#13: Learning Fast in a New Job

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you will get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. So my guest today is Courtney Monroe, the CEO of the National Geographic Global Networks. And she's also one of the high-payoff learners I profiled in my last book, Be Bad First, and a great example of someone who's had to learn fast in a big new job. So welcome, Courtney. It's so good to have you with us.

Thank you, Erika. I am honored to be here.

So you and I have been working together since you became a first-time CEO a couple of years ago, and you've done such a good job at that that I thought you'd be the ideal person to help our listeners get better at the kind of rapid on-the-job learning that most of us need to do all the time these days.

Yeah, I, I, it hasn't, you know, I think it doesn't stop. I mean, I, it is a really, it's an every, it's an everyday thing. Every day I look back at the day before and say, oh, look at that. Look how I learned that. Or, oh, if I had only known yesterday what I now know today, what a better decision I might have made. So I think it's a sort of a never-ending process, which I think is a good and energizing thing.

Well, and I love that you're saying that because that's, as you know, the whole premise of the Be Bad First book. And I think it's accurate. I think anybody— I mean, I'm sure there are some jobs where you just do the same thing every day, but they're getting fewer and fewer. And I think most people We need to get better at learning how to do new things all the time.

Absolutely.

So let's just roll into it. As you know, I have a couple of questions for you. So what, as you think back to when you were a new CEO, what did you find some of the biggest learning challenges were?

I think by far the biggest challenge for me was not knowing what I didn't know because it's one thing if you don't know the answers, but you at least know the questions to ask.

Yeah.

Right? If you— but if you don't even know what questions you should be asking, 'cause you may not even sort of have enough context to do that, that to me was sort of the most daunting aspect of the job, is sort of not knowing what I don't know and constantly feeling like I should be doing things, but I don't even know what they are. I probably should be looking into certain issues. I don't necessarily know what they are. I'm not exactly sure what questions, am I asking all the right questions? That's the most daunting part. I've sort of gotten to the point now where I feel at least more comfortable knowing what questions I should be asking more of, or sort of what issues I probably need to learn more of, but in the beginning, I didn't even know what those issues were.

Yeah, over the years, we've realized that that's one of the core things about being a novice is you don't know What you don't know. So how did you— what did you do to overcome that? How did you find out what it was that you needed to know?

I think what I did most is be very open about that fact and sort of not embarrassed about that fact and very, you know, kind of overt and told people around me, my team, not to assume anything, you know, not to assume that I knew what questions I should be asking them, you know, to sort of invite them to, you know, be patronizing, you know, be—

Yeah.

You know, don't assume. And, you know, be— I was okay with being vulnerable. And I think you have a window of time. I mean, look, I'm that way all the time, but I think you certainly have a window of time, particularly in the beginning, where the expectation isn't that you know everything, 'cause you're— brand new in a new job. I think you take advantage of that time and you let people in and you invite people to help. And I remember sometimes saying to people, okay, explain this to me as if I'm in 5th grade.

Mm-hmm.

I had a 5th grader at the time. And, and that was super helpful because there may be brand new complex business issues that I was sort of learning about for the first time. I'm a quick learner. If you tell me what the issues are and present it to me, I can synthesize that quickly and help make informed decisions and ask follow-up questions. But I might not, you know, have any command of the information out of the gate. So I would say to people, you know, this is what I know really, really well. These are areas that are brand new to me, and I need your help.

Sure.

And just explain it to me, and really don't assume I understand it all. Don't assume that just because I'm not asking you, I must have that answer or it's not important. Explain it to me as if I'm in 5th grade. I promise you, you'll only have to do that once.

You're talking about something that I think is so essential and that you're particularly good at, which is being willing to acknowledge your novice-ness. We talk about this a lot, that having that internal mindset that, how could I know this? I've never done this before. Of course I don't know it. It's so hard for people. And once you open up to that, people around you can help, which kind of leads me to my second question, which is— and you're already talking about this, really— that as leaders, we can also have a huge impact on how our employees learn or don't. So how do you see yourself as a leader making it easier for your folks to also be great learners?

I think you just have to model good behavior and model the behavior that you want to see in others. So, you know, if others see me as being comfortable asking what somebody might think is a really obvious dumb question in the room, but if I don't know the answer to it, then I should be asking that question. And so modeling that and showing people that it's fine to be that, and you can be super smart, incredibly qualified leader, but you don't have all the answers, right? If it were that easy, then every company would just be run by one person, right?

Yeah.

So it takes experts and domain experts And, you know, I like to always say, you know, the best thing that I can do as a leader is surround myself with people who are smarter than me, more expert than me, and then my job is, you know, to synthesize that and collectively make the right decisions. But, you know, the best thing I can do is kind of model that behavior, model the behavior of a learner, model the behavior of somebody who's willing to learn, acknowledges the need to learn every day, isn't right all the time, doesn't have all the answers. Because that's a dangerous thing. It's a dangerous thing if somebody— and it's a reckless thing in any position in the company. It doesn't matter if you're at the top or you're in the middle or you're towards the bottom.

Pretend that you have all the answers.

