been avoided had you taken the time to share your wisdom.
• You squandered the opportunity to advance your legacy – You won’t be remembered as someone who not only had tons of experience but willingly shared his or her wisdom with others.

The Next Steps: 

• Review the 13 tips to use your wisdom to grow future leaders.
• Decide which ones you need to improve.
• For any tips you’ve identified as needing work, put an action plan together to address those areas on how to grow future leaders.
• Use a trusted advisor who can hold you accountable to be more effective at growing future leaders.

The Scenario: 

Esther walked into the conference room and saw Grace sitting there, head in hands.

“What’s wrong, Grace?”

“It’s Paul, he still hasn’t decided on authorizing me to hire SysCon. He owed me a decision last week and now we’re going to slip our code-complete date.”

Esther smirked. “Sorry about that Grace; it doesn’t surprise me. He’s a disaster at making decisions.”

“Don’t you know it. He not only doesn’t make decisions when I need them, he doesn’t even give me the courtesy of letting me know when the decision will be made. Then he blames me if something slips. I’m tired of it.”

Esther leaned over to Grace and whispered. “Grace, I haven’t told anyone yet, but I just accepted a position at Miconal this morning. They asked me if anyone else was interested in coming over. You’d be a great addition there.”

Grace perked up. “Hmm. Do you have a contact there?”

“Sure do.”

“Send it on to my personal email. Thanks Esther.” Grace smiled, packed up her things, and left the conference room.

The Message:

Grace’s frustration with Paul is something many of us have experienced. If you were a Grace, you got frustrated with a leader who couldn’t make decisions, didn’t make them in a timely manner, or acted impulsively. To put some meat on the bones, I’d like to contrast what I call intentional decision-making with reckless decision-making. Intentional decision-making means decisions are made on time, based on available information, by the right person, and with the good of the organization in focus. Reckless decision-making is the inverse; decisions not made in a timely manner (or at all), not based on available information, made by someone not authorized or informed to make the decision, or driven by some agenda not focused on the good of the organization. Intentional decision-making balances speed with decision quality, while reckless decision-making unduly emphasizes either speed or quality at the expense of the other.

Are you a reckless decision-maker who wants to be more intentional? Consider these 12 tips:

1. Decision speed is based on need – If you see a car coming at you, split-second decision-making is imperative. You don’t take time to gather facts, consult with others, and consider alternatives. You just act. Similarly, leaders need to throttle the speed of their decision-making to the urgency of the situation. Gauge the need to make a quick decision and act accordingly.
2. Set expectations on decision types – Followers need to know what to expect from a leader regarding what decisions they can make on their own and when to engage the leader. The leader needs to get alignment with followers on four decision types:
   1. Follower presents decision alternatives, leader decides – The follower brings a decision to the leader for the leader to make.
   2. Follower decides, leader concurs – The follower consults with the leader before making a decision.
   3. Follower decides, leader is informed – The follower makes a decision then informs the leader of the decision made.
   4. Follower decides, leader not informed – The follower makes a decision independently, the leader is not informed.
3. Be clear not only on what decisions need to be made, but when – When a leader is faced with a decision, one of the first questions he or she needs to understand is when the decision needs to be made and what happens if it’s not made by that date. Don’t accept ASAP, TBD, or Yesterday from followers. They are either too vague or, in the “yesterday” case, impossible to achieve. Drive specificity on the need-by date.
4. Press for consequences of not deciding by the due date – Consequences of not deciding are just as important as the due date. Conducting the due diligence on the decision will likely compete for time on your schedule, so the leader needs to have a clear understanding of not only the due date but the consequences of not meeting the due date. It also forces followers to be thoughtful and quantitative about what they are asking you as a leader to do and what happens if you don’t do it by the due date.
5. Accept that sometimes your alternatives are worse and worser – Leaders are rarely faced with perfect decision alternatives; most times there are negative implications of any alternative and the leader must evaluate which alternative offers the fewest downsides. Don’t be tempted to dismiss an alternative just because you find something wrong with it; it may be your least-worst alternative.
6. Explain the why – Followers may not agree with the leader’s decision and may think the leader is operating without the facts or has another agenda. When the leader doesn’t reveal the rationale behind a decision, it gives followers the opportunity to create their own version of the why, which may or may not be accurate. Explaining the why behind your decisions exposes followers to your thought process and allows followers to correct any inaccurate factors that guided your decision. While followers may not be happy with a decision, you want them to at least respect its soundness.
7. Encourage “if you were in my chair” thinking with followers – A secure leader has the courage to ask his or her followers, “If you were in my chair, what would you do?” Asking a follower what decision they would make not only demonstrates that you respect their point of view, but also exposes the leader to how a follower thinks though difficult decisions. Getting the follower’s perspective also helps the leader give the follower additional considerations they may not have thought about.
8. Be intentional about risks and mitigations – Good sound decision-making involves an understanding of the risks with each decision alternative and the mitigating factors which need to be undertaken to ensure success. I’ve seen seasoned leaders who mentally analyze decision alternatives’ risks and mitigating factors. Then there are others who need to write (or type) them out. As a leader, it’s not only important that you clearly understand the risks and mitigating factors, but that you can also explain them to followers.
9. Be clear on the constraints – This is particularly important when empowering a follower to make a decision. Any constraints that are present, i.e., “The decision has to cost less than $10,000,” should be well thought out and clearly articulated. It not only helps followers with decision-making, but also forces you as the leader to understand how a decision meets or doesn’t meet constraints.
10. Don’t let decisions sit on your to-do list – Allowing outstanding decisions to stack up not only frustrates followers, but also takes up your management cycles by putting more on your to-do list. Work to getting decisions off your to-do list as quickly as you can while still being intentional rather than reckless. It’s a great feeling to cross something off your to-do list, and outstanding decisions are no exception.
11. Articulate the why when changing your mind – One of the constants for a leader is that things will change. What may have been a good decision three months ago can suddenly be a bad decision. As a leader, it’s important for you to be open to reversing a decision that no longer is the best (or least-worst) alternative. Just be clear about the why when explaining your change.
12. Do what you say you’ll do – If you say you’re going to make a decision by a due date, for Pete’s sake do it, or provide rationale as to why the decision can’t be made by that date with a revised due date. Just as you expect followers to do what they say, they expect you to live up to your commitments.

