I often converse with a friend of whom I’ve known for over 30 years. No matter what the subject matter, she will always have more questions than I have answers. If I’m sharing a story of something I heard or witnessed, I will give her a blow-by-blow account of the situation. She will listen intently ‘til the end and then follow up the story with questions like, “well did you ask her if…” My thought when faced with these type questions is always the same – if I had asked that question, I would have told her in my reporting of the situation. It would seem that she expects me to ask questions she would have asked if she were the one reporting the incident.
In all the years of knowing her, I’ve learned this about her and so I’m very careful to divulge all that I recall in my initial report of the situation. I realize one very important fact, something most of you already know; the human brain, while to the naked eye may look like it came from a mold, is in fact unique; no two brains are exactly alike. Fact is, no two people think alike about everything. Even identical twins (monozygotic) do not exhibit a 1:1 of thoughts, ideas, motivations or aspirations.
If a question occurs to you, but does not occur to another person, it is not always indicative of the other person’s ignorance or your superior intellect. It simply means you have your own brain and they have their own brain – you thought of something at that specific moment in time that simply has not occurred to them yet or may never.
Perhaps a person with a reasonable sense of integrity and nurturing is not so unwilling to admit they don’t know the answer to your question or admit they have not “thought of that”. And perhaps a person driven more by instinct, more focused on survival and impressions, is more likely to evade questions or disguise what they don’t know.
Regardless to the type of person you are, it is a possibility that fear is the motivator for your response to questions or situations where you just don’t know the answer or what action to take. But where does that fear stem from? It is likely the answer to that question is previous experience – learned behavior.
I once worked with a young man who was notorious for spouting responses to questions when he really did not know the correct answer. To the knowing observer this was always quite baffling; it seemed so much easier on him if only he would tell the truth or keep quiet. This phenomenon is not unusual in the workplace. Fear of the boss finding out that you don’t know something, perceptually, seems to carry a much stronger consequence than getting caught in a situation that could expose your lack of knowledge to the situation in the end.
Scenario I: A Plea to a Higher Offense
Terrence is a Tier 1 Systems Support Analyst. It is his responsibility to field incoming calls for desktop support issues. The organization in which he works is a small company that does not maintain a database of solutions to common problems. For the current caller’s situation, Terrence does not know of a reasonable solution. His cubicle is right next to Rudy, a Tier II Systems Support Analyst, but after much delay and speculation, Terrence still does not escalate the situation to Rudy. He continues to hold the caller while searching for a solution within his own means. Rudy becomes aware that Terrence is struggling for a solution and offers to assist. Instead of accepting Rudy’s assistance or following procedure to escalate, Terrence declines the offer and further delays the caller.
Eventually, Terrence’s actions came to light when the caller submitted a complaint. When Terrence’s manager asked him to explain, Terrence offered every excuse he could think of, never admitting he just didn’t know how to help the caller.
Terrence confides in a co-worker Ricky the whole situation. When Ricky asked, “why didn’t you just tell the truth?” Terrence replies, “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
In this scenario, Terrence feared consequences for his lack of knowledge more than he did for following procedure. Subsequently, he was reprimanded for not escalating the caller to a Tier II representative. What Terrence failed or refused to recognize is that while he was only reprimanded for not following procedure, his superiors now had a reason to consider him unworthy of their trust and unable to meet the requirements of the position sufficiently.
Scenario II: Somebody Please Throw Me a Rope
Ideally we are taught that honesty is the best policy. However, we can all recall at least one (probably a lot more) instance in our past where we did tell the truth, but consequences still occurred.
Sonjay, a senior IA, but new to the company, is a strong advocate for vetting his design plans with his team members. Sonjay routinely asked other IAs and visual designers to critique his work. After a few weeks, Sonjay was called into the Directors office and questioned about his level of experience based on office scuttle that suggested his inquires where due to his lack of practical knowledge.
Sonjay explained his position as his willingness to glean insights from those who had been there longer than him and would probably have a better idea of the direction the company would like to go. Additionally, Sonjay was of the belief that everyone could and should be willing to learn from others no matter how experienced.
Instead of supporting Sonjay’s position, he was eventually dismissed from the company as “not a good fit”.
