Leaders Never Stop Learning

Bill Berthel
Welcome to the Get Emergent podcast, where we discuss leadership, team and organizational topics, and best practices. We like to provide ideas, concepts, and pragmatic experiments to help you develop your potential in your work and your leadership. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone
And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel
Ralph, this is a topic I know we’re both passionate about — it’s leaders never stop learning.

Ralph Simone
I hope not, or else you’re done, right?

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Ralph Simone
I mean, with the pace and the complexity of change — and the interdependence, as we’ve talked about in other podcasts — if you’re going to stay at least current (forget about ahead), you need to be a lifelong learner.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. And the rate of learning opportunity keeps increasing exponentially. Right? The increase to human knowledge — the exponential growth that occurs there — we’re either learning and growing, or we’re dying. We’re either going to get left behind. This isn’t about fear; this is about knowing that we want to keep learning and growing. But the connection to humility — if we think we don’t need to learn, if we think we know enough, we’re already halfway—

Ralph Simone
In the grave, I think. That reminds me of a friend of mine who used to work with us years ago. Very smart guy — very talented, well-educated. He had advanced degrees, and we wanted him to continue his learning journey by getting a coaching certification. And he said, “No, I know everything I need to.” And I think in any business, that statement is the kiss of death, because there are so many things that we just do not know. And the body of knowledge is changing so fast. What’s the name of that curve? It’s named after a guy…

Bill Berthel
Yeah, the name’s— Yep, I know what you mean.

Ralph Simone
But things are changing at such a rapid pace. I mean, we’re looking at the vehicles we’re currently driving right now — it’s almost like an episode of The Jetsons, right? And that’s only going to change faster and faster. And to me, how exciting to be a person — a leader — who never stops learning. I mean, how exciting! There’s always something new to learn, a different way to do it, a new technology to embrace. To me, that’s kind of fun.

Bill Berthel
So, Ralph, let me put you on the spot and ask you: What do you think the key to being excited about that is?

Ralph Simone
I think there’s a curiosity — a genuine curiosity — but I do think humility is important. It reminds me of a quote, I think attributed to Eckhart Tolle: “It’s in not knowing that the knowing emerges.” And so by not knowing, it kind of drives you to ask questions, to read, to research, to experiment. And I mean, what great fun. I had a guy recently ask me how old I was. I said, “You actually can’t ask me that,” but that’s all right. He goes, “You seem like you’re still really excited about what you do.” And I think — he nicely said — “You don’t seem like you just started.” I think that’s… And I said, “Well, because it’s different today than it was ten years ago, or five years ago, or twenty years ago. And so it’s new.” And to me, new is exciting.

Bill Berthel
I hear the humility in that — that there’s a humility to not just accept, but embrace the change of things. The changing of things. The growing. Right? I was just sharing this story that I remember as a little kid. I was probably four, five years old — maybe a kindergartener or so. And my Aunt Mary at the time was the oldest person I knew. She was going to turn 100 — she was 99 years old.

Ralph Simone
That’s older than me.

Bill Berthel
I’ll never forget — I was just a little guy and my dad had bought a new family car. It wasn’t brand new, but it was new to us. And it was actually the first automatic transmission vehicle we had. Until then, Dad had stick shifts. He went to go pick up Aunt Mary, and I was in the back seat — and she refused to get in the car. She said, “I will never get in a car that’s an automatic because I don’t trust it to shift itself.”

Ralph Simone
Wow.

Bill Berthel
But I knew my Aunt Mary as someone who was — I mean, she was very devout in her faith. She was a wonderful person. But she was really closed to change like that. And I’ll never forget that — even as a little guy — thinking, Oh my gosh, I hope I’m never that fearful or concerned about something like that. I hope I can always have the vulnerability to embrace those kinds of changes.

Ralph Simone
I love the story. And I think if I come back to the question you asked me — and the answer — I also believe that everything is impermanent. I think that belief is critical to leaders continuing on their learning journey. I also think the humility piece that you talked about— I was watching a show the other day, and it was a police show, right? This very seasoned and successful inspector was mentoring this young woman who was really smart — brilliant — but she thought she knew everything.

She was rarely apologetic. And he totally took her aside. He said, “There are three things that will make you really good in this profession. Three statements:

1. I don’t know.
2. I was wrong.
3. I’m sorry.”

I think those are three things to keep in mind. I think there’s a combination of humility in that, but also — how could we possibly know everything about anything? It’s impossible. And so, not knowing and admitting that you were wrong — I think that’s one way to keep learning.

Bill Berthel
Actually, I think all three of them do. The purest essence of a sincere apology — saying, “I’m sorry” — is really deeply rooted in “I’m willing to do this differently next time so I don’t do it this way again.” That’s learning, too. I love those three: I don’t know, I was wrong, and I’m sorry — all openness to learning.

Ralph Simone
There’s a vulnerability embedded in that. There’s an admission of fallibility by admitting we don’t know — and how ridiculous it is. I love to read, and I won’t even read all the books in my house probably in my lifetime. And so, you know, my son will tell me, “Dad, when you think you really know something, just go into a library there. Look around.”

Bill Berthel
There you go. Yeah.

Ralph Simone
That doesn’t humble you in a hurry? The Internet, right? I mean, you can go wherever you want to go.

Bill Berthel
Well, that’s what I pictured—reaching into my pocket for my phone. So often when I’m up against something I don’t know, you have the world’s biggest encyclopedia in your pocket. In your phone, you can look something up. That’s an admission that you don’t know, right? That you’re going to look something up. That’s great. You get to learn about it. You get to go deeper.

