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Willingness to look stupid

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Re: Willingness to look stupid

#421

Post by somethoughts »

andrewla wrote: post #338

This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have apparently been stalling out. I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to walk…

Just to provide additional context...

This works and should be encouraged if you are indeed very smart and very quick, typically introverted and are actually going to be rolling up your sleeves to pitch in.

This approach is painful for everyone else and should be discouraged if you are a very extroverted and very non-technical person with no plan on actually helping out whatsoever with the actual execution on solving the problem at hand and really are only contributing to look smart in front of any leadership who happens to be in the room.

Definitely be aware of the Dunning–Kruger effect - which is a cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task overestimate their own ability, and that people with high ability at a task underestimate their own ability.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#422

Post by yummypaint »

microtonal wrote: post #411
sharkweek wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VP in my org does this, and it really disarms the room. She’s big on that exact phrase of “this could be a really stupid question, but…” She’s also really good about making sure other people are rewarded for doing the same by reassuring someone asking what might be a dumb question as, “that’s a a great question and I’m sure others were wondering the same…” before responding. Great leadership, IMO.

In the group where I did my PhD, one of the professors would do this (but without pre-announcing). He would start with really basic questions and gradually build up to more complex questions. This was great for two reasons: 1. it builds up large common ground for understanding; 2. if someone in a leadership position does this, others will not feel ashamed of asking questions that they think may be basic.

My PhD advisor was great at doing this. Just having him in attendance at colloquium made the talks more informative.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#423

Post by the_cat_kittles »

speedgeek wrote: post #410

I have this theory that there is an direct relationship between intellect and doing really stupid things. A genius will sometimes do the most idiotic things. Take comfort the next time you do something really dumb because it indicates you are generally very smart.

ah yes, we all know the saying "stupid is as stupid doesn't"

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#424

Post by technobabble »

mywittyname wrote: post #360
andrewla wrote: post #338

This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have apparently been stalling out. I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to walk…

One of the best people I've ever worked with used this approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm understanding the problem, ." were two phrases she used all the time . I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is knowing what obvious questions to ask. Mo…

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm commenting on this thread so I can save it for future reference.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#425

Post by cpb »

I'll add to the voices here mentioning vulnerability. I believe it takes strength and courage to choose vulnerability.

I am starting to recognize that the courage is required because it can be a filter. It isn't just the chance that a "nurse or phlebotomist" might judge you harshly, there are many people in the world that'll sooner reject than connect with you.

Still, if we are to be true to ourselves, perhaps vulnerability can minimize the total amount of pain in our lives. It'll take weighting the acute pain of rejection as vulnerable as lesser than the chronic pain of acceptance with insecurity.

May we be so fortunate to choose.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#426

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

I find it to be productive sometimes to have the attitude of the brave soldier Švejk. "I report obediently that I've been officially declared to be an idiot, sir".

Most of the time it lowers expectations people have of me and relieves me from the worries about not being able to meet said expectations.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#427

Post by andrewla »

Narann wrote: post #386
andrewla wrote: post #338

This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have apparently been stalling out. I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to walk…

Such behavior can be a good thing, but you could fall in your own bias thinking you know the problem better than them, to finally realize the problem outpace your scope and you are just impacted as anyone in the room. It happen for me once, and this was an humility lesson. Now I keep in mind I can feel I understand the problem then realize later I was all wrong too.

For sure! Another comment noted that this might be a sign of a dysfunctional organization, and I think there's a lot of truth there -- where systems have grown to such complexity that people involved in a larger project can't keep the whole thing in their head, and you get groups of people sort of faking it, assuming other people can fill in the details, and not wanting to appear ignorant about areas outside of your expertise.

I've been in other organizations (and even within this one) where my stupid questions revealed nothing new except that I had to go back and do some studying before I could usefully contribute.

I remember when I took a course in General Relativity as an undergraduate; I was much more math/CS focused than most people in the class, who were mostly physics people. And we would get together in study groups, and although I was respected for my general intelligence, it became clear that the questions I was asking were simply not the right ones -- that a physical/geometric intuition was something I did not have. In other words, I was actually the stupid one.

Much later I took a course in differential geometry, and eventually started seeing how it made sense mathematically, but I could never really connect it back to physical intuition. I think the problem that broke me was talking about the behavior of a point mass, and I had literally no idea how to attack that with the tools we had.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#428

Post by Wowfunhappy »

bad_good_guy wrote: post #407
mywittyname wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best people I've ever worked with used this approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm understanding the problem, ." were two phrases she used all the time . I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is knowing what obvious questions to ask. Mo…

I've had PMs always lead questions like that, using "this is probably a stupid question..." and alternatives and I came to dread discussions with them, as I knew this meeting would involve loads of wasted time constantly 'excusing' their question instead of just asking it.

Just how long do they draw it out? Phrasing "So, stupid question: [insert question" really shouldn't add that much time, right? Or is the problem that the questions really are stupid?

I have a weird job title but my position is probably closer to your PM, and I also use this strategy, so I'd like to know how to not annoy people!

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#429

Post by greyhair »

My golden skill at my last job was asking questions. My director, who was a peer at a prior startup, knew this about me, and dragged me into meetings where my core interest was only peripherally related. I often spent time in the meeting with my head slightly tipped back and my eyes closed, because I would have already read through the prepared slide deck twice before the meeting, and I wanted to concentrate on what was being said. A lot of times, people thought I was asleep. They were wrong. One of the first meetings at this fortune 100 company, a chip architect was running through the design (too many details) and he mentioned one particular communication link they were going to use, because that was the only port available on the companion chip they were using to constrain costs. I immediately opened my eyes and asked one question on the bandwidth/latency for one use case, that would be heavily used, and the room went silent. The architect tried to wave it off, but another hardware engineer I had worked with for three years at a prior job said he would run the numbers on it and get an answer. In the end, the design was cancelled, because that one flaw (there were likely others) meant the design would never work.

People at that company didn't know me well, yet, and as I said, I wasn't core to many of the meetings I attended, and I spent most of the meeting sitting quietly with my eyes closed. Never assume I am sleeping. And don't try to wave off my 'stupid' questions. I ask the stupid questions, because if you cannot address it with a simple direct answer, then you don't understand the stupid question.

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