Show vs. Tell

It was a circus of self promotion. The first day of business school, and everyone was eager to showcase who they were, and assert their position in the pecking order. I went into it knowing it was going to happen. I’m told it always happens. I vowed that I would excuse myself from this exercise. My abstinence lasted all of 20 minutes, I jumped in with everybody.

What I realize now is that it wasn’t really everybody.

It was most of us, but there was a minority of folks who did more listening than talking. More learning about the rest of us than teaching us about them selves.

Further, I see clearly now that those people who sat back and watched the circus were the more established, higher profile, more powerful students in my class, and I was able to figure that out without them telling me.  Their position in the business world became clear in the way they collaborate, in the way they think and respond to questions, in the way they treat others and the way they treat themselves.

These people realized a huge advantage over the rest of us.

We never saw them coming.

We didn’t know who they were until they started acting, making decisions, responding to situations. It wasn’t that the bar was low for them, we just didn’t know where it was.

So when they did act—with no pressure to perform (recall we didn’t know what their expertise was; the rest of us had written big checks that would all be cashed) they all casually and confidently performed exceptionally.