The art of acting stupid

I had a friend that was a brilliant young leader that always did something very interesting. In every conversation with someone he would act like he was completely ignorant on virtually every subject. He would always say, "I don't really know anything about it, tell me what you know." Sometimes he would say that and I would know that he actually knew way more about the subject than the person he was talking to. I asked him about it and he said, "if other people think you don't know anything, then thy feel less intimidated and more confident to share their thoughts. I can learn a lot from someone if they think I am ignorant." This was a brilliant statement. He spends the majority of his time listening and hoping to learn something new.

I recently read a quote by an insanely smart leadership expert (Argyris), "“one should advocate one’s not-knowing, becoming a learner and trying to get others to do likewise, thereby diffusing responsibility for learning; and ‘the process of learning must ultimately be made part of the [organizations] culture." This is a really fancy way of saying what my friend said. Whew, so maybe it's okay to act stupid.