The Consequences:  Not being intentional about decision-making can result in the following consequences:

• You’ll make bad decisions – This may sound like a no-duh, but it’s well worth stating. Also, making untimely decisions or not making them at all is the same as making bad decisions.
• You’ll frustrate followers – As a leader you’re expected to make decisions that pave the way for followers to do their job. Reckless decisions hold up progress and will ultimately cause your followers to question your fitness as a leader.
• You’ll hurt your business – Reckless decisions will most likely cost time, money, and/or quality. You also risk losing great follower talent (like Grace) who get fed up with you as a leader and decide to leave.

The Next Steps: 

• Review the 12 tips for intentional decision-making.
• Decide which ones you need to improve.
• For any tips you’ve identified as needing work, put an action plan together to address those decision-making areas.
• Use a trusted advisor who has exposure to your decision-making process to hold you accountable in your intentional decision-making

The Scenario: 

• Sue and Tran are talking after leaving Rob’s team meeting.
• “Can you believe what Jim just got away with?” Sue asks.
• “I know, Rob must be blind. Didn’t even question it.”
• “Same thing happened last week when Pete presented that bogus plan that looked like he spent ten minutes putting together.”
• Tran shakes his head in disgust. “I’ve only been on Rob’s team for a few months, but I’m already seeing a pattern of him either not calling out balderdash or not recognizing it. Is he afraid or just incompetent?”
• Sue just shrugged her shoulders as the two entered the elevator.

The Message:

Dictionary.com defines the world balderdash as “senseless, stupid, or exaggerated talk or writing; nonsense.” It’s likely you’ve been in a meeting where a colleague, supplier, leader, or maybe even you, presented something that just didn’t make sense. Strong, competent leaders don’t let those skim by; they usually start out with, “help me understand . . .” then precision question the presenter to determine if it’s a communication issue or if the presenter is speaking balderdash. When it becomes evident it’s balderdash, the leader’s next actions reveal his true stripes. Some leaders shy away from confrontation altogether, others may gossip about it with a colleague, some may throw a temper tantrum, or even mentally save the event only to bring it up again in a performance appraisal. The intentional leader doesn’t do any of these; he calls it out, realigns on what needs to be done, helps with corrective action, and follows through to ensure the corrective action is taken. The intentional leader isn’t concerned about being right and doesn’t gloat over a victory; but is concerned about doing the right thing for the business. Calling out balderdash isn’t comfortable; it’s not supposed to be. It’s a necessary part of the job. However, intentional leaders need to know how to do it to get the ship righted and preserve everyone’s dignity.

