
The power of admitting ignorance - Topolomancer
https://bastian.rieck.me/blog/posts/2020/power_of_admitting_ignorance/
======
ChrisMarshallNY
I worked at a Japanese corporation for most of my career.

They are _not_ a “warm and fuzzy” bunch.

But they respect apologies. If I screwed up, I quickly learned to cop to it.
The absolute worst thing I could do was cover it up.

Their attitude was not a punishing one, but we were expected to fix our
mistakes, and ensure they did not happen again.

If we said we did not know something, it was assumed we would learn, or find
someone who did.

Lot of “personal responsibility” stuff.

Americans, on the other hand, tend to pounce on admissions of failure or
ignorance, and engage in shaming and humiliation of the person that admits an
issue.

I am constantly encountering people that Absolutely. Will. Not. Admit.
Ignorance. Or. Fault. Even when it’s quite clear.

It’s crazy.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
My biggest win, mentoring: a new guy put in charge of 'Engineering data' e.g.
putting ad-hoc document solutions under one umbrella. He was worried, not an
Engineer, thought he'd make a fool of himself. I said "Here's the trick. If
you don't know something, say out loud "I don't know what that means. Can you
explain it to me?" And because Engineers _usually_ are happy to explain their
shit, they'll not think badly of you but instead become helpful. Never bluff
or fake it.

Fast forward 2 years. Everybody now respects him. He's the most generally
knowledgeable guy in the company, the CEO consults him. Moved to manage the
new products. He's on the road to Director now. Still the same helpful guy
with the reassuring voice and the insistence everybody in the room understand
before moving on.

~~~
WalterBright
In my first job, I discovered my boss had an encyclopedic knowledge of chip
pinouts. So when I needed to know a pinout, I asked him.

One day he blew up at me and said I had a TTL data book on the shelf and to
quit wasting his time because I was lazy.

He was absolutely right! It's good to ask questions, but not before RTFM.

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
I wouldn't describe that as being "absolutely" right. A team is more
productive when its individuals' strengths are pooled together, and there's no
sense in refusing to make use of a specialist's skills (within reason).

Yes, you want people to learn and become more self-sufficient over time, but
not at the cost of finishing projects in double the time.

~~~
WalterBright
Constantly interrupting a specialist when you could instead pick up the data
book is abusing him.

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
Depends. It was “the boss.” If they are a critical-path engineer (which, in my
experience, is a _very_ bad idea for managers), then they shouldn’t be used as
a StackOverflow board.

However, if they are a true manager, then they work on “interrupt,” anyway,
and their quick answers may improve the performance of the team, which is
really Job One for any manager.

I say this, having been a manager for many years.

It sucked. I hated it, which is why I am pivoting back into engineering.

I was a damn good manager, though. If you go to my LinkedIn profile, you’ll
see lots of testimonials from former employees.

One reason I was good, was because I kept myself out of the critical path.

~~~
mandelbrotwurst
I generally agree with you here, but there is still a limit to what extent and
over what it is reasonable to interrupt a manager - given enough
interruptions, they won't have any capacity left over at all!

------
lifeisstillgood
I don't know about any research supporting this (see what I did there) but in
my experience the best performing teams provide a _safe space_ \- where you
are not immediately judged or criticised for mistakes, uncertainty or asking
questions - but this necessary to bleed upwards to not holding teams to
unrealistic deadlines, to careful assessment of quality of definition of work
set, even towards what Incall "outcome driven development" where we set
metrics to be changed and then assert commits will change said metrics

Conversely my worst work has been done when i have bullshitted and now need to
keep up the lie. Pro-tip - don't do this

Pro-tip-2 - confidence that you can do something you have not done before,
_when having a history of success in the field_ is not the same as
bullshitting

Anyway it's hard to measure objectively- but you tend to reward the right
people when you do.

And no, markets don't do that nearly as well as you might think

~~~
state_less
> And no, markets don't do that nearly as well as you might think

Markets depend on Good information To function well. Market participants can
distort the information in the market for profit. In so far as this
profiteering can be maintained, markets won’t function so well.

Some conjecture that might not be too far off the mark.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
My gut feel (yeah I know) is modern day free markets are at best 80% free and
usually around 50. From structural inefficiencies to unintended regulation
effects, things rarely work the way the Topsy and Tim description says.

------
makach
Excellent blog post. One of the big issues, unfortunately, is that there are
too many of THEM. I just sat through a job interview where they bombarded me
with topics and asked me to rate myself on a scale from 1-know nothing,
2-familiar and 3-expert.

