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Humility: The Gateway to Human
Excellence in the SMA

When you think of humility, what immediately comes to mind? Mother Teresa serving the poor and sick? Jesus washing the feet of his disciples? The Dalai Lama meditating in his monk robes? That’s pretty typical. Certainly, humility as a concept has strong religious resonance. When we think of humility, most of us consider people who are very spiritual or devout or who have altruistically dedicated their entire lives to serving others. Most of us don’t immediately think of hedge fund managers or the heads of global corporations.

Humility is rarely associated with intellectual aptitude or professional success in Western societies, especially in the United States. That’s because synonyms for humility in common Western parlance often include lowliness, meekness, and submissiveness—characteristics that would seem to be the antithesis of achievement and success. Our definition of Humility and our belief in its power as a mindset, however, comes not from these lowly connotations but from our study of it as a philosophical intellectual virtue and psychological construct: We define Humility as a mindset about oneself that is open-minded, self-accurate, and “not all about me,” and that enables one to embrace the world as it “is” in the pursuit of human excellence.

That doesn’t mean thinking less of yourself, but it does mean thinking about yourself less (e.g., how you look; what other people are thinking or saying about you; how you’re coming across; how you’re being judged). The Foundation for Critical Thinking views this kind of mindset as an intellectual strength and a cornerstone of critical thinking. It explains that “intellectual humility does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness. It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight into the logical foundations, or lack of such foundations, of one’s beliefs.”¹

What ultimately is needed to thrive in the coming SMA is this kind of openness to perceiving and processing the world more as it is and not merely as we believe or would like it to be. That is what’s at the heart of our definition of Humility. In the SMA, we all will have to acknowledge the need to spend less time focused on “big me” and instead balance our competitive spirit with a collaborative spirit, because critical thinking, innovative thinking, and high emotional engagement are all team sports—“big us.”

Misperceptions of Humility

We know what you’re probably thinking at this point—that everything you’ve experienced in your life so far indicates that to succeed in our fast-paced, competitive modern world requires a certain level of hyperfocused self-interest, and that to stop believing in your own greatness and instead acknowledge and accept your weaknesses is itself a weakness. Together with other recent phenomena such as the pressure and opportunity for endless self-broadcasting on social media, we have, as many cultural observers have remarked, encouraged a culture of big me and even spawned an alarming increase in clinical narcissism rates.²

Even if we don’t consider ourselves part of the “big me” cultural phenomenon, for many of us to feel good about ourselves we have to constantly be “right,” self-enhance, self-promote, and conceal our weaknesses, all of which drives ego defensiveness and failure intolerance that impede higher-level thinking and relating. Research has shown that self-enhancement bias is in fact quite common. Most people do it reflexively—they take credit for their successes and blame others for their failures. This is called self-serving bias.³

Moreover, we have somewhat of a cultural obsession with high self-esteem as the marker of psychological health. The problem, as the psychologist Kristin Neff explains, is that to have high self-esteem, particularly in the United States, we have to feel “special” and “above average” in comparison with others, and that is logically impossible to do all of the time unless we constantly puff ourselves up or put others down. While some psychologists argue that positive illusions can aid psychological well-being in some situations, the problem for higher-level thinking and learning should be obvious—if you tell yourself you’re better than you are or you refuse to accept ego-threatening information, you prevent learning and improvement in the areas you need it. That’s going to be a major downfall for many in the SMA.

As we describe in chapter 1, the world of work will likely change in fundamental ways, and the march of technology is reaching a point at which none of us can rely on the old rules of success. Cultural and organizational models will of necessity reflect a new reality that is less individually and inwardly focused and more outwardly focused on expanding our thinking and connecting to others:

Humility may seem somewhat countercultural now, but in the SMA it will be a professional asset. From a global perspective, Humility has long been promoted as a personal and professional quality in East Asian cultures as well as in Scandinavia through the “law of Jante”—a cultural principle that means no one is to think he or she is better than anyone else and that is said to influence the organizational cultures of such companies as Volvo, Ikea, and Ericsson. To truly understand the value of Humility and our definition, you need to understand the philosophy and psychology that informs it.

The Forgotten Legacy of Intellectual Humility

As a philosophical and theoretical concept, humility has been viewed as the path to learning and enlightenment since ancient times and the intellectual humility of Socrates and Confucius. The Socratic method, which many consider a cornerstone of Western philosophy, is based on the theory that true knowledge results through hypothesis and the right kind of questioning. In ancient Greek society, Socrates publicly questioned his own beliefs and exposed the ignorance of others, particularly the elite of the time, through successively deeper inquiry. He believed that learning occurs only by continually testing our beliefs and answers to essential questions against facts. Socrates surely had intellectual humility, and in many ways he represents the patron saint of critical thinking in Western culture. Anyone who has experienced the Socratic method in a classroom or any context can similarly attest to it being a humbling experience.

Humility was also one of the core values that the Chinese philosopher and politician Confucius espoused in his teachings and writings on education and social interaction. In fact, Confucius is believed to have said that “humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues”—the other Confucian learning virtues being sincerity, diligence, endurance of hardship, perseverance, concentration, and respect for teachers.

