Just because you are smart doesn’t mean your opinion matters. Yup, you got lottsa gray matter up there, plenty of neurons firing at will, but perhaps the best course of action is to acknowledge you and ignore you. Or me.
Here’s the point. Being smart is, you know, pedantic. Narrow. Baseline. Easy. It’s like selecting a date with a criteria of “must have a pulse“. OK, great, you are alive. But don’t ask me to be impressed by your baseline. Have you done your homework?
This sounds simple enough. Brilliant guy walks up and tells us how to do web design but has never seen the Internet. Easy enough to ignore. Because you have no ties. Ties that bind.
The most common example of this in our industry is Doctors who have never studied psychology or marketing or design and then want to art direct. At the end of the day you say yes, but this isn’t really in their best interests, is it? No, you have to push back. Doctors are smart. And you have to be pretty self confident to cut another human open and assume you can reassemble the bits. But they are out of their element and need to do their homework when it comes to marketing.
What about a programmer with 1 year experience out of college. Lets say they have more “snap” and raw IQ points. In a conversation with a programmer with 10 years of experience they come to a disagreement. The programmer with 10 years of experience keeps saying “that won’t work” and the new-programmer says “why not?” and “prove it.”
Why not? Well, the person with 10 years of experience has seen this pattern before. Our brains are hella-good at picking up on patterns. But that doesn’t mean we can articulate them. Working with a Millennial, frequently you just give in and say “ok, you figure it out”. And eventually they get back to the correct path. But at what cost and what lost-opportunity costs for the months lost?
Another example is you have a friend and your interests overlap 80%. But you are an artist and they are not. In fact they have never so much studied or read a book on art. This is like expecting a 2 year old to savor a fine wine. So they ARE smart. They ARE your equal on so many subjects, but on this one subject you pretty much have to ignore them because they are unqualified. Following their advice would be an expensive mistake in this one instance.
Yet they are your friend and suddenly you think they are full of it. Do they differentiate that this is one topic? You aren’t questioning their brilliant mind. Just observing that in this one area they are woefully unqualified and expecting you to take their advice (say dropping oil painting for making balloon animals because they see a future in that) is a BAD idea. But you treasure their advice in other areas.
So again, what do we do? We sometimes give in to the smart yet unqualified friend or let things progress at their speed until they figure it out. At what cost to you and society?
There should be a word for it. A “hey, you’re awesome and I respect you. But you lack the discipline or interest to study this area and you are way out of your element here.” Like in the Big Lebowski, but with fewer F-bombs. And in a way they understood without being offended.
So yes, just because you are smart does not mean your opinion matters. On many many levels. Ease up a bit folks. Humility and do your homework before you demand the stage. Society will be better off for it.
Interesting opinion. In many ways, I don't disagree. On the other hand, I think art is a tricky example to use. Though there is always room for growth, I believe I have done my homework in the arts- particularly music, theatre, and dance. Visual art, less so. However, it wasn't until I disengaged from the rational side of my brain- the impulse to make clear, distinct sense of everything and establish patterns- that I truly learned to appreciate abstract painting and sculpture. And it wasn't until I learned to appreciate abstract painting and sculpture that I learned to appreciate avant garde, abstract theatre- something in which I was well-versed. Despite the advantage of having knowledge and experience in an area, I certainly think there is something to be said for visceral instinct. And in the (perhaps rare) instances that someone is blessed with a keen instinct, can't bucking the patterns and the system be the key to innovation?
Posted on January 28, 2009 at 3:14 pm.
@Jenni-Beck Thanks for the comment!
I did notice you used the phrases "it wasn't until I disengaged from the rational side" and "until I learned" and "it wasn't until I learned to appreciate abstract painting and sculpture that I learned to appreciate avant garde". Words like "until" assume the passage of time and work.
Now, I'm not going to get all Gladwell that we all need 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in our craft, but if you are smart AND you work hard you produce amazing results. The artist with a "keen instinct" is amazing! And yet, with hard work, they will be even more amazing in 10 years.