I immediately understood that this was a pointless exercise for me. I knew
That I don't consider myself an expert. I haven't studied any topic long
enough to call myself an expert. On the other hand, I like to believe that I
don't fall in the "clueless" part either. I have worked in the computer
industry form many years now and have overall pretty good problem-solving
skills and am able to produce work that generates value for my employers.

Still, I learn every day and improve on my skill, but it will require a lot
before I dare to call myself an expert. Others call me an expert, a wizard,
and other nice things, but this is never anything I would use to describe
myself.

I never got the job offer. Good riddance! I doubt I would have accepted the
job anyway.

~~~
zig
This type of rating system is always disappointing. Candidates and
interviewers each have different ideas of what expertise means -- I guess
because there is no real context around the question. Maybe it's a trope to
say, but it seems like competence and likelihood to rate oneself an expert are
inversely correlated (barring hubris or real expertise!).

I used to ask candidates to rate themselves from 1-10, e.g., in database
performance analysis, and often would get people rating themselves a 9 or a 10
without being able to articulate anything about the topic. It just seems very
meaningless, since we were going to have a discussion anyway -- and the
conversational part of the interview is more revealing, in any case.

~~~
cecilpl2
I usually find that (within a broad range of capability) someone's actual
knowledge on a given topic is inversely correlated with their self-rating on a
1-10 scale.

~~~
gumby
Perhaps especially in the pressure of an interview

------
amelius
> The person who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the person who does
> not ask is a fool for life.

\-- Confucius

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
_“The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.”_

-On the wall of a classroom in my past -can’t remember where.

~~~
watwut
I swear to god, there were stupid questions during lectures. And "senpai
notice me, praise me for asking this question despite the answer being
obvious/irrelevant" questions. And the "I was not listening can you repeat it"
questions.

~~~
darkerside
1\. You don't actually know that the answer was obvious to the asker. They may
have missed a critical piece of info. Or, you may have missed a critical piece
of nuance in their question.

2\. Also, when someone asks if anyone has questions, and nobody has _any_
questions, it can feel demoralizing and like nobody cared or understood what
you were saying. Filling that space with an obvious question can be a small
kindness. If you had a better question, maybe you should have asked it.

Disclaimer: I felt the exact same way as you when I attended university and
have gained some perspective since.

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
> can be a small kindness.

"Kindness" seems to be in short supply, these days.

It really is depressing to see how many people take kindness for weakness. I'm
seeing that demonstrated in this very article's comments.

One thing that I did learn in that corporation, was how to be an effective
member of an effective team.

There is no culture on earth that comes close to the Japanese for effective
teams. There's a _ton_ of downsides to their culture (but I won't get into
that); but their teams are incredibly tight and effective.

Being an effective member of a team requires far more than "hard" skills. It
requires a lot of "soft" skills, and, in my experience, those lessons seem
harder to learn.

One of the lessons that I learned, very early on, is that the person I
denigrate now, may the one that I depend on to pull my ass from a fire, down
the road.

At that time, they will remember whether I helped them, or tripped them up. To
their credit, most of the Japanese that I know won't actually take that into
account. If helping you helps the team, they will do it; regardless of how
they feel about you.

That's actually kind of amazing, and rather humbling.

~~~
watwut
> One of the lessons that I learned, very early on, is that the person I
> denigrate now, may the one that I depend on to pull my ass from a fire, down
> the road.

Why would you denigrate someone in the first place? Imo, the kind thing is not
to denigrate anyone, including people that can not possibly be useful.

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
> Imo, the kind thing is not to denigrate anyone, including people that can
> not possibly be useful.

Exactly.

In fact, I have always found it advantageous to treat people "far down the
ladder" with respect and kindness.

This has always worked out well for me. These people know _everything._

------
DanielBMarkham
One of the things I've read from folks who know a lot about startups used to
amaze me. Intelligence is not necessarily a critical factor in whether
founders will be successful or not. In fact, it can be counter-indicative! The
more intelligent you are, you more likely you're one of the people like the
author mentions. I've also read that it's not the geniuses, necessarily, that
make it. Most times it's just the slow plodders. A genius may become overly-
attracted to one of their own ideas. They may stick with it too long, or they
may be overly-defensive when they receive honest feedback. A plodder just
keeps trudging along, happy to take whatever feedback comes their way, happy
to change if needed, happy to learn from others.

I captured this concept in my first book with a phrase I call "profound
ignorance". It's not just admitting you're ignorant, it's admitting you're
probably ignorant about everything. And that's fine. Ignorant people don't
know yet, and if they're curious, they go try to find out. Even when they do
find out, they're still quite open to being wrong. They are, in fact,
ignorant.

