You’re in a meeting with some fairly senior people. You’ve just given your update. It went fine.
Then someone asks you a question you weren’t expecting.
And you don’t know the answer.
There’s a horrible little pause while your brain searches around for something useful. You really don’t want to say, “I don’t know.”
Maybe it’s the first time this person has asked you something directly. Maybe you want to look like you’re on top of things. Maybe everyone else in the room seems to have an answer for everything.
So you come up with something.
It sounds plausible. They nod. No follow-up question.
Excellent. Disaster avoided.
Except you’ve just given somebody a piece of information that you don’t actually know to be true.
Don’t do this.
I understand why people do it. Usually it’s not because they’re trying to mislead anyone. You want to be helpful. You want to look competent. You want to be the person who has the answers.
And saying “I don’t know” can feel like admitting you’ve failed some sort of test.
It isn’t.
The people you work with need to be able to trust the information you give them. They don’t need you to know everything, but they do need to know that when you tell them something, you’re not just having a decent guess.
Senior people tend to have pretty good bullshit radars too. They’ve sat through enough meetings by that point.
Maybe you answer a little too quickly. Maybe you sound slightly unsure. Maybe what you’ve said doesn’t quite fit with something else they already know.
They might not call you on it. That doesn’t mean they didn’t notice.
I think that’s the bit people underestimate. You don’t necessarily lose credibility because somebody catches you giving them a wrong answer. Sometimes it’s just the little question you leave in their head:
Can I rely on what this person is telling me?
You don’t want that question appearing too often.
So if you don’t know, say you don’t know. But don’t leave it there.
“I don’t know. I’ll find out and come back to you.”
Tell them when you’ll come back to them. Then go and get the answer, and make sure you do come back.
Nobody expects you to know everything.
But once you’ve said you’ll find something out, that bit is yours.