I enjoy reading as well, and I gravitate to very heavy theory when I read—I gravitate to theoretical physics. And I’m not bragging here, Rolf, because I probably understand maybe, maybe 40% of what I read—probably less. Probably about 30% of what I’m actually reading. But it’s pushing me to really learn and grow. I uncover more about what I don’t know than what I do learn in that reading. And I love being on that cusp of, “Oh my gosh, that’s like 17 more things I don’t know about.” That’s exciting to me.

Ralph Simone
That requires a level of curiosity and an openness to something that you may not be familiar with or confident in. It’s interesting—and I may have shared this on a previous podcast—I have been rereading books.

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Ralph Simone
Books that I’ve read before, but I’m reading them through new eyes. You never step into the same river twice. I’m at a different age and stage.

Bill Berthel
Sure.

Ralph Simone
And so what’s resonating with me is different. And I think that’s the other part—when we can bring new eyes to an existing situation, we will learn more about what’s really going on in that situation.

Bill Berthel
Oh, I love, love that idea. This isn’t just limited to more knowledge. I think it’s not just about amassing more knowledge. It’s not just about reading—it’s about application.

We often say, “Read for application, don’t read for completion.” It’s one thing to read cover to cover. It’s another to put something we read about, learn about, or know about into practice.

Ralph Simone
Learning is one of my top seven or eight values, but contribution is right up in the top ten. So I have a very pragmatic reason for reading—I want to be able to do something with it. I want to be able to move the needle. I want to be able to get an outcome with the application.

I remember I was reading in a lobby right before a coaching meeting, and I read something that was really neat. And it just happened that in the coaching meeting, there was an opportunity to try it out.

Bill Berthel
Yes.

Ralph Simone
Tried it out on the client. The guy goes, “Oh, I love it!” He goes, “How long have you been doing this?” I said, “About eight minutes.”

Of course, I don’t know if I should have, but the idea of just try it, right? That’s learning. Because learning is about growing. It’s about failing—because you’ll learn how not to do it. And you gotta be okay with the learning process. We’ll have a lot of stubbed toes. You’re not going to get it immediately.

Bill Berthel
I love that potential tension—perhaps you shouldn’t have said that you’ve only been practicing that for about eight minutes. Because it assumes, “Well, how credible is this guy in front of me?”

But I’d argue quite the opposite—how open is this person to be willing to share something?

I often say—and with humility, this is not bragging—I often say to many of my coaching clients, “I think all you have to do is show up. Just show up and be your best in that moment.” It’s not about being overconfident or cocky. It’s about being humble enough to know that you can flex and be in that space and be at your best. I think sometimes all you have to do is show up.

Ralph Simone
I would add, though, because I think you did add—show up and be open. Yeah, be open to be shaped. Be open to let go of something that might be getting in the way of learning.

When my kids were both much younger, I remember someone observed a conversation where they were clearly teaching me. And this friend of mine said, “Well, who’s in charge there?” I said, “Well, it depends on what the subject is.”

Bill Berthel
There you go.

Ralph Simone
I mean, there are areas my kids know a heck of a lot more than me, so they’re in charge. I don’t think he thought much of that answer, but for me, that’s the learning process. Everybody is both your teacher and your student, and you have to show up—and I think be open—for that.

Bill Berthel
I love it. I just entered a coaching engagement with this guy who is getting an amazing promotion—and he deserves it. He’s going to be the future plant manager in a pretty big organization.

How he shares how he’s gotten his knowledge—he calls it the “street smart leader.” He’s kind of school of hard knocks compared to others. He might not have the pedigree, he doesn’t have the formal education, but he’s had this willingness to be vulnerable and humble, be incredibly curious and creative, and to keep practicing. And he shares his practices with others. And this is this guy’s formula for success—to a significant promotion in—

Ralph Simone
—his career, which I think has got to be a place that we would suggest people start. I think if you really want to demonstrate this, start learning something brand new.

Bill Berthel
Love it.

Ralph Simone
I’ll never forget when I started the martial arts at age 32. That was putting me way outside my comfort zone. You know—white gi, not very flexible. But yet, if I’m going to be asking people that work with me, that I coach, to learn new things—how often are we putting ourselves in new situations?

Situations where we may not have a lot of confidence in learning—and perhaps failing.

Bill Berthel
Right.

Ralph Simone
Having a fair amount of vulnerability—I think it allows you to have empathy for the challenges people experience when they do encounter something new.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, I love that. So start with learning something truly new. Pick a new topic, a new genre—something you think you have an interest in but you haven’t done yet. Something new.

Another simple practice—those three statements you shared earlier. Start looking for those authentic opportunities to say: “I don’t know,” when you don’t know.

To be able to share that kind of fallibility.

To be able to say, “I’m sorry,” when it’s called for—sincerely apologize.

Or if there was a wrongdoing, to be able to say, “Oh, I was wrong about that. I made an error. I was wrong about that.”

Ralph Simone
There’s a famous Mark Twain quote: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

And I think part of this lesson for leaders is—what is it that you think you know for sure, that just ain’t so?

Bill Berthel
Ralph, I love it. Let’s leave it with Mark Twain. Okay, thanks, Ralph.

And folks, thanks for listening. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at Get Emergent or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is where we bring you contemporary leadership topics and ideas, balanced with what we hope you find are better practices that you can apply to your work and your leadership. Thank you.