Our individualistic Western approach to learning and thinking has in many ways distorted the purpose of Socratic inquiry, using it to justify the hypercriticism and rejection of others’ ideas and beliefs and an individual focus on learning and achievement. In studying a Confucian/Socratic framework for analyzing cultural influences on academic learning, the Canadian psychologists Roger Tweed and Darrin Lehman explain that a Socratic learning culture in which questioning the ideas of others is a way to assert one’s independence “fulfills the cultural ideal of individualism,”⁴ which is so prevalent in the West.

Forgetting the intellectual humility at the heart of Socratic values, we in the West have, in a sense, corrupted and co-opted his essential philosophy of questioning and used it to shout our own beliefs from the rooftops while tearing everyone else’s down, all the while viewing it as a high-minded, intellectual affair. We’ve taken the doubting of everyone else’s beliefs and knowledge to heart but seem to have forgotten to turn that lens on ourselves, and we’ve used this skepticism of others to devalue listening and perspective taking.

The Psychology of Humility

In psychology, humility has been studied as a personality state and trait, a character strength, an intellectual virtue, a behavior, and a theory of mind. There has been a recent and growing focus on defining, assessing, and measuring a universal concept of humility, as well as a growing body of psychological literature that correlates humility with higher physical and psychological well-being and intrapersonal and interpersonal advantages, particularly in the context of intellectual concerns, metacognitive abilities, leadership, and relationship building.⁵

Carol Dweck and colleagues have found a positive connection between intellectual humility—defined as “acknowledging the partial nature of one’s understanding and valuing others’ intelligence”—and learning goals (rather than performance goals) as well as actual achievement. In other words, they found that humility boosts learning.

According to the psychologists June Price Tangey, Christopher Peterson, and Martin E. P. Seligman, the psychological attributes of humility are

1. having an accurate (not over-or underestimated) view of one’s abilities and achievements;

2. being able to acknowledge one’s mistakes, imperfections, gaps in knowledge, and limitations;

3. being open to new ideas, contradictory information, and advice;

4. keeping one’s abilities and accomplishments in perspective;

5. having a low focus on self or a tendency to “forget the self”; and

6. appreciating the value of all things and the many different ways other people and things contribute to the world.

Can you see how those attributes would make you more prone to engage in the kinds of behaviors that lead to NewSmart and the higher-level thinking, learning, and emotional engagement required for SMA Skills?

Humility in the context of these psychological tenets is similar to the philosophical principle of mediocrity that is so fundamental to science, but is one of the most contentious and difficult scientific concepts for people to grasp, according to the biologist P. Z. Myers, who explains its meaning this way:

The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren’t special. The universe does not revolve around you.… Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, universal laws—laws that apply everywhere and to everything, with no special exemptions or amplifications for your benefit.⁶

In fact, we humans aren’t even as special relative to other animals as many of us would like to believe. In Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, Frans de Waal, a primatologist and professor of psychology at Emory University, explains that despite centuries of the presumed superiority of humans, science is beginning to reveal advanced cognitive skills among several animal species. “We are not the only intelligent life on earth,” according to de Waal.⁷

Humility underlies and can enable humans to excel at every one of the NewSmart Behaviors and SMA Skills. You’ll be able to see that more clearly when we describe the behaviors in detail in Part 2. In sum:

Humility includes a strength to “forget the self,” which in turn fosters:

• Quieting Ego

• Reflective Listening

• Managing Self

• Otherness (emotionally connecting and relating to others)

Humility includes open-mindedness, a required state of mind for:

• Critical thinking

• Innovative thinking

• Creativity

Humility includes accepting our strengths, weaknesses, and mistakes, and keeping our abilities and accomplishments in perspective, which makes these tasks easier:

• Stress-testing our thinking

• Admitting when we don’t know the answer

• Learning iteratively

• Managing Self (thinking and emotions)

Humility includes an appreciation for the value of other people, which enables:

• Empathy

• Relationship building

• Collaboration

• User-centric innovative thinking

We are not saying that a complete loss of self-interest or ambition is advisable. Certainly not. The problem is not in being more successful than others but in needing to prove that we’re better/smarter/more special than others in order to feel successful, which leads to the kind of ego defensiveness that gets in our own way. It’s that kind of excessive self-focus that’s not in our long-term interest in the SMA. Instead, the outward focus that follows from a Humility mindset is what’s in our best interest. Truly effective teamwork, collaboration, and innovation can’t happen when we’re defensive or when we’re too tied up in looking or feeling superior to our colleagues, teammates, clients, or customers (big me). We must instead approach the SMA with Humility (big us).

A side note about a common confusion between modesty, which means a lack of boastfulness, and humility: in many cases modesty is about social propriety rather than a person’s actual disposition. Consider the self-deprecating person who downplays or refutes compliments, claiming that he or she isn’t that good, or smart, or creative, or makes a fuss that whatever he or she did wasn’t that hard or whatever. While on the surface such people are making a show of not thinking too highly of themselves, in actuality these kinds of statements are hyperfocused on the self. Humility is often reflected in modesty, but the reverse is not necessarily true.

