Over the course of a long career, I have seen people dismissed because of their social status, their education, what they wear, their hair style, their physique. This is a massive-colossal-mistake in my humble opinion!
I have worked with some of the brightest people I have ever met. And they didn't have Bachelor's Degree's, Master's Degrees, or PhD's. Often, they are mistakenly dismissed by those that do.
I never mistake level of education with intelligence. In my opinion, you don't need a post-secondary education to be intelligent.
I am perpetually in awe at the intelligence of people. The cleverness. The thoughtfulness. Doesn't matter what size you are, how you look, your education level, the people I have met and work with in my life have absolutely made me not only a better person but helped me learn as well. For everything, a sincere Thank you!
You can have a room full of advanced degrees, a collective 432.623654 GPA, $2.5M worth of education from revered learning institutions try to figure out a stop-gap solution for empty boxes running down the manufacturing line making it into the delivery of the customer for very long periods of time, all to be cleverly outsmarted by the shop-floor worker plugging-in and propping up a box fan that blows the empty boxes off the manufacturing line.
I have seen the quietest person deep in the back of the room (who you thought wasn't listening) blurt-out the most brilliant solution to the problem that the rest of the team wouldn't have thought of in a thousand years.
If you excluded this guy from your problem-solving team, you might have made an error in judgement...
There are those who think differently than you may think. My recommendation is to absolutely include them in your team! Regardless, they can offer insights that you and the rest of the team would never have thought of. Listen to them. Develop a deeper understanding of their proposed solutions, their thought process, their reasoning. Don't just dismiss them because they didn't go to 8 years of the school that had the fanciest, illegible printed font on the esteemed degree, or that their physique isn't part of a "social norm".
Again, people are smart. They are intelligent. Regardless of education, they can have some of the cleverest solutions to problems that you and the rest of the team may have never thought of. Don't dismiss them. Listen and learn from them. Include them in your team.
I'm curious... What is the most impressive simple solution to a difficult problem that you have ever encountered? What impressed you most about the brilliance and intelligence of people that may have been underestimated?
-Next Level Lean Six Sigma
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