What Might You Learn From An Owl?
There is a story about an owl who watched things going on around him. It might contain a lesson for you and me.
One day the owl watched a young boy help an old man with a heavy burden. On another day he watched a young child shouting at its mother. On another day the owl listened to people telling each other stories. In the story, the more the owl watched the less it talked. The story suggests that the more the owl watched the wiser it became. The moral was “talk less and listen more…and become wiser.”
My take was/is a little different.
Some of us are compelled to pontificate (express our opinion in an overpowering manner) before we have all the facts. They have to assume the “all-knowing” position. They can’t help it. Is that you?
And then, there are some who don’t presume they have all the answers and just have to be the first to interject an opinion or an answer. They are the “READY FIRE AIM” folks. Is that you?
As a “boss or supervisor,” you can’t just “sit on the sideline” and observe. But, there is a balance you can adopt of being willing to “watch and learn”, to gather information before jumping to a conclusion.
People respect humility as an indicator of confidence, that attitude that “maybe I might learn something” that will make my ultimate decision more informed and therefore more easily acceptable by those my decision might affect.
“WHO,” said that? (Did you get the relate?) IKR
Remember what Yogi once said? “You can hear a lot just by listening.”