Last business week, Monday to Friday, I had 34 meetings.
Over the course of them, I must've been asked over 400 questions, including:
- What's our marketing spend for Toronto?
- What's the best way to package shows into a one-price passport?
- What's the optimal merchandise mix to maximize our street festival sales?
- How will we re-package content for an aggressive video-on-demand program?
- Why is this hire being held up?
- What's the checklist for a go/no-go decision on a show investment?
As "the new kid on the block" at Just For Laughs (four months and counting), the response I heard emerging from my lips most often was a simple, three-word sentence:
"I don't know."
(To be frank, many times an expletive adjective made this a four-word sentence, but I digress...)
By Wednesday afternoon, I felt a slight sense of panic.
I'm supposed to be leading a 50-person team into new territories, enhancing revenue, championing a new spirit of teamwork, all wrapped up in a sense of devilish fun that should be the hallmark of a company whose mission statement is "Make People Happy."
I'm supposed to be providing real answers, not statements of uncertainty.
But then I thought of how I delivered the words.
These weren't shoulder-shrug, admission of defeat, door-closing I don't knows.
Au contraire, they were honest replies that started new journeys.
Let's face it, as wonderful as it would be for me to be "The Answer Man," an encyclopediac knowledge base isn't what's required in a leadership position. If that were the case, Wikipedia would be the CEO of the Fortune 500.
What's more important in this case is that all of my I don't knows are followed up by either:
"...but I will find out and get back to you."
or
"...what do you and your team suggest ?"
On one hand, there are things I DO need to know. With questions exposing holes in my internal hard drive, my I don't know points me in the direction of factual spackle.
On the other hand, my I don't know forces people to work together to find their solution...and then tell me the answer.
They say that what "You don't know can't hurt you." What I've learned this week is "What you don't know can start you." So from now on, I will deliver my I don't knows with pride, for they aren't the cement blocks that signify the end of the line...they're the starting blocks for a whole new footrace.
I guess the old cliche rings true: Ignorance is indeed bliss.
But then again...what do I know?