Being able to say that in the first place already shows confidence.
Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
21–30 of 64 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#22How much do you know? One of my strongest things as somebody who's looked to as a person who knows a lot, is that I will immediately go to 'I don't know' when asked that sort of question. I don't even make an additional promise, I just stop at 'I don't know'.
With your emphasis on 'confidently', it sounds like you're looking at social consequences. I find that stopping the conversation with 'I don't know' and getting on with what I'm doing, socially 'reads' as authoritative. I'm sure part of it is my lack of equivocation: if I went 'I'll get back to you, I promise I swear I'll be able to know eventually, soon, I promise, pinky swear I will honest!' there would obviously be no authority, I'd be grovelling.
I could probably double down, unethically. 'I don't know, what a stupid question, why would you even ask that malformed question, that's not a real question'. I think that would lead to suspicion, though.
'I don't know' can be a power move, if you HAVE the confidence to mean it and let it lie there. I guess that's the answer. "I don't know. This is what I'm actively doing now…" This relies very much on there being many things you do know…
Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#23"I'll have to have a think about it and get back to you."
or, similar
"That's needs some thought. I'll get back to you about it."
.
I think there's no avoiding "I'll get back to you" or something substantially similar. After all, the whole point is to tell them that that's what you're going to do.
But "I don't know" is the bit I think you have a problem with. It seems to suggest that someone else would know: if only they were here, they would be able to just "look up" the answer from the right corner of their brain. But you want to communicate that this is a problem that actually needs solving, whoever is doing it. "needs thought" is the best I can think of for that.
Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#24Tell them you can look into it for them, and then ask them to provide you with a Work Package # to which you can bill your time.
Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#25Tell them that you are slow thinker and you need your time to think thoroughly so you can come back with answers. If they don't believe you, tell them Derek Sivers, the CD Baby creator is also a slow thinker https://sive.rs/slow
I would avoid that phrase since people may take it to mean you're admitting to being bad at thinking and therefore not a very useful employee.
Instead, I'd spin it to say you need more time to investigate thoroughly to give them an accurate answer.
Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#26It can be helpful to restate the framing of the question /problem beforehand to clarify, reduce room for misunderstandings, communicate that you care enough to get it right, and also buy yourself time to maybe come up with an answer on the fly. Sometimes an extra minute or two is enough to come up with something good.
I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you." is fine. If you're really anxious, you can say "I want to give you a good answer, so let me think on this and get back to you. Is an email/slack convenient for you or should we reconvene at ?"
Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#27Lots of different possible scenarios here, but this is a super common thing in business.
A couple of pointers:
1) Make sure you understand what they really want. It is common for a person to ask "can your hardware run on 12V", for example. But what they really want to know is something like "can I use this on my solar powered RV that will be parked in a 122F desert". This is just one of a billion examples from my career. You need to determine things like do they mean a stable 12.000V from a power supply, or a really variable 12VDC vehicle system that can range from 11-15V commonly. And then there is the whole ruggedness of the hardware issue. You need to be able to look ahead a bit and often assume the person isn't really asking the question they want an answer to.
2) The best way to be successful in business is to predict the future :) By this I mean determine how to set achievable expectations. If you feel confident that you can get an answer by COB, then state that and do it (predict the future, make it come true).
3) Communicate commitment and honesty. It is ok to tell someone you don't know, but you can say this in a lot of ways. Depending on all the variables, saying something like "this seems possible, but I need to check with X", or "I believe we did something similar for another situation, let me get more data internally and get back to you by tomorrow morning", etc.
If you want to setup a coaching session I'm happy to do a 30 minute zoom/whatever.
Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#28I say it exactly like that. "I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you." They key isn't how you say it, the key is that you consistently do it so that people learn that when you say it, you mean it.
Yes, precisely. OP, you're overthinking this. As a consultant I talk with a lot of people, nobody whose opinion you care about will think less of you for saying exactly that.
An intermediate answer you can give is something like "I would take such and such steps, but I'm not sure this will solve the issue and I need to verify this offline". Don't bullshit people, it's a small world, it's almost never worth it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#29I say it exactly like that. "I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you." They key isn't how you say it, the key is that you consistently do it so that people learn that when you say it, you mean it.
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Re: Ask HN: How do you say “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” confidently?
#30> But I never found a good way to do it confidently, in a way that doesn’t make it seem like I can’t be trusted that I know what I’m doing.
It sounds like you're suffering from imposter syndrome. I promise you, no one thinks about you nearly as much as you think about you.
By the time you uttered the words, your team's mind has already moved on to something else.
Say the words and then follow up later.