KEEPING MOUTH SHUT IS VERY DIFFICULT BUT IT CAN BE VERY USEFUL

Being an elderly person of age 82, I feel like sharing a very good learning that I was lucky to get at early stage of my career. It is described below.

I chanced to join a consulting engineers company in New Delhi, India. While working there, I observed its President habitually keeping a smoking pipe in his mouth without any tobacco, even while he was working alone in his office. I asked him why he did so. What he told me was like the preaching of a Guru to his disciple.

He told me that the pipe kept his mouth shut. Being president of consulting engineers company, he was expected to be highly knowledgeable and capable of giving the final verdict, whereas he was not always knowledgeable enough about each and every subject. Keeping his mouth shut helped him by way of enabling him to keenly listen to all participants so as to make out from their discussions as to what was really the right answer and thus in the end he was able to sum up the discussions and give the final verdict which in most cases was found useful.

It was one of the tricks which I successfully inculcated in me as a habit so much so that I never needed a device to keep my mouth shut. I was greatly benefitted by this art of remaining silent while observing and absorbing keenly.

This simple habit boosted my competence as a senior person.