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I don't know

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Re: I don't know

#31

Post by benched »

Jemaclus wrote: post #8

It's not just "I don't know" that is important, but also the next part of the thought: "but I can find out." Just admitting you don't know is great, but it's not good enough. You have to also be able to take the next step and find out . If I ask two people if they know how to do something, and one of them says "I don't know" and the other says "I don't know, but I can find out," then... well, I don't really need to c…

I think this is so absurdly overrated. It's like forcing a toddler to say thank you. "Now, subordinate/rival, What do we say?? I didn't hear the magic words! We need to find out, mmkay? Can you say you can find out?"

Re: I don't know

#32

Post by chris_mahan »

flebron wrote: post #19
chris_mahan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can one know how long it will take to get an answer? That's just a lie of bravado, a pressure-driven estimate. It's horrible in a business environment. What happens is the person will give the first answer that makes sense, which, while the answer may be correct, discourages deep analysis of the problem. I never give estimates, to the great fury of my boss, but I told him I don't want to lie. Lying is unethical,…

So how do you handle any sort of software development planning? Do you just tell the client "It'll be done eventually. I'll let you know when.", or would you accept that reply from your employees?

That's why agile is used: We'll show you what we have at an agreed upon time (1 week, 2 weeks, 6 weeks, whatever) and you can say "that's fine keep going" or "hmmm, we should change direction."

Re: I don't know

#33

Post by larrys »

"While there are lots of tactics, there is no one true silver bullet. "

I'm old enough to have worked with Coldwell Banker when they rolled out their commercial real estate operations on the East Coast (they had been only a west coast company at first).

What they did was assign a college student (typically on summer break or part time) to go out to each area and literally catalog all the commercial office space for part of the time and then the rest they would spend in the office calling up the building owner (or manager) and verifying the data collected.

This was many years ago but it worked quite well. A database was compiled and updated.

Bottom line is no matter how you cut this is a manual process.

You know why the yellow pages was such a success? Relevant data that while it came out 1 time per year typically was highly accurate for that year.

They made enough money (by selling advertising to a captive audience) that they were able to employ an entire quality checking and sales organization to verify and collect the data which ended up in a product that was widely used up until the internet came along. But once again they had the profit margin and captive audience to make the whole process work and that was a key part of that success.

Re: I don't know

#34

Post by chris_mahan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #28
chris_mahan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can one know how long it will take to get an answer? That's just a lie of bravado, a pressure-driven estimate. It's horrible in a business environment. What happens is the person will give the first answer that makes sense, which, while the answer may be correct, discourages deep analysis of the problem. I never give estimates, to the great fury of my boss, but I told him I don't want to lie. Lying is unethical,…

> It's horrible in a business environment. That may be so, but the military environment is different. Officers need to be able to make good-enough decisions on the spot, without the benefit of careful consideration, because there might be a literal dead line, after which people die. Sometimes being in motion is more important than the actual direction.

If you need to make good-enough decisions on the spot, you need to have people be willing to take responsibility for being wrong, and they need to have decent information available (the decision-maker needs the information, not some other person somewhere else--in companies, information is hoarded horribly).

Re: I don't know

#35

Post by adamzerner »

> Kiran explained that he likes it when people say I don’t know because it lends credibility to everything else that they’ve said.

I'd take that a step further, and say that people who assign proper levels of certainty to their beliefs tend to be credible. Most people seem to only be able to think in absolutes.

Re: I don't know

#36

Post by [deleted] »

nsomaru wrote: post #4

In Indian culture, knowledge (viveka) is always accompanied with humility (vinaya). Thus, counter-intuitively, saying 'I don't know' is an indicator of the speaker's knowledge, as he is aware of areas of his ignorance. Contrast with an arrogant attitude of "I-know-everything-or-can-find-it-out" and the fuck-ups that inevitably follow. Aside: I would really like to know what the solution to keeping the listings update…

[deleted]

Re: I don't know

#37

Post by TeMPOraL »

eterm wrote: post #23
jblok wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because someone is from India, it doesn't mean they know everything about (incredibly diverse) cultures from every other country on the same continent. It's like asking an American of the culture of Brazil.

Yes, "Hey you're from India, what's it like it Japan" is almost hilariously insensitive. (Actually just tragic). It's along the same lines as: [Hears X is from country Y] "Oh do you know bob?"

> [Hears X is from country Y] "Oh do you know bob?"

Which is an entirely reasonable question, because if X from country Y is at the same party as you, then there's a good chance he might know your friend Bob. It's a small world, they say.

Re: I don't know

#38

Post by johngalt »

collyw wrote: post #2

I wish politicians would have this attitude instead of avoiding the questions and coming out with meaningless statements.

Unfortunately the audience is different. Uncertainty becomes more of a negative the further away the audience is from the practitioner.

Re: I don't know

#39

Post by waylandsmithers »

adamzerner wrote: post #35

> Kiran explained that he likes it when people say I don’t know because it lends credibility to everything else that they’ve said. I'd take that a step further, and say that people who assign proper levels of certainty to their beliefs tend to be credible. Most people seem to only be able to think in absolutes.

Hey! I do this! It tends to drive people insane!

Re: I don't know

#40

Post by belovedeagle »

kliao wrote: post #5

I really like this idea and try to apply it as much as possible. In my experience, for any kind of teamwork, the faster we get to the "I don't knows", the faster we solve problems, while stating half-truths/guesses-as-facts spreads confusion and kills productivity. I've also noticed that the type of person who is afraid to admit knowledge gaps is usually also the one who looks at me funny or expresses disapproval whe…

As one of those people who rarely says "I don't know", let me offer a different view: saying "I don't know" is negative and gets you nowhere. Instead of saying "I don't know", say what you do know. Then you're a step closer to understanding than anyone who said "I don't know"; and you're likely to be several steps ahead by the time they get over that hesitation.

Now, guesses should never be presented as absolute facts, but having a guess puts you much closer to the truth than having nothing. If you really, truly have nothing, no relevant knowledge---which should rarely happen if you're well-educated and/or experienced, in which case you're a novice to the subject, where somewhat different rules apply---then say so; otherwise, go with what you know and learn the rest on the way. Will mistakes sometimes happen? Will you sometimes head down dead-ends? Absolutely, but that's part of the learning process and we shouldn't be afraid of mistakes, as long as we're in a process which is tolerant of them. (If you're pushing code to production, for example, then that's a time either to know or not to know, not to guess. But that's the end of the process, not when you're asking questions.)

So if you said to me, "I don't know", I might look at you funny because it's probably not true: you probably do know, at least partially; it just seems like you're not willing to acknowledge that.

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