Two Cures for Novice-Arrogance
A first-time manager knows about management like a single person knows about marriage.
A novice-manager understands managing like a couple without children understands raising children.
DOING explodes the myth of perceived knowledge.
Knowing ABOUT is only a shadow of the real substance of practical know-how.
Theory and practice:
Theory is easier than practice.
Everything seems easier than it is – until you actually do it.
It’s funny that the people DOING the job “know less” than the geniuses who aren’t doing the job. (Sarcasm intended.)
You might know how to do the job, but you don’t know what it’s like to do the job until you DO it. Even then, you don’t know what it’s like for someone else to do the job.
Learn humility:
The ability to learn from imperfect others is a gift of humility.
Novice-arrogance is eliminated with experience. Humility results from exploding the myth of perceived knowledge.
Children learn to respect their parents after they have their own children.
With humility comes respect.
Experienced managers respect managers who have more years of experience under their belts. (Even if they’re imperfect.)
Humility for novices:
#1. Respect the frustrations people feel, even if their frustrations aren’t your frustrations.
Empathy understands how others feel by tapping into shared emotion, even when experiences differ.
You know what frustration feels like, even if you don’t experience the type of frustration others experience.
#2. Respect the challenges people feel, even if their challenges aren’t yours.
Don’t speak down to people because you think you know what it’s like to do a job you aren’t doing.
Don’t minimize another’s challenges when the challenges they face are easy for you. It might be easy for you to speak in public. That doesn’t mean it’s easy for others.
Novices underestimate difficulties and over-simplify complexities.
How might first-time managers overcome the challenge of novice-arrogance?
Added resources for first-time managers:
8 Tips to Help First Time Managers Thrive (Entrepreneur)
Expert Tips for First-Time Managers (Monster)
9 Lessons for the First-Time Manager (99u)
Excellent post Dan full of truth. I experienced painful lessons that forced humility upon me. Oh that I had heard these words 20 years ago and humbled myself rather than be humbled.
Thanks Duane. Yes! Sometimes we learn humility the painful way. Someday’s, I’m still learning humility the painful way.
Novices need to believe in the pure and simple truth and want to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupids).
Once you’ve been there, done it, you see that the truth is never pure, and rarely simple (so quothe Oscar Wilde).
Simplicity (elegant simplicity, that is)
is the resolution of the complexity,
not the starting point.
That takes nurturing experience (and failure), to know when you’ve actually got the algorithm right 😉
Thanks Rurbane. Simplicity is the resolution of the complexity. We sometimes miss the truth that the path to simplicity is more difficult than the path to confusion and/or complexity.
Dan—great points.
How might first-time managers overcome the challenge of novice-arrogance?
Have all newly appointed first-time managers read your article and the other articles you suggested.
Then for the first four weeks –at the end of the week have them summarize what they learned that week.
Thanks Paul. Love the idea of a weekly WHAT-ARE-YOU-LEARNING check-in. Brilliant.
You might add,
What are you learning about yourself?
What are you learning about others?
What’s not working?
Good evening,
Great piece. This centered on realistic human behavior. People are human first and everything else second.
Novice-arrogance is a lesson all leadership and management has learned at some point in their career. Whether a leader will admit this or not, well that’s a whole different story. Will leaders actively practice humility? That’s also a different story. As people age, we become more conscious of ourselves and the lives that surround us. A wise leader should double-down on the novice-arrogance. I served in the military and I used to witness this type of behavior within the officers who were newbies in comparison with the veteran officers. Novice-arrogance is a stage of life that leadership and management must grow out of. If not, eventually any/all reality will catch up to an individual in a leadership position.
Thanks ZK. The feel of your comment is both compassionate and challenging. It’s a wonderful balance. We tend to swing to the compassion side or the challenge side. It’s refreshing to see them come together in your comment.