Maintaining quiet confidence in the face of uncertainty
My wife Jane is the type of person who likes to ask a lot of questions during a movie. She has never quite accepted the idea that the filmmakers are only interested in revealing the amount of information they want to reveal, at the precise moment they want to reveal it. This is not always to her liking, but it is how good storytelling works.
It’s a story, after all, not a summarization. You are not meant to know all there is from the start. Neither are you meant to jump too far ahead. In fact, one might argue that if the storyteller gave you all the information required for understanding, there would be no point to the story. Delayed gratification and a sense of discovery are part of the allure.
I have often tried to explain that if Jane were a bit more patient, more would surely be revealed, and she would understand it all in due time. This is almost always true, both in movies and in life. More will almost always be revealed if we have the patience to be present.
There is an Antonio Banderas film from 1999, called “The 13th Warrior,” about a young Arabian ambassador (Banderas) and his mission to a clan of Nordic Vikings. The culture divide is quite obvious, including a strong language barrier, and Banderas soon finds himself on a quest with his new Viking friends, but without his translator. He is alone and isolated, but he begins to listen.
Slowly, the young man begins to understand the words, a bit at a time, until one of the Vikings essentially insults him behind his back, thinking Banderas doesn’t understand what is being said. The Arab responds with an insult of his own, but in their Nordic tongue, and the Vikings are taken aback. They angrily confront Banderas, demanding to know how he learned their language, to which Banderas responds, “I listened.”
Sometimes that’s all it takes. Patience and listening. Not jumping ahead. Not being too critical about what you hear in the moment you hear it. Just taking it all in and letting it ferment in your subconscious for a time. Something will click, and you’ll understand what it all means, but only if you remain open, engaged, and patient.
In 2005, a Princeton psychologist named Shane Frederick developed what he considered to be the shortest IQ test, which he called the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), and consisted of just three questions. These were essentially trick questions, designed to discover if you could process information slowly, deeply, and rationally, rather than jumping to quick conclusions. The questions sounded easy to a lesser mind.
Amos Tversky, the great behavioral psychologist, was considered by all who met him to be the smartest person they’d ever met, and since these were some of the smartest people in the world, a few colleagues proposed an even simpler test. The Amos Tversky Test. It came down to a single question, or statement of fact, that you self-administered.
The faster you recognized that Amos Tversky was smarter than you, the smarter you were.
There is an old Twain adage about it being better to keep your mouth shut and risk letting people think you a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt. You may, in fact, find yourself to be the smartest person in the room from time to time, but the best way to capitalize on that is to let everyone else figure that out on their own.
Quiet confidence is an inspiring and stabilizing force when it comes to all manner of human pursuits. When firmly grounded in a position of humility, conviction becomes a strategic tool for delivering wisdom without the requisite perils of hubris. When you remove arrogance from knowledge, people are more open to receiving it, thereby providing welcome stability. There will always be understated authority in being the person in the corner who listens first, speaks last, and says no more than is required.
If you want to become a better leader, learn to listen more, speak less, and be far more patient. It’s not easy, but it’s almost magical in the way it works. There is tremendous knowledge and power in admitting that you don’t have the answer. Be the first to admit it, and lead by example, as that’s where the answers lie — in the unknowing.
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