They'd still prefer for you just to know the answer.
This is one of the first pieces of advice I heard in my career and IMO it has become a workplace meme.
People don't become respected because they say 'I don't know' a lot - they become respected because people believe them when they aren't saying it. The result of a junior person not following the advice is panic, floundering for an answer, and giving an unconvincing lie. Being revealed for a BSer is the problem you're trying to avoid. Admitting you don't know is one path around this but, in practice, too many make you look unknowledgable and may mean that future important questions will be aimed at your seniors or superiors. When they're asked, they don't say 'I don't know', they say the answer. They're respected because they know.
This problem is built into incentive systems. If guidelines for promotion for a junior are that they can work independently then it can be better for them to spend 2 hours looking for a solution themselves than to spend 10 minutes asking someone else. This encourages convincing BSing, which is more insidious and damaging than obvious BS. The people who are promoted are the ones who can know and the ones who can lie - the latter being easier.
The prime example of this is the executive team. Unless lying is securities fraud, an answer from a CEO can't be trusted at all.
If you want to encourage people to admit when they don't know the answer, you need to cultivate a culture where it's truly unpunished.
> Admitting you don't know is one path around this but, in practice, too many make you look unknowledgable and may mean that future important questions will be aimed at your seniors or superiors.
I think it's also a different circumstance to not know the answer to a specific question vs. appearing generally unknowledgable. The latter will definitely get you bypassed in favor of someone who knows something.
This is one of the first pieces of advice I heard in my career and IMO it has become a workplace meme.
People don't become respected because they say 'I don't know' a lot - they become respected because people believe them when they aren't saying it. The result of a junior person not following the advice is panic, floundering for an answer, and giving an unconvincing lie. Being revealed for a BSer is the problem you're trying to avoid. Admitting you don't know is one path around this but, in practice, too many make you look unknowledgable and may mean that future important questions will be aimed at your seniors or superiors. When they're asked, they don't say 'I don't know', they say the answer. They're respected because they know.
This problem is built into incentive systems. If guidelines for promotion for a junior are that they can work independently then it can be better for them to spend 2 hours looking for a solution themselves than to spend 10 minutes asking someone else. This encourages convincing BSing, which is more insidious and damaging than obvious BS. The people who are promoted are the ones who can know and the ones who can lie - the latter being easier.
The prime example of this is the executive team. Unless lying is securities fraud, an answer from a CEO can't be trusted at all.
If you want to encourage people to admit when they don't know the answer, you need to cultivate a culture where it's truly unpunished.