The Humility Advantage

It’s vital that in the SMA, it’s no longer all about you. You alone aren’t special. That’s harsh and would make the self-esteem proponents cringe, but, in the SMA, winners will be those people who are less self-absorbed, because we need to open our minds, accept our mistakes and weaknesses, focus outward, and enlist others to help us think, innovate, create, and continually learn. Success will come to those who value building relationships, and that in turn requires that we aren’t tied up in excessive self-interest but willing to emotionally engage, empathize, and be generous with and willing to help others.

Adam Grant, a professor of management and psychology at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, argues in his book Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success that “giving”—helping others regardless of what you get in return (i.e., generosity)—is the foundation of effective collaboration, innovation, quality improvement, and service excellence. One study out of the University of Arizona that Grant highlights in his book found higher rates of giving were predictive of higher unit profitability, productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction, and lower costs and turnover rates.⁸ Humility has been discussed in leading business books like the 2001 landmark bestseller by Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t. In his research Collins found that a key attribute of leaders of “good to great” companies was “a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”⁹

The business world and media sat up and took notice, and several other studies have since confirmed that employees who identify leaders and managers as more humble, empathic, and compassionate also report greater commitment and engagement.¹⁰ Moreover, much has been written about the need for organizations to be more adaptive and flexible in order to remain competitive in an increasingly dynamic global economy, and that the old hierarchical organizational model in which “often wrong but never in doubt” leaders and managers rule is outdated.¹¹ Humility has emerged as a key leadership theme during Ed’s research into high-performance companies and exemplar learning organizations for his previous books. For example, when Ed asked Jim Quinn, then president of Tiffany & Co., for one word to describe his organization in an interview a few years ago, he said, “Humility. There is only one star here and it is Tiffany.”¹²

Ray Dalio explained humility to Ed as understanding that “we all are dumb shits,”¹³ a fact often exposed at Bridgewater through a company policy called Radical Transparency. Included in that policy is the highly unusual practice of filming all meetings for later review by anyone at the firm and the use of employee scorecards of strengths and weaknesses that are digitally accessible to the whole company. Bridgewater employees are expected to regularly log performance ratings of each other through proprietary iPad apps. Dalio subjects himself to this same humbling, regular feedback.¹⁴

Scott Cook, cofounder of Intuit, has said that “the most important person to be learning and growing in a company is the CEO” and that leaders must find a way to get feedback with the “unvarnished truth.” He also walks the talk, engaging in 360-degree performance reviews and disclosing his need for “deferred maintenance.”¹⁵ Brad Smith, Intuit’s CEO, has also been vocal about the need for leaders, including himself, to lose their egos and be good at “not knowing” to fuel innovation. He has stated that the “modern day Caesar” type of manager who commands and controls decision making must be buried in order to give employees the autonomy to engage in what Intuit calls Rapid Experimentation—testing ideas quickly and cheaply to allow the best ones to rise to the top.¹⁶

In his book Work Rules! Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead, Laszlo Bock, Google’s former senior vice president of people operations, identified “humility” as one of Google’s top hiring requirements.¹⁷ What he means by humility is the ability “to step back and embrace the better ideas of others,” as well as “intellectual humility,” without which, he explained, “you are unable to learn,” particularly from failure.¹⁸ The reason you can’t learn from failure is that without humility, Bock said, you’re stuck in a false attribution/ blame mindset: “If something good happens, it’s because I’m a genius. If something bad happens, it’s because someone’s an idiot or I didn’t get the resources or the market moved.”¹⁹

Humility is also vital in Google’s leadership and management practices. Bock explains that the company operates as an idea meritocracy where data, not the HiPPO (highest-paid person’s opinion), drive decisions. Google discourages hierarchy, and all employees have an obligation to dissent if they disagree. Keeping quiet is countercultural. Google believes that employees will find work more meaningful if they have a “voice.”²⁰

Catmull’s book on the inside story of Pixar is similarly full of references to the vital role humility has played in the company’s success. In Creativity, Inc. Catmull summed up how an organization’s leaders can embrace and role-model this approach when he said:

I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don’t know can we ever hope to learn it.²¹

Perhaps the most powerful example of the power of Humility in achieving the highest levels of human performance and collaboration is provided by the elite special forces of the US military. It’s easy to understand why the members of special forces would excel at the ability to “forget the self” in favor of the safety and success of the group and mission, but this extends to leadership as well. In the well-received leadership book Extreme Ownership, two former US Navy SEALs explain that implementing the kind of extreme ownership leadership practiced by the SEALs “requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility.”²²

Humility is the gateway to human excellence in the SMA. We believe that it’s necessary in order to excel at the foundational NewSmart Behaviors that we discuss in Part 2, which underlie the highest levels of thinking, learning, and emotionally engaging with others—the SMA Skills. As such, we believe that Humility is the real hero of our story. We hope that you will deeply and seriously consider adopting Humility as your mindset.