
The Power of Saying "I Don't Know" - monkeygrinder
http://www.verticalresponse.com/education-support/articles-reports/the-power-of-saying-i-dont-know/
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roadnottaken
I've always found that it demonstrates security with one's intelligence to be
able to admit ignorance. People that feel like they know a lot, but don't
happen to know what you're talking about will freely admit to it. OTOH it's
people that feel like they don't know enough and that think they _should_ know
something that will pretend they do.

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dablya
It demonstrates confidence in the person admitting to not know something.
NOBODY is comfortable sitting there admitting to not knowing one thing after
another after another. People are a lot more comfortable admitting ignorance
when they don't expect to have to do it often.

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jeremymims
Beware of the other extreme.

I've seen organizations where this is the only "safe" answer and nothing gets
done. Sometimes people say "I don't know" when they actually know enough to
make a decision.

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dkarl
Sometimes they know enough to make a decision, but you have meeting after
meeting with people who know nothing because the person who knows something
couldn't make the meeting.

I also hate nailing down a definitive plan with one person, and then a week
later somebody else takes over for them and schedules a meeting to start from
scratch. So you send them the plan, and they say, "This is the first time I've
seen this. Let me postpone the meeting for a week so I can review it."

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nhnifong
The Truth really doesn't hurt! well said. I am an intern at an organization
where everyone is about two decades older than me, and there is a lot I don't
know. They don't know what they can expect me to know, and I don't know what
they know. I send piles of questions out to anyone who has some spare time and
have not once been chastised in return.

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arethuza
I remember one place where one guy - who was _very_ experienced and a
generally awesome developer had a rather unpleasant (i.e. plain rude) manner
when asked worked questions even though he was generally quite pleasant about
non-work topics.

He eventually admitted he did it on purpose so that people would explore
_every_ other solution to a problem before giving up and asking him
(inevitably he would almost instantly know the answer - he was that kind of
guy).

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dctoedt
It sometimes sounds better to phrase "I don't know" along the lines of, "Let
me check on that and get back to you."

In Navy ROTC 'boot camp,' it was _verboten_ to respond "I don't know"; the
only acceptable phrasing was "I'll find out, sir." (And the cadre followed up
to make sure we _did_ find out.)

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napierzaza
This really depends. All you need is a manager that doesn't accept that as an
answer and you start lying. I have one like that. If I say "I don't know" he
just keeps asking me the question over and over. It's surreal for sure, but I
learned to nod my head and agree so he can finally leave my office and stop
eating an banana with his mouth open _.

_ while talking as well

