Lead Like a Beginner
Great Leaders are Great Learners
Summary
There’s an irony to knowing a lot about something; being an expert in anything (basketball, teaching, pediatric cancer nursing, fundraising, etc.) gives us authority and status. People look to us and we can leverage what we know to become influencers.
Yet – going to school, learning a body of knowledge, and gaining experience – also means we can build walls around what we know in a way that may reinforce assumptions and biases, therefore making it hard to build bridges and relate to newcomers (no less learn from them).
The reason we should lead like beginners is that it forces us to be empathetic and patient. It forces us to ask deliberate questions and get comfortable with not knowing everything. Despite the discomfort this may pose to experienced leaders, getting good at being a novice helps position us to do what leading associations do best: build relationships and solve important problems with people different from ourselves.
I lead the product community, a product development learning community designed specifically for associations. Let’s compare ideas and build something great.
Building Bridges
“All superb performers practice intensively.”
Benjamin Bloom
In the world of associations, we regularly collaborate with subject matter experts. This entails patience, tact, and ability to ask good questions. Relationships start small and can be a kernel of a great community. This is especially important to not only reach out to young professionals, but also to invite them meaningfully into the fold.
I’ve written about the importance of young people to a thriving association:
Engaging Young Professionals: Eleven Ways to Create Belonging
Finding a Co-Pilot: Co-mentorship, Learning, and the Future of Belonging
The Power of Cross-Functional Community: Innovation Relies on a Deeper Form of Collaboration
Experts become learners by seeking out new knowledge, approaching unfamiliar situations with a curious mindset, and focusing on the underlying principles of different fields, often with a focus on transferable skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication; essentially, they adopt a "learning to learn" approach, viewing new domains as opportunities to expand their cognitive toolkit.
Key points about how expert leaders learn outside their expertise:
Adaptive Expertise. Experts who excel at learning new domains are often called adaptive experts; they actively seek out new knowledge, embrace challenges, and view failures as learning opportunities.
Transferable Skills. Experts leverage their existing skills like analytical thinking, pattern recognition, and information processing to navigate new fields.
Metacognition. They are aware of their own learning process, actively reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses when entering a new domain.
Focus on Fundamentals. When learning new concepts, they often focus on the underlying principles and core concepts rather than getting bogged down in specific details.
Active Learning Strategies. Experts often utilize diverse learning methods like reading widely, attending workshops, engaging in discussions with experts in the new field, and actively applying new knowledge to real-world scenarios.
There is more; being a learner means traversing new landscapes and leading less like a know-it-all expert and more like a facilitative culture-builder who is interested in connecting dots, building healthy community, and creating new knowledge.
Forgetting What it Means to be a Novice
“Expertise in a particular domain does not guarantee that one is good at helping others learn it. In fact, expertise can sometimes hurt teaching because many experts forget what is easy and what is difficult for students.”
John D. Bransford
Thinking like a beginner is helpful for association learners for many reasons: it helps us empathize with others, build important bridges, navigate both subject matter experts and young professionals, successfully work with volunteers, and build cross-boundary coalitions to help solve complex problems.
Learning within one's area of expertise takes time, awareness, and effort. It’s required to keep pace, be an active participant of a field of practice, and to gain stature, visibility or leadership roles. Learning outside one’s domain of expertise is trickier, often full of unproven assumptions and blind alleys.
Examples of how experts might learn outside their domain:
A medical doctor studying business management to improve their clinic operations
A software engineer taking a course on design thinking to enhance user experience
A financial analyst learning about data science to analyze market trends more effectively
There is one key way to getting better at it: engaging deeply and widely with people who come from different areas of expertise. This often entails working on important problems in collaborative teams.
Learning How to Learn
“It is only human nature to want to practice what you can already do well, since it’s a hell of a lot less work and a hell of a lot more fun.”
Sam Snead
Great leaders are great learners; they continue to explore, build, and stretch. They listen, inquire, and consume. These are not short-term skills to prepare us for successful careers. They are the foundation for building bridges across differences and creating a climate of trust and belonging. Continuous learning is the foundation for successfully adapting to what’s coming.
I lead the product community; we are a learning community because we believe great relationships help us create the value our members want. Remember, product-led growth fuels connection. Join the product community and flip your destiny.
About the Author
James Young is founder and chief learning officer of the product community®. Jim is an engaging trainer and leading thinker in the worlds of associations, learning communities, and product development. Prior to starting the product community®, Jim served as Chief Learning Officer at both the American College of Chest Physicians and the Society of College and University Planning. Please contact me for a conversation: james@productcommunity.us