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Admitting You Don’t Have All the Answers |Dodging Landmines

If your team is asking you questions about the downturn you don’t have answers to, don’t get defensive. No one is expected to know everything. Ed Muzio, CEO of Group Harmonics, says that if you gather as much information as you can about your company's future and then have open and honest conversations with your team, you show employees that you are willing to work together to find solutions.

Speaker: Ed Muzio, CEO, Group Harmonics

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Tags: Team, Dodging Landmines, Team Management, answers, questions, business, company, economy, downturn, manager

 

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Admitting You Don’t Have All the Answers |Dodging Landmines

If your team is asking you questions about the downturn you don’t have answers to, don’t get defensive. No one is expected to know everything. Ed Muzio, CEO of Group Harmonics, says that if you gather as much information as you can about your company's future and then have open and honest conversations with your team, you show employees that you are willing to work together to find solutions.

Sydnie Kohara: It can be so stressful being a manager during these tough economic times when an employee ask me for information and I don't know the answer and they say you should know these things and I don't know how to respond.

Edward Muzio: Well one response I like, if you have a relationship with the person you can have a little fun is you can say, well, hey, you know if I knew everything, you wouldn't know me.

Sydnie Kohara: Yeah.

Edward Muzio: I'd be some millionaire on Wall Street. So, you know, that's that relationship. If you can't do that you can be more serious and say, I'm sorry, you know I don't know everything just like nobody knows everything. Let's talk about what you need to know.

Sydnie Kohara: So it's clear I don't know everything, but how can I regain control of this conversation?

Edward Muzio: Well what you wanna do is frame the conversation as the two of you working together on a problem rather than adversarial "you should know; no I shouldn't." And so the way to do that is to start to talk about you know, here's what I know, what do you know? You are afraid for your family; I'm afraid for my family. And start to move toward common ground and the sharing of a common problem.

Sydnie Kohara: I feel that as a manager I really should know more. I get very, very frustrated about this.

Edward Muzio: Well, your instinct to learn more and to get the facts is a goods one, but you shouldn't beat yourself up if you don't know everything. None of us has all the answers. There's no way you could possibly have all the answers. So look for more information, but don't worry that sometimes you don't know.

Sydnie Kohara: Anything to avoid?

Edward Muzio: You definitely want to avoid getting defensive. Sometimes we hear that question of why don't you know as the time to give the excuse, but there is no excuse because there's no need. It's just a question of none of us knows everything. We're all in it together and the sooner we see ourselves working together on the same problem, the better off we are.

Sydnie Kohara: In summary?

Edward Muzio: In summary, let the person know that you can't possibly know everything. Let them know that you'll work with them on the thing they need to know and set yourself up as someone who's like them, who has the same kind of concerns, who's working with them.