Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work

by Liz Wiseman

Overview

Wall Street Journal Bestseller

Is it possible to be at your best even when you are underqualified or doing something for the first time? Is it still possible, even after decades of experience, to recapture the enthusiasm, curiosity, and fearlessness of youth to take on new challenges? With the right mindset—with Rookie Smarts—you can.

In a rapidly changing world, experience can be a curse. Careers stall, innovation stops, and strategies grow stale. Being new, naïve, and even clueless can be an asset. For today’s knowledge workers, constant learning is more valuable than mastery.

In this essential guide, leadership expert Liz Wiseman explains how to reclaim and cultivate this curious, flexible, youthful mindset called Rookie Smarts. She argues that the most successful rookies are hunter-gatherers—alert and seeking, cautious but quick like firewalkers, and hungry and relentless like pioneers. Most importantly, she identifies a breed of leaders she refers to as “perpetual rookies.” Despite years of experience, they retain their rookie smarts, thinking and operating with the mindsets and practices of these high-performing rookies.

Rookie Smarts addresses the questions every experienced professional faces: “Will my knowledge and skills become obsolete and irrelevant? Will a young, inexperienced newcomer upend my company or me? How can I keep up?” The answer is to stay fresh, keep learning, and know when to think like a rookie.

Rookie Smarts isn’t just for professionals seeking personal renewal; it is an indispensible resource for all leaders who must ensure their workforces remains vital and competitive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062322630
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/14/2014
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	245,858
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Liz Wiseman is a researcher and executive advisor who teaches leadership to executives around the world.  She is the author of New York Times bestseller Multipliers:  How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, The Multiplier Effect:  Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools, and Wall Street Journal bestseller Rookie Smarts:  Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work. 

She is the CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California.  Some of her recent clients include:  Apple, AT&T, Disney, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Salesforce, Tesla, and Twitter.  Liz has been listed on the Thinkers50 ranking and named one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world.   

She has conducted significant research in the field of leadership and collective intelligence and writes for Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and a variety of other business and leadership journals.  A former executive at Oracle Corporation, she worked over the course of 17 years as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for Human Resource Development. 

She is a frequent guest lecturer at BYU and Stanford University.  Liz holds a Bachelors degree in Business Management and a Masters of Organizational Behavior from Brigham Young University.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I Rookie Smarts: Living on the Learning Curve

1 The Rise of the Rookie 17

2 Backpackers: An Unencumbered Mind 45

3 Hunter-Gatherers: Finding Expertise 72

4 Firewalkers: Moving Cautiously but Quickly 99

5 Pioneers: Forging Ahead 123

Part II Cultivating Rookie Smarts

6 The Perpetual Rookie 143

7 Rookie Revival 162

8 The Rookie Organization 187

Acknowledgments 223

Appendix A The Research Process 227

Appendix B Frequently Asked Questions 232

Appendix C Learning Experiments 241

Appendix D Learning Itineraries 249

Appendix E Rookies and Perpetual Rookies 259

Appendix F Discussion Fire Starter 263

Notes 269

Index 277

Editorial Reviews

08/04/2014
Given the author’s experience—Wiseman (Multipliers) helped build Oracle’s corporate university and is the president of a Silicon Valley–based research and development firm—it’s no shock that she offers an exceptional guide to staying vital in the changing marketplace. Wiseman targets mid-level professionals who want to revitalize their careers, as well as company leaders who want to invigorate their workforce. Her premise is simple: in a culture “obsessed with youth,” the key to success comes from “thinking young.” Wiseman explains why a rookie or “newcomer” approach will often be more effective than a tried-and-true strategy. For example, while the experienced manager will “collaborate alone,” a rookie rounds up a “network of experts.” A rookie who lacks “situational confidence” will pay more attention to negative feedback and work harder than an experienced counterpart. Each chapter concludes with a helpful summary that compares rookie and veteran behavior. Throughout, Wiseman cites a wide array of successful rookies and “perpetual rookies,” from the founder of Spanx (an example of “relentless resourcefulness”) to basketball great Magic Johnson, to photographer Annie Leibovitz, to business consultant Peter Drucker. Useful “discussion fire starters” are peppered throughout and gathered in an appendix for quick reference. For readers who are struggling to catch up with changing business needs, this book is a must read. Agent: Shannon Marvin, Dupree Miller & Associates. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Given the author’s experience it’s no shock that she offers an exceptional guide to staying vital in the changing marketplace. . . . For readers who are struggling to catch up with changing business needs, this book is a must read.” — Publishers Weekly

