{"id":10,"date":"2020-12-22T10:34:28","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T10:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/?p=10"},"modified":"2021-02-14T22:03:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-14T22:03:37","slug":"saying-i-dont-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/saying-i-dont-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying “I don’t know”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
These days, technology is moving so fast that it\u2019s quite hard to keep up with it while having a life and doing our job properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While we might feel comfortable in learning new things, reaching a state of mastery on any subject takes time. With the current dynamic in companies, many times the learning happens while doing. Additionally, we need to collaborate with people which may be more experienced than us on the subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When this happens, do we simply say \u201cI\u2019m new to this and willing to learn\u201d or pretend we know everything and hope that nobody notices?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think that preparation is necessary for any meeting, but there will always be surprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having a strategy in dealing with them might make the difference between winning a contract or in extreme cases losing our job, depending on the context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I am facing topics I have little knowledge about, I go through several steps, asking myself the following questions along the way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If it is a discussion within a team that I trust, I will likely admit that I\u2019m not familiar with the subject. This will promote an honest conversation and allow the other people to step in and share what they do and don\u2019t know, which promotes a smooth collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe answering \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d might be considered unprofessional in the context I find myself in. Or maybe I said \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d too many times already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that case, I try to postpone my answer, by saying something along the lines of: \u201cI want to check this before giving you a definitive answer. Can I come back to you in X days?\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is an indirect way of expressing the lack of knowledge, but gives confidence to the audience that we are honest about what we know and they will tend to trust our other answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I risk losing my job or I anticipate other serious consequences for exposing my lack of knowledge, I continue to the next step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this case, I try to steer the discussion towards defining what needs to be solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gathering as much information as I can: what is the context? What are the problems? Are there any potential solutions already taken into consideration? What would be the desired result?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I would try to postpone any decision to a later point in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doing this will allow me and the team to do the research or find the people that can help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I go to the next step in the evaluation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By \u201cfriendly\u201d I mean one of the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this case, I simply try to let the people with the knowledge get their points across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I trust that they have the expertise to make decisions on the spot, I respect their decisions and only intervene where I have arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I concentrate on being attentive and preserving a polite\/friendly discussion, maybe add a joke or two, if joking is appropriate in the context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the hardest situation to be in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To recap, we are in a situation in which our lack of knowledge has serious consequences, facing someone who acts suspicious towards us and maybe even seeks to expose our lack of knowledge on a particular subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this situation, a simple \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d is probably not an option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An idea that comes to mind is to bluff and tell things that I imagine to be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am not a good poker player, so I don\u2019t bluff. And I would recommend you not to bluff either, because if they realize you are bluffing, you will lose your credibility completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anything you said or will say afterwards will be doubted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My approach in this situation is to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the situation requires us to collaborate, having a strategy for dealing with our lack of knowledge can improve our chances to get to the outcome that we seek with the least amount of conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My approach is to try being honest while preserving a professional attitude, if possible. If my lack of knowledge can have serious consequences, I try to minimize the effects by postponing answers, listening and building trust with the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I came across this insightful YouTube video with Sir Ken Robinson, talking about the power of \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d, while remembering a story involving The Dalai Lama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These days, technology is moving so fast that it\u2019s quite hard to keep up with it while having a life and doing our job properly. While we might feel comfortable in learning new things, reaching a state of mastery on any subject takes time. With the current dynamic in companies, many times the learning happens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
These days, technology is moving so fast that it\u2019s quite hard to keep up with it while having a life and doing our job properly. While we might feel comfortable in learning new things, reaching a state of mastery on any subject takes time. With the current dynamic in companies, many times the learning happens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.balancecrafters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}