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Corner Office

Jeremy Zimmer of United Talent Agency, on Accepting Ideas

This interview with Jeremy Zimmer, chief executive and co-founder of the United Talent Agency, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. When you were a kid, were you in leadership roles?

A. I started working at gas stations when I was about 14, and was managing them when I was about 16. It was my responsibility to make sure everything was running smoothly.

What about your parents? How have they influenced your leadership style?

I would say there are traces of my grandfather. He ran MGM in the ’50s and then was a producer. He was also head of the Anti-Defamation League here in New York. I would spend summers working with him. He had a real interest in people, and that was always really powerful for me. He would engage with everyone he met, and try to learn a little bit about them. He was really curious about the world.

And during your college years?

I went to college briefly, but I dropped out. I was always a good worker, but I was never a very good student. I was 19 or so, and I was making a lot of money running a couple of parking valet stations in Boston. Then my grandfather introduced me to somebody at the William Morris Agency and I got a job in the mailroom.

Everything just clicked for me there. I was really good at dealing with people, I was really good at coming up with better ways to do things, and I was in the entertainment business. I loved storytelling. I’d always loved books. I’d always loved movies.

You seemed to have been comfortable managing people from a young age.

No matter where I’ve worked, I’ve always felt like the boss. For better or worse, I’ve often felt that I have a sense of how we should be doing this. That confidence has come with a frustration of, one, why isn’t anyone listening to me, and, two, I could do it better.

But part of being a good C.E.O. is not believing that you know best, and being able to assimilate ideas from other people and take the best ideas. Part of growing up for me has been starting to know what I don’t know, and to stop thinking I’m a genius.

When did that happen?

About 17 years ago, I started realizing that this isn’t really working for me. I found myself in a place where, although I was a really good agent and a partner at the firm, my relationships with my colleagues were not good. I felt like I was spending all my time either telling people what they were doing wrong, or thinking about what they were doing wrong.

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"Part of being a good C.E.O is not believing that you know best, and being able to assimilate ideas from other people and take the best ideas."Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

My partners at the firm would also say: “You don’t always have to be the smartest person in the room. You don’t always have to know the answer. You have to be open to the fact that you might be wrong. Can you be open to the idea that you might be wrong?” How could anyone not answer that question with an “Of course”? But it was a tough question to hear and say: “You know what? I don’t know best.” What a relief when you do that.

Have you heard other feedback about your management style that led you to make an adjustment?

It’s easy to forget how powerful the little things are — the eye roll, the shrug, or if someone’s talking to me and I’m looking at my email. I have to be reminded sometimes that the dynamics in meetings are really powerful, and I have to really be in that moment with that person and engaged in whatever they’re talking to me about.

What else about your management approach?

I always talk to people about the importance of setting a plan for your day, and knowing what you’re going to do. I think that’s really important. It’s easy to just get comfortably numb, where you’re returning phone calls, sending some emails, then it’s lunchtime, then you have a staff meeting, and another day has gone by. So I tell people: “Try to make your day happen. Try to set positive things in motion in the beginning of your day so that it doesn’t become just another series of the same thing.”

Any other advice you would give to, say, a new employee in your mailroom?

We’re in this interesting time. With technology, everyone knows everything now. So information has been commoditized, and what’s important now is knowledge. And the difference between information and knowledge is that knowledge is about having a point of view based on what we know.

How do you hire?

When I’m interviewing somebody, I’m really listening to understand how they think. I want to hear their story, because storytelling’s such an important part of what we do. Do you have brothers and sisters? Tell me about your parents. Where did you go to college? Why did you decide to go there? Tell me about your last job.

I’m going to ask them to tell me about a movie they loved and why, a TV show they loved and why, a book they loved and why. Ultimately, if we’re selling something, we have to be able to communicate it in an elegant, intelligent way. I’m really looking for effective communicators.

I’m also looking for somebody who can see underneath the facts of a story, and who can understand that these moments in their life added up to bringing them to where they are, and that they see the story of their own life as being something that’s interesting and compelling.

I’m looking for what we’re all looking for, which is inspired people. If we hire a couple of inspired people, it makes a difference. That’s what great organizations are about — you’ve got a few people who are really inspired.

And just to pick up on one of your earlier questions, what’s your favorite movie?

My favorite movie changes all the time, but one is “To Sir, With Love,” with Sidney Poitier. It was such a great teacher story.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section BU, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Know What You Don’t Know. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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