The Power of “I Don’t Know”
We have, I think, a cultural bias against admitting what we don’t know. It’s as if by admitting our ignorance in a particular subject we undermine our credibility on any subject. I find this particularly true of leaders – whether in a church, corporation, faculty, or family. Perhaps that’s because when we are placed into positions of leadership we feel that it’s our responsibility to live up to this trust. Or maybe it’s simply because if we are leading in our organization it’s precisely because we’ve proven ourselves competent, and so we feel that any demonstration of ignorance calls into question our competence and, therefore, our fitness for leadership.
But that attitude can be incredibly debilitating. So in this and two more posts that will go up in the coming week, I want to investigate what we lose when we can’t bring ourselves to say “I don’t know” are what we gain when we can.
Pt. 1: Bad Information and Missed Opportunities
When you can’t admit what you don’t know you’re quite likely to limit your ability to lead effectively. I’ve known competent pastors, for instance, who were good at everything except finance, and rather than reach out to the congregation for help, they kept their area of ignorance – and the financial books – secret, only to cripple the growth of their church and sometimes stumble into unintentional malfeasance. Similarly, when I was a young parent I was told by a well-meaning elder that I should never say “I don’t know” to my children lest they would lose respect for my parental authority. The same dynamics can play out in business environments as well. As Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (co-authors of Freakonomics) recently discussed in a podcast, the inability to admit ignorance is one of the most pervasive and devastating cultural attributes in most corporate workplaces.
Why is it so debilitating? First, if someone asks a question and you can’t say “I don’t know,” you are likely to speak out of your ignorance and give unhelpful and inaccurate information. Second, and just as importantly, if you can’t admit ignorance then you can’t learn. Too afraid to admit a deficit, you spend your energy covering for that deficit instead of eliminating it by learning.
So can we find ways not only to admit our areas of ignorance but also create environments that make it easier for people to do so? Can we, that is, see lack of knowledge, information, and skill not as character deficits but as opportunities for growth and learning? It will help by sharing examples of situations when we admitted our ignorance and not only survived but actually grew and flourished. So go ahead, share a story of when you realized you didn’t know enough about something and rather than run and hide you admitted it and thereby had an opportunity to learn and grow.
It will get easier to do this, I think, if we can reconsider our assumptions about the relationship between intelligence and knowledge, and I’ll move to that in my next post.
I don’t know how well I’ve done admitting “I don’t know” when I didn’t. But I’ll always remember a professor my freshman year of college who said it. We were in a large plenary session with maybe about 80 students in the room and this professor had just offered a guest lecture on the New Testament and was now inviting questions. I got up my courage to raise my hand and ask him about that part in Matthew where Jesus says that he has been sent “only to the lost sheep of Israel.” And the professor just said, “I don’t know. I’ve always been puzzled by that too.” And didn’t offer any further speculation. Something about that gained my trust of him right away, and showed me that we were not some different sort of species, expert and pupil. Also that he must be a person of faith to not have to provide an answer always to prove himself or his fitness to teach the Bible. By saying “I don’t know,” he helped foster a new relationship, and through college and beyond I looked to him more and not less for how learning, faith, and character could coexist.
After posting in pt.2 of this thought on “I Don’t Know”, I thought I’d share the story of my own moment. Narrative Lectionary on Mark 4:1-34, I struggled with the way the parables intermingled and stood together to make a cohesive message. I ended up saying something like: I might be able to explain this all if I was an ‘insider’ like the verses say, but I’m not, I’m an outsider too. I’m the type of person that Jesus would break social laws to sit and talk and eat with. That’s the beautiful part: I don’t have to be an insider knowing everything, because God’s Kingdom, God’s rule comes marching across that dividing line and into my life and pulls me into the mission. I get called, I get charged up, and we all are, to forget about who is inside or outside and share the love that is made real in Jesus. We don’t need to know everything to be a part of that.
The looks I got when I stood up there and said, “I don’t know how these parables all work together.” Maybe it’s the fact that I’m a new pastor, but I have no problem admitting I’m still learning. Learning is living!
And living is learning! 🙂
I am trying to retrieve all three parts to present to my church’s vestry. We will be losing our rector on April 22,2012. I am a lay person with desires to help move my church forward with some new ideas found in these writings. I am only one, but I am one. Please help me.
Thank you
FHS
Carolyn
You are one. And one person can make a huge difference. Let me know if I can help.