Better be an idiot for 5 minutes than for a lifetime
Most of us believe that if we ask questions in a meeting people will realise that we don’t know everything. But, guess what? We don’t have to know everything.
It is OK to say: “I didn’t understand that” or “I don’t know what that means”. Nobody knows everything, and nobody was born with all the knowledge in the world. Even specialists or subject matter experts had to learn the subject first. Get over you fear of what people will think about you and ask the question. ## But what if I’m in a big meeting with many people? I don’t want to block everybody to clarify my questions. Good point. If you realise you need more than a 30 seconds explanation, take a note of your question. You can make a point that you may need to clarify some questions later. ## But what is the problem if I don’t ask the question and later on find the answer by myself? There is no problem at all, but there are high chances that you will not find the answer by yourself. You might forget, be busy, or do not have the time to find the answer. Or worse, you might find the wrong answer.
And, believe me, you will need that knowledge in the future and then someone may say to you: “Why didn’t you ask this before?”. And only then you will realise that you could have asked that simple question before.
Accept it, it is your ego that get in your way. It is a bias. It is a fear, a non-sense feeling that is not helping you or your company. So take my advice on this:
It is better to be idiot for 5 minutes than for a lifetime. If you have a question, ask it!
04 Jul 2021