If there is one thing that has set me back professionally early in my career, it was being completely obtuse about how much people hate to admit they don’t know. I honestly had no idea this was a thing. I joined an ERP software company with a business degree and then got thrown into tech support. I had a lot to learn and I was eager to not just learn how to do things but also to learn why. I was essentially an adult version of the toddler “why” game. I kept accidentally making people around me feel awkward and stupid, doing everything in their power to not admit they didn’t know the answer to my question.
Side note: the way to break out of a toddler why loop is to say “I don’t know what do you think".
As I matured, I established a rule to avoid being despised. I get to ask someone a question two times and if the second answer is as impossible to understand as the first, then I must let it go and recognize that the so called expert [see also dunning-kruger, mansplaining and bloviating] has no idea and asking further is just mean.
I recognize the ability to articulate this as a pattern is additional evidence of some neurodivergence in play. My pattern recognition skills are legit, just very behavioral economist vs. code breaking in nature. These skills were forged early and I tend to need to offer apologies on these learning journeys as much of my discoveries require me getting things wrong and then getting curious on the why/how.
Humans are complicated.
One of the reasons I had such a severe blind spot about this problem, is that I honestly love saying I don’t know. In fact, my typical response is I have no idea. This is a magical phrase, because it invites others to educate you and it actually builds your credibility for the things you do know. Understanding that you don’t know something AND being willing to admit that to others is a sign of both confidence and intellectual humility.
Early in my career, I often was tapped to build and deliver software training. As someone who had to learn all the things from scratch, I naturally enjoyed helping others get up to speed. In one class, I was talking about regulation that was in play for a specific feature and I had someone in the class ask me “what about XYZ [proper name long forgotten] regulation”. I immediately responded that I had never heard of that, could he tell me more, and he responded “I just made that up to see what you would say”. Setting aside that playing stump the chump to a very young trainer was a dickish move, I could not have asked for better opportunity to prove to myself that freely acknowledging you don’t know something is often the best evidence of credibility.
Moving away from knowing and towards learning.
Knowing can be a huge trap, especially for successful people. Much of what we know is actually expertise built looking at a specific problem and solving it. That’s a GREAT skill, but in most cases we tend to calcify the answer vs. the thinking. If you want to be a grower mode leader you need to keep your first principles thinking sharp. Adam Grant talks about the importance of unlearning to this process in his book Think Again.
One way to avoid the knowing trap is to build a challenge network – surround yourself with curious people who both admire you AND have the responsibility to tell you when you are full of shit. Teenagers are naturally good at challenge networks, as they are quick to tell you how dumb you are, but in my experience, trusted colleagues are more professionally [and emotionally] helpful. A good hack is to engage reverse mentors and get better access to a beginners mindset and establishing a structural relationship that supports your re-thinking.
Advanced Mode
As you grow more comfortable saying out loud that you don’t know, consider exploring where you are wrong. This one is a bit harder, but once you get over the belief that being wrong is bad, you begin to see the humor and the learning opportunity. Whether it’s simple things like mispronouncing words or bigger things like professional mistakes, being wrong points to growth opportunities. Recognizing your patterns and habits that lead you to being wrong, can seriously elevate your game by introducing deliberate practice.
Growth requires discomfortand practice.
Most professional discomfort is embarrassment and fear. Here is the thing, most things we get embarrassed about are much less important than we believe. Honestly, everyone is too busy thinking of themselves to notice, and getting good at being able to laugh at yourself is a great way to level up. So instead of avoiding saying I don’t know or being wrong maybe employ a fail faster habit.
Failing life hack: Here is my best pro tip for taking any test. Don’t study, take a practice test and bomb it. Then you know exactly what you should study and don’t waste any time with stuff that you already know. When I moved back to California in my 20s, I had to retake the drivers test. After failing the first go, I asked the person at the counter – how many times can I re-take this today. I got a funny look, but then they responded “you can take it three times today and if you fail the third time you have to pay again“. I was like great, I will be passing this today thank you very much. Note for the overachievers and perfectionists – passing is sufficient for most things in life. Learning how to not over invest is a very important life skill.
Why does this matter
We are entering a world of many unknowns. AI Innovators are the first to acknowledge that the thing that makes these systems interesting is that we don’t know how they work. If we don’t build the right mindset about all this, we will continue to live in fear about these unknowns. This is an exciting moment of possibility – of new opportunity and new risks. Pretending we know is going to be our Achilles’ heel. Getting good at sorting out how to find and adapt to the new opportunity is important if we want to thrive in the future of work. We must learn to embrace what we don’t know and say it out loud so we can figure this out together. We will be wrong some, but somewhere in the infinite stream of possibility we will figure it out.
I believe in us.
Comments