The Novice Advantage
The beauty of a novice is ignorance. Beginners haven’t learned what can’t be done. People with untested skills dream bigger than experts.
Novices underestimate difficulty and oversimplify complexity.
Theory and practice:
Everything seems easy-until you do it. The geniuses who aren’t doing the job know less than the people doing the work.
First-time managers know about management like single people know about marriage. Rookies understand managing like a couple without children understand raising children.
Knowing about is a shadow. The substance is practical know-how. It’s ridiculous for VPs who’ve never done work to tell people how to do the work.
Humility for novices:
When you learn you don’t know humility results. Doing explodes the myth of perceived knowledge. The gift of humility is learning.
Let novices try things even if you think they might fail. Who knows? They might succeed. Children learn to respect their parents after they have their own children.
Respect follows humility. Provide opportunities for people to seek help.
You’re a novice if you haven’t done the work. Respect people’s frustrations even when they aren’t your frustrations. Judge others through the lens of their strengths, not yours.
Respect other’s challenges even if they aren’t yours.
Don’t talk down to people just because you think you know their job. It might be easy for you to speak in public. That doesn’t mean it’s easy for others.
How can leaders maximize the novice mind?
I will never forget…
My daughter was a sophomore in college. She was doing an internship in the HR department at a large corporation. Having lunch with her on day, I asked what tasks will you be working on this afternoon? With all the confidence of a 19-year old novice she said, “I am going to redesign the company benefit package.”
Love it! Go for it! Thanks for sharing.
I took up the game of golf while in college. I knew I would be shooting under par in no time. Well 40 years later, I have just figured out I am a novice! But, my buddies have always been encouraging. Thanks for the reminder today!
Golf may be the most obvious sport where the novice mind is necessary. Does anyone ever master golf? Thanks for a delightful illustration.
“We’ve already tried that” can be a huge barrier. We’ve already run 100m race but somehow we keep getting faster! LOL. New folks come in with new technology, new skills and new ideas and often do the things “we’ve already tried” but better and end up succeeding. My favourite moments are when the novice proves my “old cynic” wrong.
Who knows, those novices might actually succeed! 😉 And if they don’t. With support and reflection, they improve. People thought the 4-minute mile would never be achieved, until the first person did it. Now running under 4-minutes is essential for elite milers. The world record for men is 3:43:13!
Do I remember those days? I had little awareness or appreciation for what it took to get things done. With decades of experience behind me, I still very much look forward to learning new ways of doing things. It’s an adventure.
Nothing like years of experience to burst the bubble of novice-confidence. It’s not all bad to think you can do something. It gives us courage. But failure teaches us humility. With humility comes learning and growth.