The "I Don't Know" Factor

In our consulting practice, we often commiserate with each other about our clients' poor internal communication. We spend much of our time navigating our clients' internal expertise trees, running down answers to questions that arise as we try to provide service.

We usually shake our heads in wonder at how often we have to plant ourselves, physically, in people's offices before they will answer our questions. We often note, with some bitterness, that the answer is some form of "I have no idea" and then we have to move on to the next node in the expertise tree.

Last week I was struck by an admittedly obvious-in-hindsight thought: what if these two phenomena, the long chase and the unsatisfying answer, are actually two facets of the same underlying issue? What if many of the various issues I have encountered--and about which I have written--are all related? What if, for various reasons I will recapitulate below, the answer is often "I don't know" and this ignorance is why no one ever wants to get back to us?

It seems to be taboo in our business to say "I don't know" which is a shame: if you don't know and don't feel that you can cop to that, then you don't have any good options. In fact, the only option most people have is to then become a lying weasel, frequently resorting to rudeness as a diversionary tactic.

In my experience, true experts say "I don't know" often and quickly. They usually add "but I can find out" or "here is how you can find out". If you are confident in your competence, then not knowing something is rarely shameful. In fact, as a domain expert who is rarely asked a question to which I do not immediately know the answer, I can attest that being stumped by a question is a mildly exciting change of pace and a chance to learn something.

I should point out that my rarely being stumped has less to do with my innate awesomeness and more to do with the fact that I have almost 30 years of experience in basically the same small field. At this point, I damn well ought to know 99% of what I encounter all day. And I do.

I should also point out that I claim that my deep expertise in my own small area leads people to ask me questions wildly out of my area, as though experthood were separate from subject matter, like height or eye color. When this happens, I am no more likely to have a useful answer than anyone else, but depending on how important the client and how deep the boredom, sometimes I go looking for the answer. I like learning things. Sadly, this trait is not universal.

In my experience, posers struggle valiantly to avoid saying "I don't know" and either evade or dissemble. Does this fool anyone? No, it does not. But at least people eventually stop asking you questions, which is a victory of sorts, I suppose.

But why is it not acceptable to say "I don't know" in the workplace, at least the IT workplace? Is this related to the cultural shift away from knowledge and toward opinion? Perhaps in the future, we will all have our own truth and wonder why no technology works properly.

While I am at it, why isn't it ok to say "I have no opinion" either? Must everyone care about everything? I have an iPhone, I really like it, but I have no experience with Android, Droid, Blackberry or Windows Phone and so have no opinion about them. I just don't. Why does that annoy some people?

Lest I appear to be merely an arrogant would-be know-it-all, I offer the following list of reasons an IT person might legitimately simply not know something:

• Sometimes there is too much to know
• Sometimes our careers flame out, making us IT zombies
• Sometimes we end up as baby sitters for other people's technology

But sometimes we are just insecure jerks who don't like dealing with people when we can deal with nice, quiet, unemotional and unjudgemental technology instead. But you didn't hear it from me.