Most companies fail due to dumb mistakes made by senior managers. The biggest mistake of all: a hubristic unwillingness to accept that there’s plenty you don’t already know.

As we get more senior in our organizations, we get a lot smarter. Our wisdom grows. We understand the business better than those around us. Newfangled management ideas come and go, but we’re now wise enough to believe we know everything we already need to know.

Then—wham! The world smacks us upside the head with a powerful, “Didn’t know that, didja?” Your business is in turmoil. Chaos. Confusion. Cows raining from the sky. Armageddon.

There’s only one thing I know that can prevent those kinds of moments: Learning. Ever heard the adage, “The day you stop learning is the day you die,” thrown around before? Yeah. That. (Or, as Yoda might say, “Die you will that day when stop learning you do,” or something like that.)

Learning is a lifelong sport. The minute you stop, you die.

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