Being The Dumbest Person In The Room Can Be The Smartest Thing You Can Do
There are moments when your opinion is not needed and your involvement is not required.
There are times when you will find yourself in a group of people - be it a party, a conference, or a meeting - when the smartest thing you could ever do is be dumb. It allows you to navigate the situation with full curiosity and gives you access to honesty that being “smart” might shut down. Allow me to explain.
Being the dumbest person in the room involves 2 things:
Asking stupid questions.
Letting other people talk.
JARGON IS WHERE GOOD IDEAS GO TO DIE
As soon as someone pipes up with a jargon laden diatribe, this is your queue to ask some stupid questions. Jargon is created innocently from the need for people who talk about the same thing often with one another to say something quickly. Jargon is used as a shorthand to get a lot of information out efficiently. If you happen to be privy to such jargon - bully for you. If not, listening to it sounds like babble.
The problem with jargon is that people can use it to mask what they don’t know. And people do it a lot. This is where being a moron works its magic.
If you know the jargon, asking stupid questions can expose either the speaker’s deft knowledge of the underlying information or someone who is using jargon as cover to their own shortcomings (AKA bullshitting).
If you do not know the jargon, asking stupid questions forces people to explain it to you, which clarifies what is being said. It also forces the speaker to reconsider what they are saying. Often jargon doesn’t exactly convey the correct message and glosses over some of the nitty-gritty.
Exposing the nitty-gritty is pretty smart.
PEOPLE WILL TALK IF YOU LET THEM
Everyone has something they are passionate about and if you are able to suss out that particular subject matter, they will go on for days. It’s fun to discover that lode. Asking stupid questions gives people the freedom to transfer their knowledge - their passion - onto you.
Even if you consider yourself well versed on a subject, assume everyone knows something more about something than you do (because they probably do) - and seek to find it. Asking stupid questions shows people you are interested in learning, and people love to impart their wisdom. Also, people love to be the smart one. So let them. They will share with you all sorts of secrets if you’re willing to learn1.
BE A MORON LIKE A BOSS
Sometimes the stupid question is the question everyone else wants an answer for but are too afraid to ask for fear of looking like a moron. Be that moron. Take the hit. I have been a part of far too many conversations, conferences, and meetings where no questions were asked only to find out later that no one knew what the hell was being talked about.
I have also been there when the dumb question is asked and it opens the floodgates. Be the person who asks the dumb question.
Q) “Any questions?”
A) “Hell yeah. Respectfully, what the hell are you talking about?2”
By being the dumbest person in the room you will discover one of two things:
You are, indeed, the dumbest person in the room (time to shut up and learn).
You are, in fact, the smartest person in the room (time to ask questions and learn).
Knowing either of those things provides valuable insight. Being dumb can make you look pretty smart.
SMART & HAPPY, BABY
We can only make good decisions with good information. It is, therefore, imperative to find good information. If you walk in thinking you are the smart one, you build your own blind spot. You don’t know what you don’t know and inadvertently put up barriers to learn from others.
Being a moron opens up a font of curiosity. It allows you to either learn something completely new or come at knowledge from a completely different angle. Being dumb helps make you smarter.
Everyone wants to be the smartest person in the room. There are moments when your opinion is not needed and your involvement is not required. Give people the floor, let them strut their stuff, and show off what they got. And then learn from it. Showing interest in a person’s knowledge is the highest form of compliment. As we know, a complement can make a person happy. We are here to find happiness in the happiness of others. So…
Being dumb can make you happy.
(This is easily the dumbest conclusion I have ever come to, but then again it might also be the smartest)
At the risk of ruining future negotiations, I have had high powered people reveal their weaknesses and expose their motives by allowing them to “teach” me what I “didn’t know”.
This example is being used for comedic effect. Please be more tactful than this.