“Intellectual humility is often described as an intellectual virtue, along with other perceived virtues such as open-mindedness, intellectual courage and integrity, and in contrast to proposed intellectual vices, such as pride and arrogance.”
From my perspective, Intellectual Humility is one of the most important qualities of colleagues I want to work with, and interview candidates who wish to be successful in highly competitive and highly collaborative environments. To be open to the possibility that you could be wrong, or could have missed a key data point that would influence the direction of a solution or reset the definition of a problem – this quality could very well save not just time and effort, but potentially the project or program itself.
I will even go so far as to say its such a powerful concept that it should compel people to change how they approach the way they collaborate, how they engage with & manage their personal and professional relationships.
Imagine that – both spouses being open to the possibility that they themselves are wrong or are missing a key fact that would affect the course of a conversation or decision? It definitely needs to be infused into professional relationships – we timebox our decision making process to ensure that we don’t fall into analysis paralysis, but having adequate review and encouraging honest feedback ensures that everyone is on the same page and all voices are heard.
I remember a time at Google where I was invited to attend an architectural design review – I wasn’t someone who was a decision maker or even an authority on the technical area that the design directly affected and so I was a bit confused by the invitation. But when I attended, the person who was driving the review was also the author and primary architect of the feature to be implemented – a Fellow in the organization. Most assuredly intimidating to be one of about 8 people who were included in this review, but I wasn’t the only one who appeared to be out of place – there was a brand new hire who was into their third month with Google, and a PhD college intern as well.
The presentation of the architecture and assumptions behind the new design went for roughly 40 minutes – at which point the Fellow turned to us and said “I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something here that is really important… can we discuss? Please ask questions….”
Here was a Fellow, one of the brightest most accomplished people in Google Cloud, likely the smartest person in that room & he was asking for feedback from the rabble.
And he took notes from the feedback & incorporated them into the updated design.
THAT is Intellectual Humility. No presumptions, pride or arrogance.
Here’s a full article that provides context for how important a quality this is:
