Shortly after Wendy and I got engaged, I went to Louisville to meet her parents. She was eager to find out what kind of impression I had made, so at the first opportunity she took her mother aside and said, “So, what do you think?” At that point, they could hear me criticizing his two brothers, Jeff and Rick, as we played basketball in the driveway.
“Well,” replied my future mother-in-law, Anne, “he’s a very loud man.”
She was right. Wendy says I’m like a big puppy, jumping and barking and wagging my tail. When you’re in a leadership position, this kind of enthusiasm can get you into trouble because people mistake it for excessive optimism, or even delusion. They may assume that you don’t want to hear about the vivid realities of a situation – even if all you want is the truth.
Here’s an example: I’m incredibly proud of my podcast, “How Leaders Lead.” I think these conversations are inspiring and useful to leaders around the world. Ask me about it and you’ll hear (and see) my enthusiasm coming through. After building it for a year, we hired experienced podcast producer and brand builder, Tim Schurrer, who is now CEO of David Novak Leadership, to help us improve it. In a meeting, when we were still getting to know each other, I asked him how we could improve. I could tell he was hesitant. He gave me vague answers. I finally said, “Tim, the only thing I care about is getting the best product possible. What do you think we should do? This allowed him to safely tell me the reality: Compared to other successful podcasts, he said, our intros and outros just weren’t good enough. We weren’t attracting people with a big idea to get them excited, and we weren’t leaving them with a clear conclusion. This was hurting our audience engagement. “Okay,” I said. “What are we doing about it?” He gave us a better model, we implemented it immediately, and it made our podcast better.
Active learners process reality. They recognize an essential truth: delusional people do not learn well. They work hard to follow the oft-repeated advice of my mentor at Yum!, Andy Pearson: learn to see the world as it really is, not as you wish it were. If you assume that the best ideas and strongest knowledge are grounded in reality, what are the chances that you will be open to it if you cling to what you want rather than recognizing what is there? And how can you know where and how to grow and learn if you don’t know your starting point?
Unfortunately, we don’t do it generally see the world as it really is. Our brains create stories (rooted in the categories, patterns, and heuristics I described in the previous chapter) about everything we perceive, based on our experiences, desires, and expectations. Along the way, when information seems missing or contradictory, the brain fills in the gaps or makes choices about what information to use or discard. (Surprise, surprise, he really likes information that proves the story is right, a problem called confirmation bias.) One example that neuroscientists cite all the time is the divergent stories that different people will tell after witnessing the same event. They will swear that what they saw was the truth, even though it often isn’t, or at least not the whole truth. Optical illusions are the brain’s visual manifestation of gap-filling. The brain interprets the information it receives in a certain way, and we cannot ignore it, even if we know it is not the truth or reality.
Ultimately, it’s easy to make a little mistake. Long before neuroscientists could begin to describe how we process information and derive meaning from it, great philosophers and thinkers knew it was a challenge. At the beginning of the 20th century, the influential lawyer Clarence Darrow said: “Man does not live by truth, but by the illusions which his brain creates. »
So what’s an active learner to do? Well, here’s what else Darrow said: “Pursue the truth like hell and you’ll set yourself free, even if you never touch its coat tails.”
I’m a little more optimistic. I think we can get closer to the truth in many situations. It starts with inviting more truth tellers into your life who will continue to point you toward reality. But you can’t make your perception of reality someone else’s responsibility (or base your judgments on their judgments). If you want to see the world as it really is, you must seek the truth. You have to chase him like hell.
Reprinted with permission from Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from “How Leaders Learn: Master the Habits of the World’s Most Successful People” by David Novak with Lari Bishop. Copyright 2024 David C Novak. All rights reserved.
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