So, the first thing we need to do to stay open-minded is question our assumptions. The second thing that we should do is exhibit intellectual humility. I came across this term last year in an article about hiring practices at Google. the article said Google likes to hire people who exhibit Intellectual Humility. This term caught my attention because I remembered it from college. I took a lot of philosophy classes in college. In fact, I could have minored in philosophy. But to have a minor, my college required us to pay an extra $36 fee. All you got for that $ 36 was they would print minors in, and in this case, philosophy on the bottom of your diploma. Well, wasn't going to be $26 just to that printed on my diploma, so I don't have minor in Philosophy. So when I came across the term intellectual humility, I remembered it, but didn't remember what it meant. So I had to Google it. Perhaps if I'd paid for the minor, wouldn't have had Google. Anyway, intellectual humanity is an idea from John Stuart Mill back in the 19th century. Mill said it was a virtue to be able to imagine one of your most fundamental beliefs being wrong. Intellectual humility also has to do with understanding the boundary between what we know and what merely believe. As an example, I think sprints or iterations are a good thing. I don't have any proof of that, but I do think there is something valuable about a team getting together at the start of a period of time, deciding what to and then getting to the end of the period and seeing how they did. I believe that sprints are valuable. I have no scientific proof of that. It would be intellectually arrogant of me, the opposite of intellectual humility, if I were to claim this as a fact. So, intellectual humanity has to do with knowing what you don't know. And I'm going to repeat that, Intellectual humility has do to with what knowing you do not know, Here's a good example of a time when I was not intellectually humble. A couple of years ago, I asked a question while teaching a Scrum Master class. I don't remember the exact question. And the specific question isn't really important. But it was one of those, who does such and such in Scum questions? And I knew the answer was the Sc rum master. So I opened my mouth to say that. Before I could answer, Someone from the other side of the room yells out, the team. And he was right. My lack of intellectual humility had me ready to answer a question without pausing to really think about it first. Shortly after this, I read an article in the New York Times about a professor from The University of Chicago. This professor had a great attitude that really captured intellectual humanity for me. He said, When you're teaching, always assume there is a silent student in the class who knows more than you do. I remind myself of that as I start each scrum class. i want to share one more example of a lack of intellectual humility. Anyone without talent who has ever appeared on America's Got Talent. Think about some of the horrible singers who show up on TV and we laugh at how bad they are. They must know they can't sing. Well, it turns out they don't know. This is due to something called the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Duning- Kruger Effect says that the less you know about a subject, the least you think there is to know that subject. It's what lets amateurs think they're experts. A horrible singer on America's Got Talent is a little better than her friends, so she thinks she's talented. Her friends don't want to hurt her feelings, so they let her believe it. All of a sudden, she's on national television. Instead of going on TV, She might want stop first and think, I could be wrong about my talent. The less we know about something and the less experience we have doing it, the worse we are at gauging the depth of our knowledge.