Tripping Face-First into Wisdom

I recently read a decade-old article by Daniel Goleman in the Harvard Business Review, titled “What Makes a Leader?”  The article discusses the facets of emotional intelligence- a skill not directly defined, but described through five ‘components,’ one of which being self-awareness. Goleman discusses knowing one’s limits and capabilities as a vital part of being a leader, and recounts specific events where self-awareness has benefited those he has observed.

When discussing ‘knowing one’s limits’ (as far as skill, productivity, knowledge, etc.) Goleman stresses that someone with good self-awareness both won’t allow him or herself to over-stretch when it comes to work, and then redundantly claims that he or she won’t accept tasks where failure is certain.

The first bone I have to pick is with the usefulness of claiming that someone with good self-awareness won’t shoot his or herself in the foot by committing to something where success is known to be impossible. I know for a fact that I can’t eat an entire steel-belted tire, therefore you will never see me with a nice Goodyear on my lunch plate. I applaud you, Lieutenant Obvious.

My next qualm is with the stress placed on ensuring you stay below one’s limits. Grave injury and complete financial ruin are certainly to be avoided, but in order to succeed you can't be scared. In my experience being cautious is not the best way to go about truly maximizing capability or productivity.

I assert that knowing your limits for certain requires exceeding them, even if only occasionally. This requirement stems in part from the inaccuracy of situational modeling and the novelty of the present. No matter how much you calculate, how thoroughly you recount experiences or how intimately you know a certain task, all aspects of a challenge will not be tabulated. Something will always be missed in your assessment, and the way to most effectively and quickly learn (and remember) what was forgotten is to attempt the task sans fear.

Another reason to commit headlong is the fluidity with which human beings change. People are such a complex system that small changes in the environment or timing of other unrelated situations can vastly change a person’s productivity. You may not yet know how you will perform in the current situation. The way to learn is, again, to go for it.

This is not an exercise in futility. I believe that you will learn several times more about your capabilities by failure than by just barely accomplishing something. A failure now will serve you more in the future than many successes.

I leave you with this simple concept to mull over: You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.