“Wiseman masterfully shows why novices can outdo veterans, expertise blinds us to fresh ideas, and the brilliance of newbies remains untapped. With sage insights and fascinating examples, Rookie Smarts is a must-read.” — Adam Grant, Wharton professor and bestselling author of Give and Take

Rookie Smarts gives you a practical roadmap to rediscovering the open, curious, creative mind inside you. If you want to be a learning machine, improving and growing every year, this is the book for you. — Laszlo Bock, SVP of People Operations, Google, Inc. and author of Work Rules!

Agility, resilience, grit, and a growth mindset—these are the skills effective leaders need in a changing world. In Rookie Smarts, Wiseman shows leaders at every age and at every stage of their careers how to master these skills — Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor of Business, University of Michigan & Partner, the RBL Group

Wiseman’s brilliant and unusually imaginative gem shows you how to keep learning and questioning even your most prized beliefs, how to avoid becoming a boring clone condemned to marching in lock-step with your equally dull colleagues, and how to build vibrant workplaces — Robert Sutton, Stanford Professor and co-author of Scaling Up Excellence

“…both a rich and rewarding read and a practical guide for individual leaders and for those responsible for developing talent in their organization.” — Developing Leaders

From the Publisher

Wiseman’s brilliant and unusually imaginative gem shows you how to keep learning and questioning even your most prized beliefs, how to avoid becoming a boring clone condemned to marching in lock-step with your equally dull colleagues, and how to build vibrant workplaces

Robert Sutton

Rookie Smarts gives you a practical roadmap to rediscovering the open, curious, creative mind inside you. If you want to be a learning machine, improving and growing every year, this is the book for you.

Laszlo Bock

Agility, resilience, grit, and a growth mindset—these are the skills effective leaders need in a changing world. In Rookie Smarts, Wiseman shows leaders at every age and at every stage of their careers how to master these skills

Dave Ulrich

…both a rich and rewarding read and a practical guide for individual leaders and for those responsible for developing talent in their organization.

Developing Leaders

Wiseman masterfully shows why novices can outdo veterans, expertise blinds us to fresh ideas, and the brilliance of newbies remains untapped. With sage insights and fascinating examples, Rookie Smarts is a must-read.

Adam Grant

Through robust research and down-to-earth examples, Rookie Smarts shows that inexperience can actually be a powerful gain for organizations.

Bill Hybels

2014-09-21
Wiseman (co-author: The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools, 2014, etc.) provides a big boost for first-time employees and others who refuse to be bound by arbitrary limits. The author poses a fundamental question: "If the amount of information in science doubles every nine months and decays at 30 percent a year, how long does one's expertise last?" She contends that as technology continues to advance, the time frame dramatically shortens. People will be lucky to be current on just 15 percent of what they knew after five years. Therefore, the premium on new knowledge, as opposed to experience, is growing. Wiseman presents an array of case studies, including those from her own experience with Nike and her organization of Oracle's in-house university. These demonstrate that leaders who understand how to unleash the potentials of their rookies and junior people can reap outsized results. At Nike, rookies were given the task of educating a conference of executives on their views of the future. They performed so well that they were organized into an informal group called the "New Crew." The group is now formalized and contains 300 members, "with top-performing employees contributing and then rotating out of the group after one year, making way for other fresh talent." Wiseman points to global organizations that are opening up their leadership ranks to younger people, and she highlights studies about how, in certain nations, when "ruling elites have pulled up the ladder and kept newcomers from getting a foothold, their economies have suffocated and died." The author views rookie smarts as a "state of mind" characterizing open-minded love of inquiry into the new. She examines four different profiles of this state of mind, each of which encompasses its own set of defining characteristics, and she highlights how they may be encouraged and strengthened. An exciting promotion of lifelong discovery and enthusiasm as answers to routine and business as usual.

Kirkus Reviews