Pretend you have all the answers. And I think that just comes with experience and maturity and confidence. When I first started working at the age of 21, I was afraid to show that I didn't know things because then I thought people would think that I wasn't smart or I wasn't capable enough. I just didn't have enough context and maturity to know that why would somebody think that right out of college I would know how to do all this? The whole point is that I was learning, right? That just takes time. I just think if people see the person at the top willing to operate that way and behave that way, then they'll feel comfortable doing that too, and you'll have a company of lifelong learners, which is exactly what you want.

Yeah. I love what you're saying. I think that's exactly right. Modeling is so powerful. It makes it normal. And especially if people, as I know you do, do it in public. If leaders are willing in a meeting to say, wait, I don't know much about that. Can you, as you said, can you explain it to me like I'm in 5th grade? I mean, because you know everyone in the meeting is sitting there going, wow, she's our boss and she's saying that? I guess it's okay to not know everything.

It also might instill them with Complete lack of confidence in me at the top. But my hope is that's not the case. And my hope is— and look, I think there does come a point in your tenure where you should no longer have it, you know, be having to ask some of all those obvious questions, right? So I have enough confidence in myself at this point to know that you aren't going to have to explain it to me like a 5th grader 10 times, right?

Right.

So I'm, you know, and I think as long as people see that in you and as long as you see that in your team and the people that report to you, that's a great thing. You have tons of confidence in those people. It's a different situation if it goes on and on and on.

And that's the other— so to complete the loop, I think that— I think what you're saying is if you are confident enough to say in public with your employees, hey, I don't know much about this. Can you explain it to me? And they go, wow. And they think it's probably good, but some of them might be thinking, geez, I've never seen an executive do this. Does it mean she's an idiot?

Right.

But then if you immediately, as you say, learn, if you use your native curiosity and your willingness to be bad first to then move ahead quickly so that you don't, as you say, have to ask them 10 times, that's maybe the only time you have to have it explained to you as a 5th grader, and then the questions that you ask subsequent to that are clear that you're learning and building up your knowledge in this area, then people Absolutely start to see it as a good thing. One of the reasons people don't do this is because they think it will make them look weak or unconfident. But in my experience, what you're saying is absolutely true, that people are willing to do this when they are confident, and usually it looks confident. Like, if you're the leader in a meeting, you're going, hey, I don't understand that very well, can you explain to me this and that? That looks, you know, really confident.

I think that's exactly right. And I think people confuse that sometimes, and they think that they need to have all the answers and appear all buttoned up. And that's such a dangerous thing, I think, for organizations and such an unfortunate thing for individuals because then it's— then at some point you're going to have imposter syndrome because it's like, I don't really know what I'm doing.

Right? I'm just pretending. Yes.

I'm just pretending. And you're not doing— and ultimately that reveals itself to people. So, you know, I also think that people like to be brought in, you know, and feel valuable and feel respected. So when you're asking them their opinion and you're acknowledging that they are more of an expert— I may be the boss, but I acknowledge and respect the fact that you know more about this than I do. I think that makes people feel good and instills them with confidence, you know, and feel valuable.

Yeah.

And everybody wants to feel valuable. Everybody wants to feel respected, you know. And so I think that it has the added So it has the added benefit aside from helping you get up to speed and learn, it has the added value of instilling good feelings and confidence in the people around you.

Yeah.

I do think in order for this to work, you have to surround yourself with the right people so that you're learning from the right people.

Yes.

And sometimes that takes time because if you don't know what you don't know, it may be too— you need some time to assess, are these people the right People for me to be seeking as my, you know, council of advisors.

They have to be good sources.

They have to be good sources, and sometimes that takes a little while to suss out till you have more command in the job.

Yeah. So if we had to— if you had to, from your experience over this last couple years, and I get the feeling from your whole work life, pick one piece of advice that you would give to people starting in a kind of bigger new job, what would that be?

Be willing to show vulnerability.

That's great. In all the ways that we've talked about for the last 10 or 15 minutes.

Correct.

Yeah, that's great. Correct.

Because I just think it's the only way you're gonna learn. And you have this great runway, particularly in the beginning, to be soaking it all in. But you've gotta be willing, and you've gotta be willing to ask the questions and invite it in, or you never get that opportunity. You can't do that 3 years into a big job. It's too late at that point.

Yeah. Yes. And it creates— I mean, I'm just reinforcing everything you've been saying. When leaders do show that vulnerability, it creates such a great environment for other people to be able to do the same thing, other people to come to you when things aren't going well or when they don't understand something rather than trying to hide it from you or trying to gut it out.

Right. And I think it has the other added benefit of just right out of the gate, creating a really transparent, open dialogue with your teams, which is what you want on an ongoing basis. So people feel like they can say what they need to, to you. And the things that you might not even want to hear, but that's so critical.

But that you need to hear.

Yeah, but that you need to hear. And you need to create an environment and foster an environment where that's not only Permissible, it's invited.

Yeah, that's great. So thank you so much, Courtney. I really think this will be helpful to anyone who's listening since we all have to do this all the time. We're all—

Good.

Well, you know what? Having the conversation is just a good reminder for me too. Oh, that's great. So yeah, so thank you very much.

You're welcome. And for everybody who's listening, if you're interested in finding out more about this topic of how to become a great learner, a master of mastery, just go to BeBadFirst.com for lots of free resources. We'll talk again soon. Until then, here's to creating the life you most want.

We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at proudestleader.com. Have an excellent day. And thanks for listening.