I found this had a profound impact in my programming and consulting career.
Frankly, it's bad for your career and good for your life. People want to hire
people that know a bunch of stuff, and to be open, honest, and curious about
being profoundly ignorant is not reassuring. Other programmers many times want
to play posturing games. It is, after all, part of our social programming.
Ignorant people usually don't do so well in these games. But on a personal
level? It was liberating. I could find whatever I wanted to and deep dive in
it. Since I didn't know much of anything, I was able to talk about topics I
have a ton of experience in without feeling like I had to attack or defend any
pre-held opinions. It was, in fact, what I consider "growing up", both as a
human and as a professional.

When we think of how much programming is skewed towards youth, we should keep
in mind that most really young people have not had this growing up experience.
We should wish them well and cut them a bit of slack if they're acting like we
did when we were their age. After all, it's human.

~~~
Rerarom
That's why when stuff is being advertised as "everyone can do it", everyone
gets excited but I run away. I don't want to be overcome by hard workers, so I
am looking for stuff for which you truly have to be a genius to do it and hard
work is not a shortcut.

~~~
papeda
What are these areas where "you truly have to be a genius to do it"? (Asking
for a friend, I assure you.)

~~~
Rerarom
I was half-joking, more like fed up with this overused "everyone can do it"
mantra (e.g. I saw it several times in Andrew Ng's machine learning course,
which turned me off the subject (not that I had been turned on too much in the
first place, but I was curious what he was going to say about the subject that
could enthrall me (not much, probably just dimensionality reduction))).

Anyway, if you want to work in a genius-level field, you have to be motivated
enough to find it on your own.

------
deathgrips
This only demonstrates that people with high status in academia can admit
ignorance and get a good result. I can speculate that the author would get
very different results if he professed ignorance at his first job--I think
coworkers who followed "fake it til you make it" would get promoted faster.

~~~
toohotatopic
In the light of amelius's comment: Is the first promotion that relevant? If
you learn faster by asking questions, you are a more skilled programmer much
sooner. If your first employer doesn't honour that, you then have the skills
to switch and earn according to your much higher skills at another company.

~~~
deathgrips
Companies cannot perfectly measure your programming skill and most software
companies don't conduct in depth algorithm interviews. Most of the hiring
decision is based on your likability, social skills, previous job history
(including job title and skills listed from that first promotion), and how you
handle interview questions. You can bullshit your way very far in most of the
software development world even if you're only 80% as good as your peers. If
you have "junior developer" or "senior developer" on your resume but aren't as
good as a "entry level developer", it's a moot point if you get called for an
interview but the other guy doesn't.

------
maire
I am surprised nobody is talking about the math part of the story.

For me - I had the exact same experience with topology as the author. I was
taking a normal math class and in the middle of the normal class the professor
started talking about topology. He got the whole class excited about topology
to the point that we all enrolled in topology the next quarter.

Imagine our disappointment when we discovered our new topology professor did
not love topology. He taught the class by rote. Topology is not a subject I
could learn on my own. I dropped the class and sadly still wonder what I
missed.

The lesson for me is that it is not enough to admit ignorance. You also need
an enlightened guide and mentor.

------
WesternStar
There also seems to be this misconception that being intelligent gives you a
license and even a propensity to be a jerk. I just don't buy it. Sometimes
smart people are jerks. But if you're a jerk the onus is on you in my mind to
prove you are smart. I won't make that assumption.

------
DFHippie
When I was younger I loved ideas for their own sake and was constantly
disappointed when I went to have fun with some idea and found that everyone
gathered around it viewed it as an opportunity to assert dominance. I fled so
many fields because I believed ultimately I would find some place where people
were there for the ideas themselves, not for the zero-sum battle for status.
Ultimately I left academia and became a programmer because it seemed the ego
battle was less a part of the process. I hate the competition-based culture of
early academia -- olympiads and whatnot -- for the same reason. The reward
isn't in the ideas themselves or the work but in the ranking.

------
kieckerjan
Two telltale signs of a mature mind: if someone readily admits he does not
know something, or if someone readily admits he was wrong. Call it
metacognitive skills if you want.

------
saagarjha
Similarly, the instructors I really hate are the ones who don’t know the
answers to questions but they’ll try to come up with answer on the spot
because they think you (or the eavesdropping student) doesn’t know better.
Just say you don’t know!

~~~
Topolomancer
My least favourite instructor, upon being asked whether a certain convergence
criterion was just necessary or also sufficient, assumed a very ponderous face
and replied sagely---or so he thought---with a simple 'it depends'. The rest
of the course went downhill pretty fast from there.

------
arkanciscan
I've always readily admitted when I don't know something. Might be that I was
raised in Arkansas, where ignorance is a little more acceptable.

