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> No One Cares That You Are Smart When I was a young lawyer, I worked with a group of four attorneys, three of whom had PhDs in other fields. The most senior l

> No One Cares That You Are Smart When I was a young lawyer, I worked with a group of four attorneys, three of whom had PhDs in other fields. The most senior lawyer, who had no PhD, commented on the challenge of leading such a group: "each man thought he was the smartest guy in the room". Humility is underrated!

dekhn 4y ago
One of the few bits of useful advice I've received from a manager was "stop acting like you're the smartest person in the room, even when you are". I started acting like the dumbest person in the room (which is probably true in most cases) and it completely changed how people interacted with me.
- analog31 4y ago
  That's politics 101. But at the same time, if you humble yourself too much, people will walk all over you, and your work might have less impact than it should have. For instance if they assume that the things you say are ignore-able when they are actually correct and important.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    Nobody walks over me. For example, while I play stupid, many people in the room know I'm asking dumb questions to get the presenter to admit the unspoken problems with their presentation. Think of a person giving a VC pitch. There's always somebody in the back asking "Oh, hey, I guess I'm slow because I didn't have my coffee yet, but I'm really confused. You said earlier that your monetization depends on conversions, but the advertising strategy is designed to maximize impressions. I don't get, how can you turn an impression into a conversion?"
    - seoaeu 4y ago
      I think of it as jeopardy rules: any time you are correcting someone you must phrase it as a question. If they’ve made a mistake, it lets them save face. And if you are actually wrong, you save face
      - dekhn 4y ago
        haha, I like that. TBH I'd really just prefer to ask them what the windspeed of a laden swallow was, and send them down into the pit.
- sasaf5 4y ago
  Similar to this: "you will never be smarter than the rest of your team".

dekhn 4y ago

One of the few bits of useful advice I've received from a manager was "stop acting like you're the smartest person in the room, even when you are". I started acting like the dumbest person in the room (which is probably true in most cases) and it completely changed how people interacted with me.

analog31 4y ago
That's politics 101. But at the same time, if you humble yourself too much, people will walk all over you, and your work might have less impact than it should have. For instance if they assume that the things you say are ignore-able when they are actually correct and important.
- dekhn 4y ago
  Nobody walks over me. For example, while I play stupid, many people in the room know I'm asking dumb questions to get the presenter to admit the unspoken problems with their presentation. Think of a person giving a VC pitch. There's always somebody in the back asking "Oh, hey, I guess I'm slow because I didn't have my coffee yet, but I'm really confused. You said earlier that your monetization depends on conversions, but the advertising strategy is designed to maximize impressions. I don't get, how can you turn an impression into a conversion?"
  - seoaeu 4y ago
    I think of it as jeopardy rules: any time you are correcting someone you must phrase it as a question. If they’ve made a mistake, it lets them save face. And if you are actually wrong, you save face
    - dekhn 4y ago
      haha, I like that. TBH I'd really just prefer to ask them what the windspeed of a laden swallow was, and send them down into the pit.
sasaf5 4y ago
Similar to this: "you will never be smarter than the rest of your team".