Fierce Tip of the Week: Ask Someone New

We go to our usual suspects. As humans, we are wired to put people and things into logical buckets. It is easier. It helps us stay organized and make sense of a very complex world.In the workplace, we usually classify authority into two buckets: tenure or expertise. Oftentimes, we correlate the two. In other words, we like to go to people who have solved the problems before that we now need to solve.For example, if we have a marketing problem, we go to the marketing team. A problem with a presentation, we go to our learning team. A problem with a client we have had forever, go to the most tenured client solutions person. And so on.The consequence is that many times we are not getting the value of new and different perspectives.Last month, I heard Liz Wiseman speak about her new research and book Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work. She argues that for knowledge workers today, constant learning is more valuable than mastery. “Being new, naïve, and even clueless can be an asset,” she states.This week’s tip is to get perspective from someone who you normally wouldn’t go to – maybe a rookie – when you run into a challenge or opportunity.  Be genuine and open to hearing from someone that you may not deem to be an “expert” or your usual “go to”.

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