5 ms·

I believe the better approach to #1 is to: - say that you’re not sure - articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge (it's likel

I believe the better approach to #1 is to: - say that you’re not sure - articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge (it's likely you’re going to be 80% right) - propose to launch an effort / work stream / project to figure it out In many cases managers are just happy with an 80% answer and will reject to waste efforts to dive deeper. Managers can deal with uncertainty and with situations where the 80% answer is wrong. What they typically don’t like is being stalled

tchaffee 8y ago
> articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge (it's likely you’re going to be 80% right) Please don't do this. Many managers and clients have a far better bullshit detector than you give them credit for. They might never say it directly to you, but you just lost their respect by trying to guess instead of being honest. When programmers I interview try to bullshit their way through an answer they clearly don't know, it's almost always the end of the interview. Especially because I make it super clear at the beginning that I prefer "I don't know". A solid "I don't know but I do know I can get you an answer or an update in a couple of hours" is the approach that earns my respect every time. And likely you'll be right 100% of the time with that answer.
- rocqua 8y ago
  He's not suggesting "Guess and pass it of as true". Instead, the idea is to say "Well, I am not sure. However, If I had to guess, I'd say X" where X is your best guess. You can follow up with "If needed, I could find out for sure in {time-frame}"
  - tchaffee 8y ago
    Fair clarification. I don't appreciate that approach either. Just go find out what the problem is and report back. Unless someone specifically asks you to guess, you are just wasting everyone's time. And in a meeting with clients and upper management, that could add up to $$$ thousands per hour. "If I had to guess". You usually don't have to. So don't do it. Just my $0.02. Maybe other managers see it differently. EDIT: I should clarify why this often goes badly. "If I had to guess, it's the filter in the gas line". Now everyone thinks it's a $20 problem, and they appreciate having an expert like you around to help them mentally frame the extent of the problem. When you come back with "actually the entire engine is warped and needs to be replaced", everyone is going to be disappointed. Like it or not, that disappointment is attached to you now. Trust is lost. There is almost nothing ever to be gained from guessing.
    - barrkel 8y ago
      You sound like a person who has difficulty operating in an uncertain environment. Sometimes certainty is expensive. In fact, in my experience with complex systems, it usually is. Depending on what you're uncertain about, you may need to modify the system to measure it. Resolving uncertainty can take a long time, particularly if the thing you're trying to be certain about is a rare event or cannot easily be isolated. When certainty is hard to achieve, making probabilistic decisions sooner and falling back to more costly decisions with more expensive certainty only after those have failed, is a better general strategy, even if you're sometimes wrong. Analysis paralysis is real. Someone who always acts the way you suggest has too much fear of being wrong, IMO. It could be warranted in other situations, where human life is on the line. I think it's not a fast enough process for most businesses though.
      - tchaffee 8y ago
        > You sound like a person who has difficulty operating in an uncertain environment. Not at all. I deal with uncertainty all the time. What I don't like is people inventing answers, just so they have an answer. I think you'll find this "intolerance" increasingly as you deal with people higher and higher up in management. People's time becomes increasingly the most expensive factor by far. Let's stay focused here. That paragraph in the article is advice about what to do when "someone asks you something you don't know". I'm still firmly in the camp of a simple "I don't know, but I will find out for you." YMMV.
- thesumofall 8y ago
  This is absolutely _not_ about bullshitting your way out of it. Far from it. It is about articulating an hypothesis (based on your experience) of what the answer is most likely to be. It is saying: "We're not yet sure why the server crashed, but from my experience it is most of the times the A/C system, for which I would suggest checking the logs now". It is honest, articulates a way forward, and might in many meetings just be sufficient to keep the discussion moving forwards. Again, it is the job of a manager to deal with controlled uncertainty.
  - tchaffee 8y ago
    That's not the situation described in the article. The situation described in the article is pretty specific: Someone asks you something you don't know. It's right in the title. And it goes on to describe a situation in which you may end up making up something on the spot, trying to be as vague as possible so you can't be wrong. So yes, if your hypothesis is just something you made up only so you can have an answer, then please don't do that. I don't care how solid the guess is. It's still a guess just to have an answer. In the situation you described, you do know something and you're sharing that knowledge. I have no problem with people sharing that knowledge. It's not a hypothesis. It's the opposite of "you don't know". It's knowledge about the history of the situation.
- danmaz74 8y ago
  In situations like those, if I'm not sure but there are probable answers, I usually say: we're not sure yet, it could be X or Y, but we need ... time to know for sure. The other people are usually smart enough to know if they need a more precise answer or not. If I have completely no idea, then I just say so.
danaris 8y ago
> - propose to launch an effort / work stream / project to figure it out ...This is only applicable if it's something major, that would require research or experimentation, rather than "let me go talk to Drew after this meeting" or even "I'll look it up on Wikipedia." I suspect that those would cover a majority of the cases of this.