Need to learn how to better call out balderdash and get things moving on the right path again? Give these ten tips a peek:

1. Focus on the behavior, not the follower – Focus on the follower’s actions and why they were wrong; don’t attack the follower. Focusing on the follower versus the action implies that the behavior would be the same regardless of the situation and it attacks their character. Stick to the action, why it was wrong, and the consequence of the action.
2. Make it about the team, not the follower – Focus on the action’s consequence to the team and what the tangible impact means to the team because of the action. Don’t make the follower feel as if she is alone in the battle. Stand arm in arm with the follower.
3. Call out evasiveness – If a follower is giving vague answers or trying to answer a question that wasn’t asked, call it out. Followers need to know that they can’t pull the wool over the leader’s eyes. Expect direct answers to direct questions.
4. Set expectations of what and when – If there is corrective action needed, get agreement with the follower on what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by. Don’t allow for ambiguity on what the follower needs to do next, no TBD or ASAP.
5. Don’t go on and on – Calling out actions doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out exercise. The follower will likely get the point after a couple of minutes. Be clear, concise, and brief; don’t make an uncomfortable situation go on any longer than necessary.
6. Be firm, not angry – Followers need to know that you’re serious when calling out actions. Do so with a firm voice and controlled language; yelling or throwing a tantrum not only isn’t necessary but it labels you as a leader who becomes unhinged when problems occur. Followers will avoid giving bad news for fear of an angry reaction. It also can brand you as unable to control yourself when things go south. Not a good image to project, not only to followers but to your boss.
7. Offer help – Be prepared to offer help to the follower to rectify the action. Help could come from either you as the leader or another person with the experience to help. Be ready to make yourself and others available for help.
8. Have a quick 1:1 chat afterward – Take a couple of minutes with the follower afterward, through email/chat/direct conversation to underscore that you believe in them and are there to help correct the action. The follower needs to hear your support and encouragement. The quick chat will help ease any angst and focus more on the problem to solve versus whether or not they will still have a job.
9. Set a follow-up discussion – After setting the what and when expectation, ask the follower to schedule a follow-up discussion with you to provide an update on the corrective action. The follow-up not only ensures corrective action is in progress, it also instills accountability in the follower to do what needs to be done by when.
10. Acknowledge successful corrective action – When a follower successfully navigates through a corrective action, be intentional about acknowledgment. The follower needs to see you as a fair and balanced leader; one who praises good actions and calls out not-so-good actions.

The Consequences:  Not being intentional about calling out balderdash can result in the following consequences:

• You’ll be viewed as a weak leader – When others see a problem and see you not calling out the action, you’ll be seen as afraid to confront others and lacking courage.
• Your credibility will be challenged – Not calling out actions could cause others to wonder if you have the wisdom to know when something is wrong. Followers will likely wonder if you’ve got the experience to do the job.
• Your team’s overall quality of work can decline – If followers know you can be fleeced, you can unwittingly set a low-quality bar of work. Followers will perform to your expectation level; if you demonstrate lowered expectations by not calling out balderdash, followers will meet your lowered expectations.

The Next Steps: 

• Review the 10 tips for calling out balderdash.
• Decide which ones you need to improve.
• For any tips you’ve identified as needing work, put an action plan together to address those calling-out areas.
• Use a trusted advisor who can hold you accountable to show courage in calling out balderdash.

The Scenario: 

Sean, a new leader of a small team of experienced project managers, shows up for his weekly 1:1 with his manager, Annette.

“Sean, you look really tired.”

“Yeah, a late night.”

“Why?”

“I was working on the Artemis project plan.”

“Isn’t Artemis Jac’s project?” Annette asked.

“Yup.”

“Why are you working on Jac’s plan?”

“Well, Jac isn’t doing it the way I’d do it, so I told Jac I’d take a cut at it.”

“Jac is really competent, what’s wrong with her plan?”

“Well, it’s…” Sean fumbled for words that would justify his action.

“Sean, do you trust Jac?”

“Of course I do.”

“Really?” Annette asked.

“Um, yeah.”

“Sean, I’m not sure that your words match your actions.”

The Message:

You’ve likely known a Sean (or are a Sean yourself)--a leader who believes he can do things better than his followers and, rather than trusting his followers to get things done, will burn the midnight oil doing it himself. “I can get it done by myself faster,” “I understand the problem better,” “I know what management is expecting,” are all common excuses as to why a leader does work that his or her followers could (and should) be doing. Sure, there may be some truth to each excuse, but there’s a massive problem for those leaders looking to grow.

It doesn’t scale and your upward mobility as a leader will be limited.

Leaders are in leadership roles for a reason, to deliver more results with a team than the leader could do alone. Crucial to making this happen is the leader’s ability to trust his or her followers. Trust more and you get more done, have a happier team, and achieve better life balance. Trust less and, well, you get the point.

