In situations like this when it seems as if I am in over my head for a moment or two, at first I get all sweaty and red in the face and think to myself how inept I am compared to these geeks. Surely they must think I’m an idiot and a big loser from the ivory towers of downtown Corporate. And how will I ever find the time to learn all the technical details they toss around so casually? I even become slightly envious of these subject-matter-experts, the way they have such deep experience in the matters we are discussing, these things that I have never really paid any attention to, nor cared much about at all, up until now.

There’s a name for this, when you come to realize that you don’t know something. It’s called “conscious incompetence.” This condition is a step up from “unconscious incompetence,” where you are in a state of blissful ignorance because you don’t know what you don’t know. Therefore you don’t care. But I have my own non-theoretical term for this phenomenon, when it happens to me. I call it “feeling stupid.”

It can be intimidating when everyone in the room knows more than you do about something. But it’s not all bad. In fact, I would say that feeling stupid at work can actually be a good sign for your career. Here are some reasons why it’s okay to feel stupid sometimes.

1. Feeling stupid means you are outside of your comfort zone. You are taking on new challenges which will allow you to grow and stretch. The Conscious Competence theory would say that you will eventually move through the discomfort of feeling inept into the next stage of learning. So don’t get too uptight.
2. It means you are not arrogant. The puffed up, ego-bloated leader is so five minutes ago, in case you haven’t been reading the business news lately. A little humility and insecurity can actually be a good thing. In fact, a Harvard Business article by Gill Corkindale calls it the “Imposter Syndrome.” Most up and coming managers go through a phase of insecurity, where they are worried that they’ll be uncovered as frauds. So take a deep breath. Relax. You are not the only one. You’ll figure it out.
3. It keeps you open to learning new information. The quickest way to stop feeling stupid is to learn – ask dumb questions, read books, do research, start networking, get some mentoring and log some good old-fashioned experience. This is ultimately how you will grow, develop, and get ahead.
4. You’ll be better liked. Let’s be honest, no one wants to work with an arrogant know-it-all blow-hard (or, there is another word you probably would have liked to use. It rhymes with “aerosol”). Someone recently told me that the best boss he ever had was constantly asking for his opinion before making a decision: “Paul, what do you think about this situation? What would you do?” The boss’s respect for his expertise endeared this smart employee to his manager. Go team.

So, if you are feeling stupid, congratulations! And keep it up! You are probably on your way to a big promotion.

Bradley J. Moore posts regularly on the challenges of business spiritually engaged at shrinkingthecamel.com. Bradley is an executive in a large corporation in the Northeast which shall remain nameless.

She sits and starts explaining. “It’s not like I haven’t been trying. In the last year we’ve invested in psychometric tools, 360° feedbacks, seminars, workshops and everything I can think of to improve my team. Our CEO says he wants our personal development to be one of the main building blocks in our corporate culture. We’ve all had our strengths and weaknesses analyzed in multiple dimensions and then created our detailed corrective action plans…(sigh)…so where’s the payback? We are all working ridiculously long hours but we just can’t deliver.”

“Sounds like you had a tough appraisal,” I say, trying to sympathize.

Even more dejected sigh…”Well…you’ve got to know when to fold ‘em,” she says, quoting the line from the Kenny Rogers song. To me this is a serious signal. She wants to call it quits.

Perhaps you relate to Diane as you think of your situation. Has someone pointed out your talent gap? Have you inherited or built a team and felt the difference between what you expect them to do and what you see them achieving? Diane is right; the workplace has all kinds of tools to explain this to you. Maybe you too have invested your organization’s resources, your personal commitment, and a sizable chunk of your credibility in trying to close the gap. Possibly, you too look at your situation and think about “folding ‘em.” Where do you lie on the continuum?

Strong (no gap) ____________________________________ Weak (big gap)

My heart goes out to Diane. She’s told me about her past successes so I know that her wanting to “fold ‘em” means she feels stuck and has been agonizing over that. As she tells me the detailed problems of her team, there’s a fragment of a quote from Proverbs forming in my mind, but I can’t remember it all. It’s something like:

The Lord’s blessings…don’t have sorrow with them…

Diane’s rightly attracted to all the analytical management tools to help her team improve. She seems convinced that using the tools is the answer to great performance. I’m saying to myself: “So why so much sorrow? Why isn’t she enjoying her talent far more?” Then I picture her near the bottom of a downward spiral staircase of sadness. Her belief that she and her team lacked something started her downward walk. The tools reinforced this when weakness was exposed, which in turn led to needing more of the tools to explain even more weakness. Her thinking about “folding ‘em” is at a point a long way down the steps. She’s struggling to find the way up.