In this scenario, Sonjay demonstrated his lack of knowledge of the way business is done in this particular company, he admitted he didn’t know. By encouraging feedback from his team, his professional knowledge was called into question.
So what do we do, as a society, to effectively end this fear factor? Just a guess here, but I’m thinking that each of us has to be willing to make some sacrifices. First, we must commit to changing our own behavior. This has some risk to it, but may be well worth it in the end. In the first scenario, Terrence just could not bring himself to admit he had no idea what to do. Perhaps, without escalating, Terrence could have placed the caller on hold and simply accepted Rudy’s assistance. Even if Rudy did make it an official escalation, perhaps he would have been willing to share insight with Terrence for future reference. In either situation, Terrence would have operated within company policy and it is likely that as long as he didn’t request assistance in the future for the same situation, his one-time lack of knowledge would have easily been forgotten.
Next, we have to be willing to believe that not every question is based on some diabolical plot to fool the world. In the second scenario, Sonjay was willing to recognize that he is not the keeper of all knowledge. Each of us comes into a situation with our own history and perception. That does not make us wrong or right, but it does offer a different perspective. When a person like Sonjay asks you to look over his work, don’t automatically assume he doesn’t know what he’s doing or that he has somehow fooled his interviewers into thinking he knows what he’s doing when he really doesn’t. Instead think of it as a learning experience for yourself. Perhaps it’s not the way you would have done it, but ask the person to explain to you why they made the decision to do it the way they did. After you hear their explanation, if you still have something to offer to make the design better, tell them. Most importantly, don’t catalog the incident as a strike against that person; wait to learn more about them first.
Here’s an even bigger piece of advice. No one likes the implication they’ve made a mistake. During the interview process the hiring manager probably scrutinized the incumbents resume and interviews with quite a bit of thought behind choosing the right one. When you decide you’re going to rat out your team member; consider you’re telling the hiring manager they’ve made a mistake. Believe it or not, it is possible that while we don’t like to admit that we don’t know something; it’s also just as hard to admit a mistake. The human thing to do sometimes is to get rid of the evidence before anyone else notices. Sometimes that “evidence” is people and the means for getting “rid” of it is firing people unnecessarily.
In summary, while we all hum a few bars of cumbayah, let’s consider the implications of our actions and defuse the effect of admitting “I don’t know”.
In all the years of knowing her, I’ve learned this about her and so I’m very careful to divulge all that I recall in my initial report of the situation. I realize one very important fact, something most of you already know; the human brain, while to the naked eye may look like it came from a mold, is in fact unique; no two brains are exactly alike. Fact is, no two people think alike about everything. Even identical twins (monozygotic) do not exhibit a 1:1 of thoughts, ideas, motivations or aspirations.
If a question occurs to you, but does not occur to another person, it is not always indicative of the other person’s ignorance or your superior intellect. It simply means you have your own brain and they have their own brain – you thought of something at that specific moment in time that simply has not occurred to them yet or may never.
Perhaps a person with a reasonable sense of integrity and nurturing is not so unwilling to admit they don’t know the answer to your question or admit they have not “thought of that”. And perhaps a person driven more by instinct, more focused on survival and impressions, is more likely to evade questions or disguise what they don’t know.
Regardless to the type of person you are, it is a possibility that fear is the motivator for your response to questions or situations where you just don’t know the answer or what action to take. But where does that fear stem from? It is likely the answer to that question is previous experience – learned behavior.
I once worked with a young man who was notorious for spouting responses to questions when he really did not know the correct answer. To the knowing observer this was always quite baffling; it seemed so much easier on him if only he would tell the truth or keep quiet. This phenomenon is not unusual in the workplace. Fear of the boss finding out that you don’t know something, perceptually, seems to carry a much stronger consequence than getting caught in a situation that could expose your lack of knowledge to the situation in the end.