It's usually a great benefit for me, for the same reasons the article
describes. However the problem I've found is that--as an engineer--if you
don't profess complete knowledge, there's a limit to how effective you can be
in leadership. Engineers don't take you seriously, if you act as though you
have any doubt in yourself. It's a wall I keep hitting and I've about decided
I need to start feigning full-bore 10x brogrammer ego just to herd some cats.

~~~
Aperocky
> Engineers don't take you seriously, if you act as though you have any doubt
> in yourself

As an engineer, me and my firsthand experience do not agree with this.

On the other hand, where I worked the entire team is involved and onboard with
setting goals and prioritizing things that need to be done. We absolutely
don't expect our manager to understand more than we do on our service.

~~~
arkanciscan
I'm not talking about management, I'm talking about leadership. Do you have a
tech lead on your team? If not how do technical decisions get made? Is it
democratic (everyone votes) or more meritocratic (everyone argues their
opinion and the strongest one wins). In my experience it's typically the
later, and it's in that case that demonstrating a lack of confidence is likely
to defeat your chances of leading the team in the direction you think it
should go.

~~~
Aperocky
It is meritocratic, we don't technically have tech lead, but we do have
seniority. However, the most senior engineer doesn't pretend/try to give the
impression that he knows everything. Usually each person will have a portion
of the project that he knows best and his opinions are the primary driver in
that portion. Others give recommendations based on those opinion and not
overriding them (normally).

There are larger issues in direction but for those I think all of our opinions
are fairly similar - being engineers, we dislike complexity and like things
maintainable and extendable.

------
visarga
Developing a sense of what you know or do not know is a big part of learning.
In ML, this is called confidence estimation and is harder than actually
learning the task. Most ML models just learn to solve the task and have shit
confidence estimations. I presume with humans it takes many years of learning
a subject to really know how much you do not know. It's a process of
calibration of confidence based on lots of background knowledge on the topic
(going from unknown unknowns to known unknowns).

------
KozmoNau7
"I do not have enough knowledge of this subject to hold an informed opinion"
is a statement that should be respected, not ridiculed.

We have a tendency to view people who change their views as "wishy-washy" and
"flip-floppers", instead of respecting them for informing themselves and
reevaluating their positions.

~~~
brenden2
The truth is that egomaniacs tend to be the ones who get all the fame and
glory. Just look at Musk, Trump, and anyone else who's managed to acquire a
massive cult following.

------
lostlogin
The link to Mathematical Apocrypha does something very strange. I think it’s
meant to be this:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1262199](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1262199)

Edit: now the link works.

------
blueboo
"The power of admitting ignorance", or, the folly of refusing to learn
something you don't know. I dunno. It seems self-evident. The issue here is
ego. Self-awareness. Humility.

~~~
Topolomancer
Well, it is now to me---but I started university when I had turned 18, and I
like to believe that I learned a little bit of wisdom since then :)

------
curlcntr
I put this on the back of my phone after completing my PhD.

"in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's
there are few" \- Shunryu Suzuki

------
joerickey
I have to note this: a typical classroom may have up to a couple hundred
students and some kind of schedule to uphold. If everyone asks questions all
the time, there would be no progress done, and "fast learners" would be bored
out of their minds, while the "slower" ones would still have a hard time.
Also, schedule would just be trashed by such approach

------
cloudier
Thanks for sharing this — I needed it. I think this explains why I often say
“I get it” when I really don’t: I don’t want to look stupid. But being able to
admit ignorance means that I can test my mental models and make them even
better. I need to be able to admit my ignorance to myself to be able to ask
myself the questions that strengthen my understanding of new or unfamiliar
concepts.

~~~
redcalx
In my experience it's often quite obvious when someone doesn't understand
something and they say they do. Someone who properly understands will
typically offer some tidbit of feedback from their understanding as an
acknowledgement. And if not forthcoming I will extend the conversation to try
and tease out that bit of feedback. I think this works because the people who
genuinely understand something are usually keen to demonstrate that
understanding in some small way.

------
bluedino
I wish any company that outsourced their product support would force their
contractors to read this.

It is so hard for these people to just admit they don't know and have to ask
someone or escalate the case.

------
mark-r
I'm never afraid to make an ignorant statement, especially on a forum like HN.
Best case is that someone more knowledgeable will come along and teach me
something.

~~~
dang
Cunningham's is one of the more underrated internet laws.

------
naringas
now imagine such an attitude in a non-academic setting where instead of a
professor replying to a student it's the division head or president or chief
executive replying to a junior staffer: "I don't really know what is going on,
maybe you can help figure it out?"

------
thomk
To be clear, simply asking an earnest follow up question is simple and
efficient way to do this.

------
jasonv
I spend all day in teams where no one will admit to knowing anything...

------
kisanme
Wonderful read and very thought provoking :)