Before continuing with Diane, here’s a quick quiz on the subject. There are two parts. 1. If a leadership strategy that focuses on customer service leads to more customer satisfaction, what does a leadership strategy that focuses on team members’ weaknesses produce? …That’s right, weaker team performance. Here’s a more difficult one. 2. If you focus on applying team diagnostic tools believing fervently they are the answer to a good team performance, what does good performance look like? Answer: very good application of team diagnostic tools (yielding lots more problems). Why? Because what you believe in and focus on you usually get. Diane’s put her belief, with a little misinterpretation of the message from the CEO, in the hype about talent gaps and the need for tools, so she’s tried to succeed by focusing on weakness. And that’s what she got — weak results, team frustration, anguish, late hours, plus her awful performance appraisal.

Diane needs to sing a different song, one based on the joy of using people’s strengths, especially her own. As her trusted coach it’s my job to help her realize what has led her to think about “folding ‘em.”

“You’re singing the wrong song to your team,” I say, as I pass Diane one of my simple spiritual self-calibration cards. “Just relax for a moment and read these new phrases and tell me which one you and your team should really be singing today.” [You can do this exercise yourself. I encourage you to read all 6 phrases before choosing.]

Wounded:     Watch your back mates, we’re all competing.

Unaware:     Never say what’s right before what’s wrong.

Learning:     We play to strength and learn from weakness.

Exhibiting:     Having fun together, playing to our strengths.

Leading:     I’m loving shaping our success by sharing our talents.

Mastering:     There’s no situation where our amazing talent won’t excel.

Diane reads the phrases and gives me an earnest look. “I’m in the ‘Unaware’ category, singing the song of weakness too much,” she says. As she’s thinking about it, she snaps her head with a jolt. “Ouch!……I’m horrified to tell you that I can’t actually remember what my people are good at. We’ve been talking so much about their development gaps that I’ve forgotten. I think I need to reconfigure the work and plug our gaps in other ways.”

May I ask you which song you are singing today? Have you put all your faith in improving results by overcoming weakness? If so, don’t be surprised if you become sad and go down the same spiral staircase as Diane. I urge you to invest in strengths, especially those deep hidden gifts that lift the team and yield a joyful song?

Diane’s analytical mind quickly jumps into action. She starts to draw a matrix of her people and their strengths. “Ask me again which song I’m singing next time we meet,” she says. “It’s going to be a lot happier.”

“I certainly will,” I say. “Let’s open ‘em, not fold ‘em.”

Later, back in my car, I pull out my trusted Bible and find that proverb I couldn’t quite recall. It is Proverbs 10:22:

The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.

Next time your job makes you sad, or angry, or frustrated, or resentful, try this: Turn away from the workplace commotion for a second and think about the successes you have achieved thus far in your life. Let your mind stay in that wonderful place for a few moments. Then say your quiet “Thank You” and move ahead with deeper certainty in a loving God who will continue to bless you. For ever.

Dr. Stephen G. Payne practices leadership strategy and executive coaching through his company Leadership Strategies in Princeton, N.J. A former CEO himself, Stephen works with leaders in companies small and large (including the likes of Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, AOL Time Warner, Abbott Laboratories, and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). Stephen is the author of First Rule of Leadership: Achieve Far More by Leading Your Self BEFORE You Lead Others.

I once interviewed American footballer Steve Largent who retired from the NFL with pretty much every record in the book: most receptions in a career (819), most receiving yards in a career (13,089), and most touchdown receptions (100).

I told Mr. Largent everything I knew about catching footballs, which consisted of hearing a high school coach say over and over, “Watch it in, watch it in.” I asked if he “watched it in” and he said, yes, he was advised early on to focus on the laces on the ball as it spiraled in. I thought that sounded pretty good but Largent said he found the practice a little loose for his purposes.

“So, what did you watch?” I asked the man who caught more balls than anyone before him. He showed me a football, holding it out so I could see where the four segments of the ball came together at the end.  “I focused on that cross,” he said “all the way into my hands.”

That, as some of my pastor friends like to say, will preach. The highest performers I know in every category focus at a level of detail most everyone else considers too granular to matter. They’re the ones who catch what the rest of us miss and add margin no one else bothered to notice.

• What do you see that others miss?
• Who threatens to eat your lunch by seeing more than you?
• What benchmark can you exceed by refining it to a new level of detail?

Paul S. Minear
Images of the Church in the New Testament, Westminster Press 1960Throughout the Bible, it is the person who works to whom most attention is given, rather than the form or conditions of his work…biblical writers emphasize the agent more than the act, the motive of the laborer more than the mode of his labor…the Bible is a book by workers, about workers, for workers.

Proverbs 31:10-18
25-28, New International VersionA wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.

She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.

Martin Luther King Jr.
A speech at Philadelphia’s Barratt Junior High School (cited by the Seattle Times), October 26, 1967 If you are called to be a street sweeper, sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

1 Corinthians 10:31
New International Version So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.