This is a guest post by AthensScene’s Kate Davis
The three hardest words to utter in the English language are “I don’t know.”
Instead of admitting to not knowing an answer, we dance around the truth, inserting what little we do know about the subject. In this era particularly, no one can force the heavy sorrowful words “I don’t know” to be released from their sputtering, deceptive mouths.
Stephen D. Levitt, the co-author of the popular Freakonomics series, says he “can count on one hand the number of occasions in which someone in a company, in front of their boss, on a question they might possibly have never been expected to know the answer, has said ‘I don’t know.’” It is unheard of. This is “one of the most destructive factors in business.” Because people claim to know the answer (but do not), they can never learn. Omitting the phrase “I don’t know” from our vocabulary ironically keeps us in a continuous loop of ignorance.
Via: americanlibrariesmagazine.org
Levitt believes it is because people are expected to be an expert in their field. We are supposed to know everything. We do not feel that we can respond to our superiors with the phrase “I don’t know.” We do not say it so we can keep our jobs for another month, maybe another year. We go on pretending like we know it all.
In a radio interview Levitt says, “I mean, what fun is life if all you do is go through life trying to fake something that you are not when, really, the goal is to be good, and to improve, and to learn and to make things better. And the only way to do that is to start by saying ‘I don’t know.’”
Amanda Waterman, who teaches developmental psychology at the University of Leeds, sees the same responses in young children. Children from five to eight years old often make up answers instead of admitting to not knowing. After hearing stories, she asks the children questions about things not mentioned in the story. In other words, things they could not possibly know. Approximately three-quarters of the children try to give a correct answer. Part of the problem is that the children do not know the context of the question. Why are they being asked? Is this an assessment of their knowledge?
Another issue is the balance of power. In the teacher-child situation (which can be applied to a boss-employee scenario), the children feel disadvantaged because they have less power. “They feel like they want to show what they can do, but they don’t feel as comfortable admitting when they don’t know something.” They are unsure if they are expected to know. In the academic and working world, we feel that we are always expected to know the answer, even at a very young age.
Via: parentscountry.com
This trend of denial creates issues in the workplace. Employers are unable to clearly assess how much their employees do and do not know. Employees underperform because they do not fully understand what they are doing and what they are expected to do. Employees take longer to do tasks and are more likely to make mistakes. According to Gallup Business Journal, employees will commit fully to the company and its mission if they “know what is expected of them, have what they need to do their jobs, are good fits for their roles and feel their managers have their backs…” Without saying “I don’t know,” it is difficult for the employee to assess his or her performance and for an employer to understand why employees are not meeting expected performance levels.
In a recent mock-interview (with professionals in human resources) I was asked, “What skills have you learned in your current internship that you were not able to learn in school, and how will this help you in the workforce?” I was stumped. (“I don’t know” is not an accepted answer in an interview, regardless of its needed use in the workplace.) My answer was patched together, sloppy and told in a very quiet, almost unheard volume.
Since that was the only question that truly dumbfounded me, I spent several days thinking of what would have been an acceptable answer. I have the answer now.
In the workforce, you need to be able to say, “I don’t know.” This is not school. When you make a mistake, it is not your own; it is shared among your peers and your supervisor.
I started my internship this summer extremely eager to impress. When my supervisor asked me to do anything (tasks I had no idea how to do), I said “Sure, I can do that.” By the end of the week, it was clear to my supervisor and to myself that I was claiming to understand procedures (or processes) in which I’d not been trained. This reflected poorly on the both of us. Throughout my first week, I devoted hours to assignments that could have been completed in under 20 minutes, was disappointed in myself, made sloppy errors and ended the week in tears after making a big “no-no” on an external assignment.
I eventually emerged from this cocoon of self-deprecating thoughts and pinpointed the problem. I emailed my supervisor and admitted that yes, I made the mistake, it is my fault, I had no clue what I was doing. Bottom line: “I want to do better.”
The next week, I asked my supervisor lots of questions and asked for advice. When I did not feel comfortable with a certain project, I admitted it. After two weeks, she shot me a complimentary email noting my tremendous improvement.
When you first start a job or internship you are not expected to know everything and cannot possibly know everything. To learn how, to evolve and to do better, you need to ask questions. Most importantly, when it is the truth, you need to admit that you don’t know.