I am not even sure why I posted this. Surely it will get me in trouble with my younger friends and employees. We have all seen how everyone reads a blog post as "he MUST be talking about me!" Yet somewhere between arrogance and forgivable youthful vitality is a reality of the mastery of a craft. In a recession this is so much more important as the fault line of tolerance of error becomes razor thin.
Perhaps for politically correct reasons I am mad at myself for taking advice that my gut told me was wrong, and it was. And it hurt more people than me. I need to stop that. Because sometimes the opinion of very smart people just doesn't matter.
Posted on January 29, 2009 at 12:50 am.
At first I was inclined to agree, but then after re-reading your post I don't think you mean that opinions don't matter (at least I hope not), but that just because you are smart doesn't mean that you are right. You mentioned way too many variables such as experience, age and talent, for this argument to come down to just disregarding someone's opinion because of their intelligence. It sounds like you're more likely to "ignore" the programmer's opinion because they are a younger, Millennial and agree with the older programmer based simply on the fact that the older programmer has more experience. What you're not saying is whether the programmer has more experience in the topic in which they are disagreeing. What if that young programmer is Mark Zuckerberg who didn't even graduate from college? What if he had gone and figured it out, made it better and then moved on and formed a new company that made your older programmer's job obsolete? Why defer to the person with more experience without taking into account the smart person's opinion? I think you need to be careful here and not generalize between just intelligence and just experience. And most of all, not disregard's someone opinion simply because of their age or experience.
Posted on January 28, 2009 at 6:13 pm.
@Jerri wow, you covered a lot of ground in that paragraph. Whew!
Three examples in the post:
1) A Dr. which is a reference to the assumption that authority makes one right if they are smart. Not so.
2) One of a craft that takes a gift (art) but also hard work (most artists produce their best work 20 years in!). Ask any artist how they feel about people who assume their craft is easy. It isn't. It is very hard work that can only be achieved by a passion to create. And creators get better over time. It is rare that an artists first work is her best. Right? First year ballerina's don't headline. Ever.
3) The programmer example. That is actually a personal example. Only not the way you think. I was the young programmer. I have strong communication skills and convinced the team to take the wrong path. I hurt a lot of people by not finding a way to get my older peer to articulate the pattern he saw. My mistake from 13 years ago and I still feel bad about it.
But to your question, yes, I really AM saying that just being smart doesn't make someone's opinion matter. Would you take my advice on women's clothing? Of COURSE not. My opinion, in that example, doesn't matter. Just nobody wants to say that with candor. So I did. Heh.
Posted on January 29, 2009 at 12:50 am.
The original post definitely describes a lot of what I've seen, and experienced, over the years. (Both on the giving & receiving end of being ignored and/or wrong.)
And if it makes you feel any better, regarding #3, I was once the young programmer, and I was right. But was I able to convince people that I was right? Well, no… “Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill” indeed!
And regarding @Jerri's comment, a thought: it must be a sign of the times to mention Mark Zuckerberg. Back in the day, the example people would throw out was Bill Gates dropping out of Hahvahd… Getting old, I guess…
Posted on January 29, 2009 at 6:54 am.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
- Socrates
Conversely, just because someone is opinionated doesn't mean that they're smart. Too many people get suckered into thinking that simply because someone speaks with authority, they MUST know what they're talking about. Like me. Right now. I probably don't know what I'm talking about. Or maybe I'm just using my college psychology courses to play Jedi mind tricks on you.
Nah, I'm not that smart.
Posted on February 4, 2009 at 6:51 am.
Grace – you aren't the type to barge into a room and holler an opinion. You, like many wise people, hold back a bit and contribute if it helps.
(Or… maybe that is ALSO a Jedi mind trick…. Damnit man, got me again!)
Posted on February 4, 2009 at 3:32 pm.