Learn To Ask Questions

You can't know everything.

The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can embrace it!

“But it’s my job, I’m supposed to be the expert…”

Yes, it’s your job,  and it's a big deal - I get it. You don’t want to seem incompetent and you don't want to appear replaceable. Your company hired you to be an expert in your field and do your job, and that means you always need to be right, right? Wrong! It means you always need to be learning. How do you learn? You ask questions.

In today's workplace we feel a tremendous amount of pressure to be the ones who know things. To somehow posses knowledge about subjects we have yet to be exposed to or even concepts or trends born that very day or in that very meeting. This is where it gets important to understand that it's OK not to know -- but you have to own it. Don't get the deer in headlights look and panic because your boss wants an answer… just assure her that you understand the question, she will have a good answer very soon and that you want to get a little better educated on the topic and you will brief her once you have the total picture. If you try and fudge an answer on the spot, just to look like you're in the know you are sabotaging your own reputation. Your disinformation will inevitably backfire on you and make you appear like you don't know what you are talking about or worse - a liar.

Even worse than being a fake know-it-all is the classic buried head syndrome. You know the one, he doesn't understand something or does not possess knowledge on a topic so he avoids it like the plague, makes silly excuses not to address it and generally hold things up in his buried head quagmire. It’s not OK to waste others time because you are afraid to be wrong or not know something. This is a good time to trust your team, if you lack knowledge on a subject, ask who has it… What can they tell you about it? Can they recommend any good resources for learning?

"Always remember; it’s not the lack of knowledge that makes you look incompetent… It’s the inability to go get the knowledge."

Tip Time

Next time you get hit with questions you don't know how to answer, or caught off guard in a meeting use the following to right the ship.

1. Take a breath. Let it out. Say “I’ll get back to you. I’d like to do a little more research before I form an opinion.”
2. Embrace the internet. You can at least have conversational knowledge on any topic 10 seconds after you Google it. Use the web to start your research on the topic and let it lead you to professional groups, great courses or other resources.
3. Circle back. Follow up with whomever you said you would follow up with and carry the process forward. By coming full circle with the requested knowledge you are proving many things, just a few of which are your ability to learn and your trustworthiness in getting the job done.

Asking questions is something the smartest among us always do, but most of us don’t figure that out until we have wasted years silently wishing we knew more stuff about stuff... and all we had to do was ask!