Humility - 10 SMART skills to become better people!

“Humility is such an important skill at Asia School of Business (ASB) that it is part of our admissions criteria! As professors, we have learnt that only humble people can learn. As our president and dean, Prof. Charles Fine says, “The world is full of smart and arrogant individuals; give me the smart and humble ones!”

Humility is not the belief that we are not talented or intelligent, but an awareness of the limitations of our knowledge, judgments, and understanding.

Humility leads to curiosity, to openness, to collaboration. Humble people ask great questions, are interested in new ideas, listen, learn new ways of doing things, and are willing and flexible to build mutually beneficial partnerships.

In this chapter, Prof. Renato Lima-de-Oliveira will speak on humility. He was my first choice when thinking about a spokesperson for humility. A Ph.D. graduate from MIT in political science, he demonstrated from day one a deep curiosity for learning and collaboration. When I asked him to speak about humility for this book, he said, “I don't think I’m worthy of this task; there are others who are so much better!” Case in point!”