Humility Is the New Smart

Edward D. Hess and Katherine Ludwig

Humility Is the New Smart Your job is at risk-if not now, then soon. We are on the leading edge of a Smart Machine Age led by artificial intelligence that will be as transformative for us as the Industrial Revolution was for our ancestors. Smart machines will take over millions of jobs in manufacturing, office work, the service sector, the professions, you name it. Not only can they know more data and analyze it faster than any mere human, say Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig, but smart machines are free of the emotional, psychological, and cultural baggage that so often mars human thinking. So we can't beat 'em and we can't join 'em. To stay relevant, we have to play a different game. Hess and Ludwig offer us that game plan. We need to excel at critical, creative, and innovative thinking and at genuinely engaging with others-things machines can't do well. The key is to change our definition of what it means to be smart. Hess and Ludwig call it being NewSmart. In this extraordinarily timely book, they offer detailed guidance for developing NewSmart attitudes and four critical behaviors that will help us adapt to the new reality. The crucial mindset underlying NewSmart is humility-not self-effacement but an accurate self-appraisal: acknowledging you can't have all the answers, remaining open to new ideas, and committing yourself to lifelong learning. Drawing on extensive multidisciplinary research, Hess and Ludwig emphasize that the key to success in this new era is not to be more like the machines but to excel at the best of what makes us human.

Contents Introduction: Why You Should Read This Book 1 Part 1 A New Mental Model for the Smart Machine Age 1  The Smart Machine Age: A New Game Requires New Rules 15 
 2  NewSmart: A New Definition of “Smart” 35 
 3  Humility: The Gateway to Human Excellence in the SMA 59 
 Part 2 NewSmart Behaviors 
 4  Quieting Ego 79 
 5  Managing Self: Thinking and Emotions 95 
 6  Reflective Listening 115 
 7  Otherness: Emotionally Connecting and Relating to Others 123 
 8  Your NewSmart Behaviors Assessment Tool 133 
 Part 3 The NewSmart Organization 
 9  Leading a NewSmart Organization 153 
 Your NewSmart Organizational Assessment Tool 183 Epilogue: Our Invitation to You 187 Notes 189 Recommended Reading 201 Acknowledgments 205 Index 207 About the Authors 212