Change Your Perspective First: Trade Being Right for Learning What Is True

A plant manager I know felt the pressure of 200 jobs on her shoulders. She had always been the fixer, the person with the answer. Then she tried something different. She asked the team to choose and test their own idea. It worked, and the plant saved over $200,000 a year. The win stuck because the people who did the work owned it. Michael Bremer would call this learning to see the invisible, choosing reality over ego, and it is where better leadership begins .

The pivot Michael Bremer invites us to make

In Learn to See the Invisible, Bremer shows how progress speeds up when leaders change what they look for, then practice a few simple habits again and again. He points to a core mindset shift, captured by Ray Dalio’s line: “I needed to let go of the Joy of Being Right and replace it with the Joy of Learning What is True.” Dalio hired thoughtful people who disagreed with him, listened to see through their eyes, and moved from black and white to seeing the color, the more subtle reality in front of him .

Bremer’s model is practical. Reflect first, clarify a unifying purpose, build relationships, and practice visual leadership. These loops turn knowing into doing, and they help people see what was invisible yesterday .

Why truth seeking beats rightness at work

• You reach actual reality faster. Good intentions and habits can hide what is really going on. Slow down, reflect, and let more eyes on the work. You will see the gaps and chances to improve that your routine misses .

• You stop fixing parts and hurting the whole. A narrow focus can create side effects in other teams. Seeing the system keeps you from chasing local wins that cost the business later .

• You make it safe to tell the truth. Strong leaders do more than set targets. They create spaces where people can point out problems without fear. That is where real intelligence shows up and spreads .

Make progress visible, simple, and public

Bremer urges leaders to build visuals that anyone can read at a glance. Ask three checks of any board you use: will it help people make timely decisions, can it be updated in under ten minutes, and can you spot key issues in ten seconds. If not, the signal is too heavy and too slow . Public, lightweight visuals raise the cost of denial and lower the cost of course correction, and they help the team know if you are winning or losing against a few clear targets .

A field story that shows the shift

Jess Orr started her career as the go to problem solver. She built smart solutions, yet many faded after she left. Over time, she changed how she worked. She formed teams, asked them to choose and test ideas, and held back her own answers. One team’s idea she doubted ended up saving over $200,000 a year. The lesson was simple and deep, trust people, involve those closest to the work, and keep learning from each step .

A simple playbook you can start this week

1) Reset the room with one sentence

Say it out loud, we are here to learn what is true so we can decide better. When someone changes their mind based on new facts, praise it in public. Bremer notes that great leaders ask good questions and help people learn, they do not rush to tell others what to do .

2) Build a ten minute visual

Make a one glance board with three to five lead measures tied to your team’s purpose. Keep a tiny learning log on the board, one line per experiment, what you tried, what you learned, what you will try next. If it takes a meeting to know the score, simplify the board until it does not .

3) Use question discipline in every conversation

Ask open and probing questions that surface obstacles, customers, and learning, not leading questions that push people into a corner. Bremer’s examples point the way:

• What kinds of problems happen in this work, and how do you know when they occur
• Who is the customer of this step, and how do you know they are well served
• What has been learned from the actions taken, and what is the next step, and why that step
  This builds thinking skills in the team and better decisions for you .

4) Change your default in disagreements

When you hear a thoughtful no, ask to see the world through their eyes. Walk through their data and assumptions together, then test it with a small experiment. As Bremer notes through Dalio’s story, this shift from being right to learning what is true opens growth for the leader and the team .

5) Tie purpose to daily practice

Write a one sentence purpose in human language, not just business terms. Set two targets, a current condition and a future condition, so people know what good looks like now and what better looks like next. Share your measures with your customer, then adjust based on what you hear. This keeps you close to real impact, not activity counts .

6) Use a 30 day sprint to lock it in

• Week 1, reflection. Run a Keep, Stop, Start for your team norms. Pick one behavior to practice, and post it. Hold each other to it. This creates quick feedback and trust .
• Week 2, purpose. Ask why this work matters three times. Post the one sentence next to the board, and check alignment of goals and measures against it .
• Week 3, questions. Use open questions in every standup. Celebrate the first visible change that came from learning, not from rank or loudness .
• Week 4, visual leadership. Improve your board until it is quick to update and easy to scan. Keep the learning log growing, not the number of charts .

What this shift gives you and your team

You will see more, and sooner. You will hear more truth, from more people. You will make better choices faster because your system, and your habits, are set to learn. Bremer is clear, start by changing how you think and operate, then help your team do the same, and use simple feedback to make that learning stick day after day .

One question to carry into your next meeting

If my goal is to learn what is true, not to prove I am right, what would I ask next? Say it, ask it, then look for the first small signal on your board that says you are moving. Make it safe to see problems, and make it satisfying to see progress. That is how steady momentum starts, and how it lasts with Michael Bremer’s approach in Learn to See the Invisible .