“I can’t know everything.” A co-worker at a previous job once said this to me.
He wasn’t being flippant. He was explaining to me that it’s OK if we don’t know everything. It’s OK to admit you don’t know the answer to a question and that you may need to conduct research on the topic.
It was a simple statement, but it has stuck with me, and I remind myself now and then that I simply can’t know everything. The key is to know when you need to admit this to yourself, where to get the answers, and—perhaps most important—whom to trust.
Earlier this year, my husband and I spent three months trying to buy a foreclosure. We saw potential in that bank-owned house, and we had the money and the desire to fix up our own fixer-upper. We had educated ourselves by speaking with realtors at various open houses in the last year, watching HGTV at all hours of the day and trying to memorize “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buying and Selling a Home.”
It was easy—for about three days after we made the offer. Then we started getting new terms thrown at us, contract addendums emailed to us, requests for more signatures on more paperwork. I can’t know everything. That I knew.
What I neglected to remind myself is that I needed to know where to get the answers and whom to trust. It wasn’t until late in the process that I became furious enough that I took charge of my decisions. I sought out referrals of experts, drew up a list of questions for them and believed in my intuition on who to trust. I also asked my friends for their do’s and don’ts of home buying.
Ultimately, we decided not to buy that particular house.
Whether you work in the media industry, at an architectural firm, in a small nonprofit or are just hoping to buy your first home, remind yourself that you can’t know everything. If clients or customers ask a question, don’t spew some B.S. or talk around the subject.
Discuss their idea or question with them and let them know you’ll get back to them with more information. If you’re stuck on a project and you feel you’ve done so much research you’ve reached the end of the Interwebs, ask a trusted colleague if you can bounce some ideas off him.
Or, ask around at work to find out who is skilled or interested in the area you’re researching. Not only will you get answers and learn something new, you could develop new work friendships, find a sounding board, improve teamwork and enhance your idea-developing process.
Sometimes we are so focused on being successful—at our jobs and in our personal lives—that we don’t allow ourselves to admit we’re not experts in every area.
Say it with me: “I can’t know everything.”
[image: James Bowe]
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Sometimes the smartest thing to do is to let someone else do it for you
Think about it: why do so many people have other people cut their hair or fix their car?
While I want to agree with you, I feel like this is a very risky attitude for the workplace. It seems like everyone expects you to have answers, even if they aren’t the best ones. I think technically you’re right, but I just think it’s a risk. That’s all. In your personal life, it probably makes a lot more sense. Or did i Miss the point?
A much better response would be to say, “Let me find out the answer and get back to you on that.”
Sucktackular: Well said, but I think we’re saying the same thing here. I said, “Let them know you’ll get back to them with more information.”
Sandra: let me pose it as a question. If you’re on the phone with a client and they ask you a question you flat out don’t know the answer to, how will you respond? I’m not saying that you should tell the client, “I can’t know everything.” No way. But instead of stumbling around for some kind of answer that you clearly don’t know, it should be OK to say that you’ll get back to them with the answer. And then take that as an opportunity to learn something new. In my past work life, I dealt with a lot of vendors, and I’d rather hear, “Let me check on that,” than some long-winded, say-nothing answer that talks around the subject. Make sense?
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