Whether you believe someone else has something to teach you, or you don’t, you’re right.

This is advice that I recently shared in a presentation to Chief Data and Analytics Officers, as a variant of “whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” Your attitude in how you approach a situation, especially one in which you’re likely to disagree with someone, has a huge impact on how it goes.

For an example of this, look at Twitter or any other online forum. You can find arguments everywhere, and at varying levels of quality. One of the most consistent patterns, though, is increasing tension and viciousness as an argument goes on. It’s so rare to see de-escalation and concession that it’s remarkable when you find an example of it. Much of this is because most people approach these discussions with the attitude that they’re already right and they’re there to teach, not to learn. Those who instead approach with an attitude of wanting to learn are more likely to find common ground, ask questions that give better understanding, and as a byproduct reduce tension in the discussion. At the end of the day, these people and many of their observers walk away smarter.

It’s natural to want to tell people what you think. Sharing knowledge is valuable, and teaching is a commendable activity for anyone in business. But you should be spending at least as much time learning as you are teaching. Otherwise, what do you have to teach? Take inventory of how you spend your time interacting with others, and consider which you spend more doing- considering you may be wrong (and have something to learn), or insisting you’re right (and have nothing to learn)?

Anyone with substantial Analytics background is likely already well-grounded in taking a Bayesian approach to things. Simply put, this means knowing what your “priors” or existing beliefs are and how strongly you hold them, then updating them constantly as new information comes in. This is generally a great approach to learning, but over time it comes with a catch.

As we age, we mature, become more well-rounded, and lose some of our rougher edges. We gain a wider breadth of experiences. We also gain more depth to our experiences, which reinforces our priors and makes them stronger and more closely held. This makes openness harder. The more firmly we believe something, the more difficult it is to consider we’re wrong. Thus, despite becoming more mature, we can become less open.

There are ways to combat this and ensure we’re still learning. One is to actively remind ourselves we may be wrong and to consider whether it’s possible to learn something from the current situation. This is difficult even when we do remember to reflect on it, and it requires a certain amount of intellectual humility. One thing that makes this easier is to spend more time reflecting on times you were wrong and what you learned from those times. By intentionally recalling those examples, you can build up another valuable prior- that sometimes you were wrong, and the times you admitted that and learned from it are the times you got smarter.

You don’t have to go to the extreme of being a blank slate every day. Just spend some time introspectively reflecting on what you’ve learned in the past, and adopt an attitude of looking forward to learning more.

It’s natural to want to be right. That’s why the quote at top is framed in terms of always being right about whether or not someone has something to teach you. In your career and in life, the simplest way to spend more time being right is to spend less time digging your heels in when you find out you’re wrong.

When you’re in a discussion and start to realize that you’re wrong, the faster you can admit to yourself and others that you were wrong and understand why you were wrong, the faster you get to change your mind and be right! If this sounds simple, it is. It just takes being willing to admit you’re wrong and being open to learning.

Unfortunately, for almost all humans, these are difficult things to actually do. It takes conscious effort. It may never be second nature. You’ll have to remind yourself regularly. When it comes to this, practice makes progress, not perfect, and not even permanent. It never ends. You never get to a point where you get to stop working on this, just as you never get to a point where you have nothing left to learn. You don’t have to do it alone, though. It helps to ask others to remind you as well. I’ve asked direct reports to give me reminders when I’m wrong or need to consider I’m wrong and be more open.

This runs counter to everything you’ve ever learned about projecting confidence and decisiveness, which makes it feel even more unnatural. Some consider admitting error to be a sign of weakness, but being wrong is hardly a position of strength. Following the mindset outlined here in no way prohibits confidence, self-assurance, or decisiveness. In fact, it will make them more effective by ensuring those feelings rapidly erode when you’re wrong. Think of it as an automated internal warning system that makes you less likely to charge head-long into a brick wall. By establishing a good internal warning system for when you may be wrong, you can push forward much more confidently whenever there’s no warning. Just make sure to test the alarms occasionally to make sure they still work.

As you progress with this, you can establish more sophisticated calibration. Rather than assigning each statement, recommendation, or decision as something you’re either definitely right or possibly wrong about, you can hone in on what exactly are your most vulnerable assumptions. This enables a much more nuanced approach. Nuance is harder to sell than bold claims, and decidedly less sexy. With practice, you can learn how to make even nuance bold. And being known for usually being right, and for being gracious when wrong, will always be appealing.