Daniel Pink talks about Intellectual Humility: the willingness to recognize what you think and believe might be wrong.
He gives us four questions to test your intellectual humility:
1. Do I behave like a soldier or a scout? Soldier defends a position, scouts explore and look for new ideas.
2. Would I rather be right, or would I rather understand? Long term knowledge is more important than short term victories.
3. Do I solicit and seek out opposing views? (Try not to ask questions that begin with “Don’t you agree…?”)
4. Do I enjoy the pleasant surprise of discovering that I’m mistaken? It is not a failure to be wrong, you’ve just learned something new.
I have not been as intellectually humble as I would like. I have violated each of these many times over. I can do better and I will.
You can watch it here.