If there’s one quality I believe defines wisdom in the workplace more than any other, it is the capacity for holistic or systems thinking that allows one to get the “gist” of something by synthesizing a wide variety of information quickly.

The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote, “If wisdom were offered me on the one condition that I should keep it shut away and not divulge it to anyone, I should reject it. There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with.” Think of your workplace as a potluck with each person having their own special recipes and dishes to be shared. In the next chapter, we’ll take that perspective and apply it to the final lesson: how you can give wise counsel to those who seek it.

When confronted with the empirical and evaluative complexity that faces us, it can be easy to feel clueless, as if there’s nothing at all we can do. But that would be too pessimistic. Even if we’re walking backwards into the future—and even if the terrain we’re walking on is unexplored, it’s dark and foggy, and we have few clues to guide us—nonetheless, some plans are smarter than others. We can employ three rules of thumb.

To put its wisdom simply, one could say the fundamental human challenge is this:

It’s hard to learn if you already know.

Unfortunately, we are hardwired to feel as if we know—as if we see reality itself rather than a version of reality filtered through our biases, backgrounds, or expertise. But we can unlearn the habit of knowing and reinvigorate our curiosity.

Thoreau taught, “How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?