Management Principle: Open Mindset

This time I will share about one of my management principle: Open Mindset. One of the most difficult principle to abide and practice.

Long while ago, I received joke memes on the internet. They were about “people stupidity” when implementing something. For example, there was image of water faucet placed only few cm high from the ground (Hint: how to use it? too near with ground). There was also picture of ceiling fan, but installed very close to the door (Hint: when somebody opens the door, it hits the fan), and many other images that I don’t remember all.

Spontaneously we would laugh of course, that is so stupid and funny. Why would they install it that way, does not make sense.

But let us think through again. Is it actually wrong? Did we ever contact the owner and ask personally the reasons why they did it that way? do we have enough information about the reasons behind ?

We don’t.

We just judge it right away, according to the information that we currently have, right now.

When we tell our child, “boy, please re-study what you have learned from school, and then study the topics that you will have tomorrow”. What would be the reaction of the child normally? Lazy right? They would say “I don’t understand why do we have to repeat what already given at school, besides, tomorrow the teacher will teach me on new topics”.

When we are near the lake and we tell our child “please do not play far from the shore” — they may reply “but why? it is totally safe, nothing would happen”.

Or telling the child not to climb the high tree — “perfectly safe Dad, you are not making sense. I am good at this”. Then later on he falls and breaks his bones.

I intentionally took example of Father and Son. To show clear separation of who is older and who has more experiences, and who has more knowledge of life.

Make sense, or not, is basically how we perceive situations based on capability that we have right now. It is limited with the knowledge that we have currently.

Therefore when we meet something does not make sense, we should keep asking ourselves:

• why is that?
• why did the person install fan on that location?
• what was their intention?
• why don’t I know the reason behind?
• am I lacking something ?
• what knowledge that I have to pursue so I am able to understand the reasons behind ?
• etc

It is possible that what we currently know is not sufficient. Very possible, even wrong too. When Wright Brothers said they want to invent something to make humans fly — everybody laughed. Today, who’s laughing ?

Open mindset is not only about receiving suggestions from anybody — it is also about our readiness to see things from different angles, and to always assume that what we knew, could be wrong, and we should always be ready to learn something new.

This is one of the topic that I am trying to practice everyday, and the topic that I want to cascade to all of my team members at office.

Difficult ?

very 😆

especially when we are already certain about something. The more we learnt, the more facts we grasped, the harder we will accept something outside our knowledge. We’re getting farther from this saying “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” — Albert Einstein.

So what to do ?

It depends on the context. Because this article originally talks about management perspective, then we should take all available options and inputs with open arms, and then connect all the dots with data, proofs we have. Open for exciting opportunities, but balance it with the risk, cost and timeline.

Going back to the example of Wright brothers, imagine ourselves travelling back to the past:

• It would be exciting if people can fly. Imagine the benefits it would bring.
• Do we have enough knowledge about gravity ?
• Do we have enough knowledge about physics of wind ? etc.
• The risk and cost probably were too big to analyze at that time, but it shouldn’t make us laughing on the proposal and we could allocate starting point on the researches.

If the ̶w̶e̶i̶r̶d̶ suggestion comes from subordinate or our peer:

• listen well, take back, think.
• Questions everything objectively how this can be useful to the project, what are the pros, cons and cost if we use this direction.
• In the end, the leader shall decides whether to accept the suggestion or not. If not, then we have to ̶r̶e̶j̶e̶c̶t̶ communicate it properly and nicely.
• Always use objective data as elaboration and reasoning why we will go, or not go this way.
• Sometimes the risk and cost are so much worth the benefits. We could escalate the decision to senior leaders if needed. They will help deciding if we shall take the opportunity or not.

If the ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ suggestion comes from the boss:

• take note
• discuss with whole team about the idea
• write down pros and cons that can happen
• estimate the cost versus benefit that will be received
• formulate new suggestion based on the data provided, and propose it to our boss

If the Boss still decides to go with original direction, then we obey and we will execute, even though we personally think this is not the right decision.

Why? Because

• back to open mindset basics, we probably do not have enough knowledge just like our leaders do
• there are reasons why they become our boss 😏
• we do not want to get fired 😆

— Cheers 🍻