This post first appeared as a "I wish I'd known" post for bp Launchpad in November 2021.
It's #TechThursday! This time we have some words of wisdom from our CTO, Tom Grey, on having all the answers all the time.
"A large part of my early career was spent knowing all the answers. At the time, I didn't know that I knew all the answers. However, most meetings would come to a please-Tom-tell-us-what-we-should-do moment, the room would go quiet, all eyes would turn to me, and I would give them the answer. And people were grateful, I mean, really grateful. And it felt great.
There are a very small number of careers built on having all the answers, but sadly most of us will sooner or later be put in the situation of not knowing the answer and worse, not knowing the answer when we really should. It can be awkward, humiliating, and it can feel like you are letting people down.
However, it was in those moments that I've learnt the most. A motivational speaker once told me, “When you step outside your comfort zone, it feels horrible at first, but your comfort zone will grow till you are back in it”. She was right.
Becoming a Presales Engineer was great for overcoming my fear of looking silly. Obviously, it's very important in Presales NOT to look silly, but statistically you don't stand a chance. So here are some of the coping strategies I learnt, and think are usable in many situations in life:
Before appearing as an 'expert', be very clear what you are getting yourself into by asking questions upfront - Who is going to be there? What are they expecting?
Exploit the information-asymmetry - if nobody else knows anything about the topic, even knowing a bit will make you look like an expert unless you tell them you are not!
If you know you don't know the answer, say so, but take ownership of sorting out the problem you have created.
Be as helpful as you can, but don't make stuff up - better to look silly now than to create a mess you'll be cleaning up for weeks.
Don't crumble - watching someone make an ass of themselves with style is embarrassing, watching someone who is clearly dying inside is unbearable.
Poor preparation leads to poor performance - if you didn't do any preparation and you care about the outcome, you only have yourself to blame if it goes badly.
Respect yourself - if you don't know the answers, that's bad, but it doesn't give anyone the right to make you look stupid deliberately.
I'll leave you with one of best pieces of advice I've been given. I'd just walked out of a total disaster of a sales call - in the space of an hour, the customer had clearly lost all confidence in us and our ability to deliver. I was actually shaking. Maybe I needed a career change, I thought. My sales counterpart though, just had a wry smile. I asked him, how he could carry on doing this? He shrugged and said, “Sometimes the show just has to go on".
Make them laugh, make them cry, give them your best performance, and remember whatever happens, the show must go on!"