# Wise Parrots By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-04-08 It is easy to mimic the wisdom of others with a well-timed question or statement. One might even become fooled into thinking that this person is indeed wise. However, if you get the chance to ask for details or present a challenging paradox, you'll quickly learn that they really don't have anything other than the skill of parroting an idea. In fact, these people are almost exclusively parrots. They say things without substance once you dive just a little bit deeper. Beware of these parrots who are in positions of power. Their ability to say wise things and not be wise is obscured by their positional power. Where a peer may not get away with shallow wisdom, we are trained and conditioned to give leaders and managers the benefit of the doubt. We might believe they are wise for far too long and only come to our senses when it is too late. How many organizations have fallen into this situation? More than can be effectively counted. It is the downside of modern organizational hierarchies. The upside is collective, industrialized efficiency. To discover if a manager is a wise person or a parrot, it's best to listen to them and reflect on their statements. Sometime later, ask them to expand their statement in a very specific way or for a very specific situation. If they immediately respond with nonsense that sounds smart but is just the words repeated differently, you have a parrot on your hands. If they say something completely different or ask to think more about it before responding, they might be wise. But this is no guarantee. Continue to assess and question. Along the way, you might become the wise one. #### Related Items [[Wisdom]] [[Thinking]] [[Management]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[Leadership]] [[Power]] [[Reality]] [[Paradox]]