Think you’re struggling with trusting your followers? Look at these 12 intentional trust tips and see if any of these resonate:

1. Be intentional about your starting position – Some leaders take an initial position of assuming trust, while others take the position that trust must be earned. Neither is particularly good or bad, but be honest with yourself about your position and be open with followers about whether you trust is assumed or it must be earned.
2. Be thoughtful about changing your position – Your trust in followers can change based on actions. A follower can start in a more trusted relationship but do things that erode the trust; similarly, trust can increase when actions that enhance trust occur. Observe recent actions and take them into account when assessing your degree of trust in a follower.
3. Guidance follows trust – You can trust a follower but if the follower is new in a job, it’s your responsibility to ensure the follower has commensurate guidance to help him succeed. Confusing trust and guidance is a recipe for setting an inexperienced follower up for failure.
4. Intentional empowerment helps right-size trust – In my intentional empowerment model I talk about four steps to empowerment: defining the problem to be solved and the owner, articulating guiding principles, ensuring agreement on key dates, and establishing a follow-up cadence. Someone still climbing the trust curve may be given a smaller problem to solve, more guiding principles, and a more frequent follow-up rhythm. Practice empowerment, but right-size the problem, your involvement and guidance.
5. Trust doesn’t mean you relax accountability – While you can give followers latitude on execution, you need to ensure there is clear accountability for what needs to be done, who needs to do it, and when it needs to be done by. Also remember to put a mutually understood follow-up rhythm in place (see point 4).
6. Lean in more when you need to – When a crisis hits, the team needs to benefit from your experience. A follower who’s not well-equipped to manage through the crisis will need your wisdom to help navigate it, chart out a plan, and drive accountability. Also, you don’t want to have to explain to your boss why you didn’t engage more to prevent the crisis from escalating.
7. Align on the what, advise on the how – Having a trusting relationship with your followers means you have clarity on what needs to be done but you don’t get dictatorial about how it needs to be done, unless there is a policy or regulatory reason that dictates the how. Usually there is more than one way to address a problem, and someone choosing a different path doesn’t make it wrong. Depending on the follower’s experience level, your degree of guidance might vary, so make the guidance commensurate with experience.
8. Sometimes you have to let followers touch the stove – A huge component of the growth experience is failure, particularly with a follower who may have an unrealistic view of her capabilities. Be prepared with a teachable moment when you see a mistake coming to fruition. Then give the follower an opportunity to put the learning to use on future assignments.
9. Trust doesn’t correlate to superiority – Being the leader doesn’t mean you necessarily know best about what needs to be done or how to do it. Be open to views that may be counter to yours and be thoughtful about the viability of alternate points of view. Do be cautious of extremes where you always or never accept alternate points of view. Always accepting other points of view can cause others to question your competence; never accepting other points of view can brand you as stubborn.
10. Stay aligned on expectations – Maintaining trust means there is intentional expectation alignment. Both you and the follower need to keep in close communication when a change occurs which can impact current work. Neither leaders nor followers like to be surprised; your job is to establish an “early warning” culture where anyone can see something going awry which could cause expectation alignment. Don’t create an environment where followers avoid bringing issues to you that can impact expectations.
11. Make changes when trust isn’t going to happen – Despite a leader’s best intentions to trust, some followers just never earn a leader’s trust. It may mean removing a project manager from a project, reducing his or her responsibilities, placing the follower on a performance improvement plan, or if all else fails, separation. Just remember that other followers are watching your actions, so being indecisive could erode your credibility with the rest of your team.
12. Model the behavior – Building a trusting relationship means that you not only trust your followers but they trust you. If you want to build your trust in others, make sure you’re building your own trustworthiness and not doing anything that would cause others to be hesitant in trusting you.

The Consequences:  Not practicing intentional trust with your followers can lead to these consequences:

• You’re more likely to micromanage – Not trusting followers means that you’ll likely over-function and do the job your followers should be doing.
• You’ll frustrate your followers – Not demonstrating intentional trust means followers will be frustrated by your unwillingness to trust and will be less likely to want to follow you.
• You won’t scale – Your lacking trust in followers means you’ll take more on yourself because you believe no one could get something done better than you, even if it means you’re chronically burning the midnight oil.  

The Next Steps: 

• Review the above 12 tips on intentional trust.
• Think about prior situations where you might have fallen short on any of the tips.
• For any tips you’ve identified as needing work, put an action plan together to address those trust areas.
• Use a trusted advisor to keep you accountable.