Scenario I: A Plea to a Higher Offense
Terrence is a Tier 1 Systems Support Analyst. It is his responsibility to field incoming calls for desktop support issues. The organization in which he works is a small company that does not maintain a database of solutions to common problems. For the current caller’s situation, Terrence does not know of a reasonable solution. His cubicle is right next to Rudy, a Tier II Systems Support Analyst, but after much delay and speculation, Terrence still does not escalate the situation to Rudy. He continues to hold the caller while searching for a solution within his own means. Rudy becomes aware that Terrence is struggling for a solution and offers to assist. Instead of accepting Rudy’s assistance or following procedure to escalate, Terrence declines the offer and further delays the caller.
Eventually, Terrence’s actions came to light when the caller submitted a complaint. When Terrence’s manager asked him to explain, Terrence offered every excuse he could think of, never admitting he just didn’t know how to help the caller.
Terrence confides in a co-worker Ricky the whole situation. When Ricky asked, “why didn’t you just tell the truth?” Terrence replies, “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
In this scenario, Terrence feared consequences for his lack of knowledge more than he did for following procedure. Subsequently, he was reprimanded for not escalating the caller to a Tier II representative. What Terrence failed or refused to recognize is that while he was only reprimanded for not following procedure, his superiors now had a reason to consider him unworthy of their trust and unable to meet the requirements of the position sufficiently.
Scenario II: Somebody Please Throw Me a Rope
Ideally we are taught that honesty is the best policy. However, we can all recall at least one (probably a lot more) instance in our past where we did tell the truth, but consequences still occurred.
Sonjay, a senior IA, but new to the company, is a strong advocate for vetting his design plans with his team members. Sonjay routinely asked other IAs and visual designers to critique his work. After a few weeks, Sonjay was called into the Directors office and questioned about his level of experience based on office scuttle that suggested his inquires where due to his lack of practical knowledge.
Sonjay explained his position as his willingness to glean insights from those who had been there longer than him and would probably have a better idea of the direction the company would like to go. Additionally, Sonjay was of the belief that everyone could and should be willing to learn from others no matter how experienced.
Instead of supporting Sonjay’s position, he was eventually dismissed from the company as “not a good fit”.
In this scenario, Sonjay demonstrated his lack of knowledge of the way business is done in this particular company, he admitted he didn’t know. By encouraging feedback from his team, his professional knowledge was called into question.
So what do we do, as a society, to effectively end this fear factor? Just a guess here, but I’m thinking that each of us has to be willing to make some sacrifices. First, we must commit to changing our own behavior. This has some risk to it, but may be well worth it in the end. In the first scenario, Terrence just could not bring himself to admit he had no idea what to do. Perhaps, without escalating, Terrence could have placed the caller on hold and simply accepted Rudy’s assistance. Even if Rudy did make it an official escalation, perhaps he would have been willing to share insight with Terrence for future reference. In either situation, Terrence would have operated within company policy and it is likely that as long as he didn’t request assistance in the future for the same situation, his one-time lack of knowledge would have easily been forgotten.
Next, we have to be willing to believe that not every question is based on some diabolical plot to fool the world. In the second scenario, Sonjay was willing to recognize that he is not the keeper of all knowledge. Each of us comes into a situation with our own history and perception. That does not make us wrong or right, but it does offer a different perspective. When a person like Sonjay asks you to look over his work, don’t automatically assume he doesn’t know what he’s doing or that he has somehow fooled his interviewers into thinking he knows what he’s doing when he really doesn’t. Instead think of it as a learning experience for yourself. Perhaps it’s not the way you would have done it, but ask the person to explain to you why they made the decision to do it the way they did. After you hear their explanation, if you still have something to offer to make the design better, tell them. Most importantly, don’t catalog the incident as a strike against that person; wait to learn more about them first.
Here’s an even bigger piece of advice. No one likes the implication they’ve made a mistake. During the interview process the hiring manager probably scrutinized the incumbents resume and interviews with quite a bit of thought behind choosing the right one. When you decide you’re going to rat out your team member; consider you’re telling the hiring manager they’ve made a mistake. Believe it or not, it is possible that while we don’t like to admit that we don’t know something; it’s also just as hard to admit a mistake. The human thing to do sometimes is to get rid of the evidence before anyone else notices. Sometimes that “evidence” is people and the means for getting “rid” of it is firing people unnecessarily.
In summary, while we all hum a few bars of cumbayah, let’s consider the implications of our actions and defuse the effect of admitting “I don’t know”.
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