tchaffee 8y ago

> articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge (it's likely you’re going to be 80% right) Please don't do this. Many managers and clients have a far better bullshit detector than you give them credit for. They might never say it directly to you, but you just lost their respect by trying to guess instead of being honest. When programmers I interview try to bullshit their way through an answer they clearly don't know, it's almost always the end of the interview. Especially because I make it super clear at the beginning that I prefer "I don't know". A solid "I don't know but I do know I can get you an answer or an update in a couple of hours" is the approach that earns my respect every time. And likely you'll be right 100% of the time with that answer.

rocqua 8y ago
He's not suggesting "Guess and pass it of as true". Instead, the idea is to say "Well, I am not sure. However, If I had to guess, I'd say X" where X is your best guess. You can follow up with "If needed, I could find out for sure in {time-frame}"
- tchaffee 8y ago
  Fair clarification. I don't appreciate that approach either. Just go find out what the problem is and report back. Unless someone specifically asks you to guess, you are just wasting everyone's time. And in a meeting with clients and upper management, that could add up to $$$ thousands per hour. "If I had to guess". You usually don't have to. So don't do it. Just my $0.02. Maybe other managers see it differently. EDIT: I should clarify why this often goes badly. "If I had to guess, it's the filter in the gas line". Now everyone thinks it's a $20 problem, and they appreciate having an expert like you around to help them mentally frame the extent of the problem. When you come back with "actually the entire engine is warped and needs to be replaced", everyone is going to be disappointed. Like it or not, that disappointment is attached to you now. Trust is lost. There is almost nothing ever to be gained from guessing.
  - barrkel 8y ago
    You sound like a person who has difficulty operating in an uncertain environment. Sometimes certainty is expensive. In fact, in my experience with complex systems, it usually is. Depending on what you're uncertain about, you may need to modify the system to measure it. Resolving uncertainty can take a long time, particularly if the thing you're trying to be certain about is a rare event or cannot easily be isolated. When certainty is hard to achieve, making probabilistic decisions sooner and falling back to more costly decisions with more expensive certainty only after those have failed, is a better general strategy, even if you're sometimes wrong. Analysis paralysis is real. Someone who always acts the way you suggest has too much fear of being wrong, IMO. It could be warranted in other situations, where human life is on the line. I think it's not a fast enough process for most businesses though.
    - tchaffee 8y ago
      > You sound like a person who has difficulty operating in an uncertain environment. Not at all. I deal with uncertainty all the time. What I don't like is people inventing answers, just so they have an answer. I think you'll find this "intolerance" increasingly as you deal with people higher and higher up in management. People's time becomes increasingly the most expensive factor by far. Let's stay focused here. That paragraph in the article is advice about what to do when "someone asks you something you don't know". I'm still firmly in the camp of a simple "I don't know, but I will find out for you." YMMV.
thesumofall 8y ago
This is absolutely _not_ about bullshitting your way out of it. Far from it. It is about articulating an hypothesis (based on your experience) of what the answer is most likely to be. It is saying: "We're not yet sure why the server crashed, but from my experience it is most of the times the A/C system, for which I would suggest checking the logs now". It is honest, articulates a way forward, and might in many meetings just be sufficient to keep the discussion moving forwards. Again, it is the job of a manager to deal with controlled uncertainty.
- tchaffee 8y ago
  That's not the situation described in the article. The situation described in the article is pretty specific: Someone asks you something you don't know. It's right in the title. And it goes on to describe a situation in which you may end up making up something on the spot, trying to be as vague as possible so you can't be wrong. So yes, if your hypothesis is just something you made up only so you can have an answer, then please don't do that. I don't care how solid the guess is. It's still a guess just to have an answer. In the situation you described, you do know something and you're sharing that knowledge. I have no problem with people sharing that knowledge. It's not a hypothesis. It's the opposite of "you don't know". It's knowledge about the history of the situation.
danmaz74 8y ago
In situations like those, if I'm not sure but there are probable answers, I usually say: we're not sure yet, it could be X or Y, but we need ... time to know for sure. The other people are usually smart enough to know if they need a more precise answer or not. If I have completely no idea, then I just say so.

danaris 8y ago

> - propose to launch an effort / work stream / project to figure it out ...This is only applicable if it's something major, that would require research or experimentation, rather than "let me go talk to Drew after this meeting" or even "I'll look it up on Wikipedia." I suspect that those would cover a majority of the cases of this.