The Scenario: 

1. Frank has just been promoted to project manager.
2. Frank had worked under several project managers and is determined to show others what a good project manager is all about.
3. Iris is a peer project manager with many years of experience managing very complex projects.
4. Frank’s manager has asked him to meet with Iris as a peer mentor to help him on his first project as the project manager.
5. Frank reluctantly agrees to meet with Iris, believing he is equipped to manage the project without her help.
6. Frank meets with Iris several times, each time leaving the conversation thinking what he knows is sufficient and Iris’ advice isn’t necessary.
7. Several major issues crop up on Frank’s project that Iris had warned him about and he didn’t take her advice.
8. Seeing that Frank’s project is in trouble and he is not getting it back on track, Frank’s manager removes him as project manager and gives the project to Iris.

The Message:

I can freely admit that this situation happened to me. I was Frank. It was painful. It was humiliating. It was also what I needed to accept that I wasn’t “all that.” I needed to be humble enough to listen to others when they were telling me the stove was hot and if I touched it I’d get burned. That’s not to say I have always put in motion any wisdom given to me, but I can say that I now genuinely seek wisdom from those equipped to give it. There have been countless times my path was altered because of wisdom given, and I’m thankful for it.

Simply put, seeking wisdom is critical to your growth as a leader and can save you a lot of heartache. Give these nine principles a look and see if any resonate with you:

1. Seeking wisdom must be genuine – Your purpose for learning from others needs to be because you truly want to learn and benefit from others who have the experience and wisdom to help you avoid mistakes.
2. Don’t use seeking wisdom as a weapon – Seeking wisdom to get others to express a point of view in order to attempt to prove your own superiority is not only disingenuous, it’s flat-out rude. By all means, ask clarifying questions, just don’t use the opportunity to show someone more experienced how smart you are.
3. Don’t worry about exposing your own lack of wisdom – Being guarded or cagey about seeking wisdom out of fear of being “found out” means you’ll likely miss out on opportunities to learn. Filtering questions to protect your own pride can lead to not getting the best possible advice.
4. Don’t selectively seek wisdom to prove a hypothesis – You may have strong beliefs on a specific topic and want to learn more, not so much to understand the pros and cons but to support a hypothesis you’ve already formed. Be open to hearing different points of view even if they don’t align to what you want to hear.
5. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn from others – Being silent or hesitant to seek wisdom when an opportunity presents itself is truly an opportunity lost. Seize the moment and learn what you can from others, even if your original intent wasn’t to seek wisdom.
6. Learn from bad behaviors as well as good – Some may share wisdom not because they’re interested in candidly sharing, but to prove a point, make you feel less significant, or just plain boast. Observe not just what is being shared but how it’s being shared, then model the good behaviors and strike the bad.
7. Look for trends – If you ask five trustworthy people for wisdom on a topic and all five tell you the same thing, that’s a pretty good sign you should heed the advice given. Look for trends to help better inform you on what wisdom you should put to use.
8. Make sure the person providing wisdom has the credibility to share it – We all have experienced a know-it-all, the person who professes to be expert on just about any topic. Your job is to pragmatically assess the credibility of the person providing wisdom. If they don’t have the stripes to be giving wisdom, then beware of their advice.
9. You retain the right to decide what to do with what you’ve learned – Seeking wisdom doesn’t mean you automatically put it to use. You’ll get a lot of points of view on different topics; at the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide what to do with what you’ve learned. Make sure you have a reasonable explanation as to why you’ve chosen a different path and aren’t just being stubborn.

The Consequences:  Not genuinely seeking the wisdom of others can lead to the following consequences:

• Avoidable mistakes – Thinking you know better than those with more wisdom can lead to mistakes that could have been avoided had you taken the advice.
• Wasted time and money – Recovering from an avoidable mistake can take extra time and money that could have been avoided.
• Greater difficulty seeking wisdom in the future – If you gain a reputation for not heeding wisdom given to you, then others will be less likely to offer up wisdom in the future. Why would someone waste their time trying to give you wisdom if it’s unlikely you’ll use it?

The Next Steps: 

• Examine past situations where you either sought wisdom or someone offered you unsolicited wisdom.
• For each situation, be honest and ask yourself:

1. Did you genuinely seek the wisdom?
2. Did you do it to prove superiority?
3. Were you guarded about asking for wisdom, or (4) Did you squander the opportunity to seek wisdom?

• If your motivation was to not genuinely seek wisdom, assess what your typical attitude was and is about seeking wisdom.
• Decide that you want to genuinely seek wisdom. Remember that you can choose whether or not to accept the wisdom, but have a rational explanation as to why you didn’t do something with the wisdom provided to you.