{"id":2811,"date":"2022-05-05T09:42:22","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T15:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/?p=2811"},"modified":"2024-05-02T08:37:09","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T14:37:09","slug":"answer-i-dont-know-when-you-dont-know-its-good-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/answer-i-dont-know-when-you-dont-know-its-good-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Answer ‘I don’t know’ when you don’t know. It’s good business."},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the secret to success in business?\u00a0I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s\u201d on first, \u201cWhat\u2019s\u201d on second, and…\u201dI Don\u2019t Know\u201d is the key to success.<\/p>\n

Confused? Keep reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d are three of the most powerful words that you won\u2019t find in any business books or MBA programs.\u00a0 Whether you\u2019re an entrepreneur, investor, doctor, teacher, or politician, no matter what your vocation is, it goes against everything we\u2019re taught about leadership to straight up admit you\u2019re not sure of something.<\/p>\n

But sometimes \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m not sure\u201d is the honest truth.\u00a0And although proclaiming ignorance may be a social risk, it\u2019s much less risky than leading a company in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

There are topics and dilemmas that all of us are presented with that either go beyond our own scope of knowledge and experience or that are simply too subjective to be certain of. Without the courage and freedom to say \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d when you aren\u2019t sure of what\u2019s best to do, business decisions become just speculations\u2014detached from reality.\u00a0This can doom a project, strategy, or an entire company to failure.<\/p>\n

In most companies, saying \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d in a meeting is rare.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s because of our own insecurities or confident arrogance, it can take some courage to say the words. Whether in front of a colleague or a customer, making it clear that you are unsure or need to do more research before answering brings with it the risk that you will be perceived as weak or uninformed.<\/p>\n

But in my role as a CEO at our tech consulting company, I have learned that normalizing these three simple words has been critical to everything we do.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think we can make the deadline?\u201d
\n\u201dI hope we can, but I\u2019m honestly not sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShould we stay focused on our core competencies or pivot to help us grow?\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0I need to think about this before I can share an opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo think the economy will be ok this year?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m not an economist so I\u2019m not totally sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

I value these types of interactions because they are real.
\nSo, how do you break through the fear and make \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d an accepted and even encouraged part of your company\u2019s culture?<\/p>\n

It starts at the top.\u00a0Company leaders must be humble and acknowledge out loud that there are certain topics that fall outside their expertise.\u00a0Setting the tone from the top takes the shame away for everyone else.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not that easy because most teams look to those in leadership roles for answers and certainty.\u00a0 The modified version for those is leadership roles should be \u201cI don\u2019t know but I will find out.\u201d The idea is to make sure everyone knows it\u2019s OK\u00a0not to have an opinion but that they won\u2019t be left hanging with no answer at all.\u00a0It\u2019s the proactive version of being real.<\/p>\n

From there, it\u2019s a matter of establishing a culture where everyone feels respected and secure. We all have some degree of imposter syndrome (a fear that you\u2019re not as knowledgeable as you appear, and one day the rest of the world will find out.) So this is also easier said than done.\u00a0But at its core, setting a culture of security and respect comes down to having each other’s back when someone makes a mistake, and treating people as equals no matter where they stand on the corporate ladder.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to admit after all these years in business that I\u2019m not sure what the secret sauce of success is. But I do know that saying \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d is an important ingredient.<\/p>\n

JJ Rosen is the founder of Atiba. A Nashville custom software development and IT support<\/a> company. \u00a0Visit www.atiba.com or www.atibanetworkservices.com for more info.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean. What\u2019s the secret to success in business?\u00a0I don\u2019t know. \u201cWho\u2019s\u201d on first, \u201cWhat\u2019s\u201d on second, and…\u201dI Don\u2019t Know\u201d is the key to success. Confused? Keep reading. \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d are three of the most powerful words that you won\u2019t find in any business books or MBA programs.\u00a0 Whether you\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atiba-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}