I Don't Know Everything

Someone on my team just made a huge mistake. It’s going to cost us both time and money.

I immediately feel the frustration and my outburst is filled with anger.

My employee cowers while the rest of the team pulls back out of fear.

I immediately blame that employee for the mistake because I made the assumption they must be in the wrong.

But what if it isn’t their fault?

Wouldn’t that be a waste of all my frustration and anger?

I want to share a technique that I learned along the way which works like a charm to get through these tough situations.

It’s all about staying curious.

The value in staying curious is that I'll ask questions.

If I’m asking questions, then that means I’ll listen.

And I’m listening because I want to know more.

If I want to know more, it’s because I don’t know everything.

Simply put: I stay curious because I don't know everything.

If I think I already know the answer, then I am just making assumptions.

While assumptions can sometimes work, they are often missing the complexities and uniquities that are present.

The only way to uncover these complexities and uniquities is to stay curious.

Let’s go back to the scenario I described at the beginning. Think about the difference it could make if I just stayed curious. I could start off by asking the employee who made the mistake to describe the situation from their perspective. Maybe there is a systems issue. Maybe there is a learning opportunity that was previously missed. Maybe there is something I did that led to this mistake. Either way, staying curious leaves me in a much better place with less stress, more information to make better decisions and a happier and more productive team.

So I don’t know everything and I do need to stay curious.

That to me is leadership in black and white.

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