This simple rule could just save your career
“Do you know that or think that?” he would ask me. And it crushed me every time.
I didn’t, it turns out, have 100 percent confidence in that fact I had stated in our daily client newsletter. And, Larry, my older and wiser mentor, who was tasked with reviewing what I wrote, knew that anything less than 100 percent confidence would get us into trouble. He saved me from myself again and again.
And it wasn’t just in written communications. As a young salesperson on Wall Street, I would regularly be on the phone with clients explaining my firm’s view on a certain stock or an IPO we were selling. Since it would inevitably be a different stock every day, my knowledge of any given stock was only surface level. I would get myself into trouble when I would be trying to represent my knowledge as anything more than that. I knew enough to be dangerous — to answer the first one, two, or three questions — but that fourth question, ooh, I’d be guessing on that. Not good enough. In fact, really bad.
I quickly learned that delivering incorrect information is about 100 times worse than simply saying, “I don’t know.”
Humans generally have pretty good BS sensors, and I think it’s safe to say that my clients on Wall Street — typically portfolio managers at hedge funds and mutual funds responsible for managing millions or billions of dollars — had above-average BS sensing abilities.
After about a year on the job masquerading as an expert I wasn’t, it dawned on me that the only way I would be successful in the business was absolute honesty and transparency. My favorite phrase on the phone with clients, used at least once in every conversation, became, “I don’t know that, but I can find out.” And I did find it out. I became a personal fact-finding concierge for my clients. And having someone they trusted who could go and do research and fact-finding on their behalf became much, much more valuable than a young, know-it-all punk trying to sell them something.
“Do you know that or think that?” has become a valuable lesson that I’ve continued to lean on throughout my career. As I’ve moved into roles where my writing appears in more public places, like company websites and media publications, there really is no room for uncertainty when it comes to the facts. As I mentor junior colleagues today, “Do you know that or think that?” is a tool I implement regularly. I’m constantly amazed at how many times otherwise talented and ambitious young people make the mistake of trying to answer questions they don’t really know the answers to.
Learn from my mistakes. BS-ing can kill your credibility and in the extreme case, your career. Honesty, transparency, and admitting you don’t know something — but, critically, that you will find it out — earns you immediate trust. And frankly, there is something endearing and disarming about a person who can admit they don’t know something. If you’re early in your career, no matter what that career is, you won’t know all the answers. Admit it. You’ll be much better off.
This article is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published book: Say Good Morning, Like a Human: 50 Unwritten Rules for Surviving the Modern Workplace and Building a Career You Love. To learn more, or to receive Greg Campion’s monthly email with his latest projects and best ideas, please visit: gregcampion.com.