The writer and thinker Derek Sivers takes the approach of assuming he is below average, as this helps him focus on listening, learning, and improving.
Ninety-six percent of cancer patients claim to be in better health than the average cancer patient.
This opening line hit me like a brick and, as someone who was a cancer patient just last year, I am still processing it.
Ninety-three percent of drivers say they are safer-than-average drivers.
This follow-on line made me smile, as I was recently made to take a driver’s education course after a minor road traffic offence. To start the workshop, they began by asking us if we felt we were above-average drivers. Of course, we were all there because we had made errors in our driving, but there we were, the strong majority of us declared that we were above average!
The writer and thinker Derek Sivers takes the opposite approach, assuming he is below average, as this helps him focus on listening, learning, and improving.
As the image above notes, the four core attributes of #OpenLeadership include being Open and Humble. Perhaps we could all adopt Derek’s approach more, I know I could.