Big Think

Question: A Personal Philosophy?

Robert Hormats: I’ve several elements of a personal philosophy. One is respect others. Respect the views of others. Don’t be dismissive. If people disagree with you, don’t simply dismiss their arguments. Listen to their arguments. You may, in the end, not agree with them; but respect people’s ability to have different points of view which in some cases can be just as valid as your own.

The second is integrity. If you can’t exhibit integrity in the way you deal with other people, then you’re not really much of a person yourself, and ultimately people will see it.

Third, avoid a big ego. One of the most crushing burdens people have, I found, is if they have a big ego. Because it causes them not to pay much attention to others if they think everything they do, everything they think is correct. You’re not going to be a good listener. You’re not going to be willing to take criticism.

First of all you alienate other people. Second, you’re deprived of the benefit of hearing other views that could be very valid and might well be much more valid than your own.

And the other is to see what you do in terms of working with other people. If you’re willing to share credit for success, you’re going to get a lot more people who are going to be on your team. Whereas if you insist on dominating them, and if you insist on taking credit for everything good that happens and blaming everything bad on someone else, you’re not going to get much done in life.

You have to include others and make others feel that they’re part of your team; not by guise or by sleight of hand, but by really creating a sense of teamwork, and by hearing them out by ensuring that their views count; making them feel that they are part of the process because they have to be part of the process. All the problems we face today are so significant that one person, or even a small group of people are not going to resolve them.

You’re not going to change anything in Washington [D.C.] with one or two people deciding that they know best and no one else knows anything. You have to really engage them.

And the same is true in a company. You have to really engage other people and listen to them, pay attention to them. Engage them in the process and share credit. If you don’t do that, your ability to succeed is very limited.

Recorded On: July 25, 2007