Tag / knowledge worker

by Nathan Coumbe

Encourage ignorance (and overcome it)

When you are serving other people (i.e., working), there will be times when you don’t have the answer to the problem in front of you.

Perhaps you work in customer service, a retail store, or banking. Someone is going to ask you a question for which you do not have an answer. What do you do?

If you went to a typical school or were processed through typical corporate training, you might have a few possible answers immediately:

  1. Tell the customer you don’t know, you’re sorry, and you can’t help them.
  2. Immediately go to your boss and ask her to give you the answer or take over the situation entirely (unless your boss is a crazy control freak and wants her finger on the pulse of every step you take, she won’t appreciate this).
  3. Try to figure it out yourself by moving through all the formulas, procedures, and company policies with which you were conditioned (definitely not the worst option, but it’s limited in its effectiveness).

Do you see a better option?

The better option

You are surrounded by people that know more than you, have more experience than you, and do the same type of work as you, either in person or resources on the internet. Ask them for help, but take it one step further.

Learn alongside the person you are trying to help. It’s easy and has two benefits: 1) the person in need gets the help he or she requires, and 2) you learn something new that will be in your toolbelt for next time.

Here’s your answer when you don’t know:

“I don’t know the solution to this problem, but I guarantee we can find one. Let’s find out what it is together!“

The flaw in our system

Most of our education and training conditions us to work by ourselves, independently from everyone else, under an authority figure who has all the answers.

“Only raise your hand if you know the answer” becomes “never acknowledge ignorance in front of customers!” That will only discredit you. They will lose faith in you. You will be humiliated.

Actually, no – by being humble enough to admit your ignorance, they will respect you for not lying to them, not giving them bad information that will fail or hurt them in practice, and not wasting their time.

The real world is full of collaboration, synergy, and needs us to use all available resources to find the answers. The real world is an open-book group test.

It is not full of, nor should we encourage, independent work with no outside help, an authority figure with all the answers, or a lack of information that you are not allowed to remedy by looking up the answer.

If the real world isn’t like that, why are we training people to operate that way?

Be bold, be brave, and admit your ignorance. Then go find the answer using every person and resource at your disposal.

“I don’t know – let’s find out together.”

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by Nathan Coumbe

A break with the Industrial Age

The COVID-19 pandemic has created rapid change in all areas of work. For those employees who showed up to an office location day after day, the lines between work and home have been blurred completely: work is now being done at home. School is now being done at home. And the amazing thing is that companies (and many schools) are realizing it works. Not only does it work, but it might also be better.

The Internet has made all this possible. Without it, this pandemic would have ground the world to a screeching halt rather than a frustrating slow-down. I believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the final straws in breaking the world out of the Industrial Age mindset and unleashing human potential by fully adopting the Knowledge Worker/Information Age mindset.

These changes – the ability to work from home; meetings that are now (and should have always been) emails; genuine collaboration (because it’s the only way to get things done now); dictating results and trusting employees with the methods – will last long after this crisis is over. Companies will realize that their people are more productive than ever when given freedom and flexibility. More importantly, those that feel like their companies cared about them as people during the crisis will come out the other side more loyal and productive than ever before.

Those companies that are trapped in the Industrial Age – where people are things and less important than the machines they operate and the numbers they generate – will fail. Command-and-control, micromanagement, treating people as things – none of this works anymore. The failures may not happen immediately, but it will happen. Employees who feel their companies have failed to treat them with dignity and care, who have felt their health and wellbeing was seen as unimportant, will leave.

The coronavirus is terrible: people are dying; people are losing their income and their livelihood. But as with all great challenges in history, forward thinking, adaptable, flexible, and generous individuals, groups, and companies will learn from it, survive, and thrive in the new world.

Say goodbye to the last vestiges of the old world. I hope you are working for and with people who care.

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