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Excerpted from Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work by Liz Wiseman. Reprinted courtesy of HarperBusiness, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2014 by Liz Wiseman.
Rookie smarts isn't defined by age or by experience level; it's a state of mind we have when we're doing something for the first time.
Perpetual rookies are leaders who, despite years of experience and success, maintain a rookie mindset. They stay amazed – curious, humble, and fun loving. Instead of clinging to a false sense of mastery, they live and work perpetually on the steep side of the learning curve. These leaders aren't just rookies by circumstance; they are rookies by choice and through deliberate practice.
Finding your inner rookie
Like so many other successful leaders, you may still have the heart of a rookie, but you now find yourself playing the role of the seasoned veteran. Is it possible to rekindle your rookie smarts? What do you do if you've lost your rookie edge? Consider how creative genius Andrew Stanton rediscovered his rookie mojo.
Andrew Stanton had been part of the Pixar brain trust for years. He collaborated as a screenwriter and co-director with John Lasseter on a string of mega-hits: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc. But when Stanton got a chance to sit in the director's chair with Finding Nemo, he became consumed by the fear that this movie would be Pixar's first failure. He told New Yorker writer Tad Friend, "I just felt, I suck, I suck, I suck, and they're going to replace me."
Things came to a head over the Fourth of July. While he was celebrating at his parents' house, Stanton finally admitted to himself that he had lost his naïveté and sense of wonder, and he determined to get it back. Friend describes the mission statement that grew out of Stanton's realization and determination:
"Try to get fired," he wrote, as a corrective. "Don't be concerned about box office, release dates, audience appeal, Pixar history, stock prices, approval from others." He added, "You have a gift for looking at the world with a child-like wonder. … You lose that and you lose it all." After this reckoning, he began to ask colleagues for help, and the main thread of the film, Marlin's quest for Nemo, finally came together: Kids thought it was hilarious, and adults found it almost unbearably poignant.
Stanton relearned how to be a rookie. He learned that he could embrace his inexperience and still be the director. When he admitted that he was stuck, others rose up to help him, just as they'd done, he now remembered, when John Lasseter had admitted he needed help. Stanton's epiphany wasn't a reinvention of himself; it was simply a restoration of a mindset. While finding Nemo, Stanton rediscovered his own sense of wonder.
Try one of these experiments to rekindle your once-bright rookie smarts:
1. Try to Get Fired. Instead of playing it safe, just play.
Don't overthink or second-guess yourself. Just do what feels right. If you are spending too much energy trying to win, try once again working the way you did when you had nothing to lose. Like Andrew Stanton, you might find that when you push the limits, you will end up doing what is natural, and what you once did easily. If the thought of trying to get yourself fired is too terrifying to face, play a game of make-believe: Ask yourself, "What would I do if I wasn't afraid of losing my job?" Write it down and then go build organizational support for these ideas. With this safety net in place, when you walk out onto that high wire, you are far more likely to get inspired than fired.
2. Throw Away Your Notes. Toss out your best practices and develop new practices.
The late management thinker C. K. Prahalad was repeatedly ranked as the world's top business professor by the Thinkers50 website. At his memorial in 2010, his wife, Gayatri, revealed that C.K. threw away his teaching notes every semester. When she responded with alarm the first time she saw his precious teaching notes in the rubbish bin, he replied, "My students deserve my best, fresh thinking every time." It is no wonder students at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business lined the halls trying to listen in to his perpetually oversubscribed classes, creating a fire hazard. Try shredding your crib notes, stump speeches, and the other templates that have you stuck in a rut. As you do, you will offer fresh thinking to others while also renewing your mind.
3. Surf with the Amateurs. Spend time with the amateurs and the young at heart.
Instead of working with your peer group of experienced professionals, spend time with the newcomers. Watch how they work and play: Learn from them. When Sergio Marchionne, fifty-nine-year-old Italian chairman and CEO of Chrysler Group, was turning around the failing automaker, he vacated the chairman's office on the top floor and moved his office next to the design and engineering teams and spent time on the shop floor. He got rid of many senior management positions, combed through the organization, and found twenty-six young leaders who would report directly to him. They kept him close to the action and energized as he reinvigorated the whole company. If you are stuck at the top, go talk to those at the bottom of the organization or those new to the game. How might their ideas shape you and their energy renew you?
Rekindling our rookie smarts requires conscious effort, but it doesn't have to be hard work. It might be as simple as returning to our wonder years when we were curious, unpretentious, and playful.
Liz Wiseman (@LizWiseman) is a researcher, executive adviser, author and speaker who teaches leaders around the world. She is the author of She is also a former executive of Oracle Corp. She has been named as one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world.