Keep your eyes and ears wide open...

We all know people who consider themselves the smartest person in every room they’re in. That is probably the biggest mistake anyone can make.

 

·      We can’t know everything about anything.

·      And even less about everything.

 

The best part of working (or playing) with people is the synergy of interests, ideas, energy, and knowledge they each bring with them. To overlook that simple fact is to miss so much of life and the opportunities we have each day. Don’t get me wrong: it’s good to be smart; the key to being effective is to use what everyone else brings to the table to become smarter. Every good idea I ever had was made immeasurably better as it wound itself from thought to finish. The people you work with all bring different perspectives and thoughts to anything you’re doing with them and that’s what makes good ideas into great products or efforts. Whether it was designing a paperless system, a high-volume recruitment or training program, or just planning an employee of the year event, the free flow of ideas and efforts between everyone on those project teams proved invaluable in the end. The best thing you can bring into anything you do is the notion that none of us is as smart as all of us today.

 

Ken Blanchard (born 1939): American author, business consultant and motivational speaker who has written more than 70 books, the most successful is The One Minute Manager.