The Poetry of Small Business: \u00a0An Accidental Entrepreneur\u2019s Search For Meaning<\/em><\/a>\u00a0last year. \u00a0I\u2019ve done a number of interviews about the book and invariably I\u2019m introduced as an \u201cexpert\u201d which fills me with unease.<\/p>\nActually, what I am is a guy who has responded continually, day-after-day and year-after-year, to constant quotidian business conundrums with the simple response of \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d \u00a0Let\u2019s figure it out.\u201d Kinda like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland suddenly saying, \u201cHey, gang. \u00a0I know what we\u2019ll do. \u00a0Let\u2019s put on a show.\u201d<\/p>\n
God, I wish I was an expert. \u00a0A knower. \u00a0What I am is an unsystematic autodidact.<\/p>\n
Responding to questions with \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d is often taken as a sign of incompetence. People want to know the secret sauce, a certainty they can take into their own lives and leadership, dammit. \u00a0Yet leading from ambiguity and personal uncertainty has some real advantages in a business world that increasingly values the strengths of empathetic leadership over command-and-control absolutes. \u00a0And this applies in spades to creating a robust entrepreneurial culture.<\/p>\n
So, can a whole company, a whole culture, a whole career, a whole life be based on the vulnerability implicit in frequently admitting \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d?\u00a0 Well, in my case, yes.<\/p>\n
Here are some advantages of leading from uncertainty.<\/p>\n
1. \u00a0 It creates community.<\/strong> \u00a0Nothing binds a group more certainly than admitting common frailty and the need for others. \u00a0 It is a basis for most religions. \u00a0It is the basis for Alcoholics\u00a0Anonymous. \u00a0To say, \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d is admitting we are not and will never be God.<\/p>\n2. It encourages creativity.<\/strong> \u00a0If the boss shares her honesty and uncertainty, it gives courage and permission to everyone to be imperfect, to fail, to be wrong\u2014and also to succeed with\u00a0the outrageous new.<\/p>\n3. It creates leadership credibility.<\/strong> \u00a0If a leader can sometimes admit \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d it creates trust in that leader and encourages honesty for all corporate associates.<\/p>\n4. It reduces corporate fear.<\/strong> \u00a0If the boss leads from admitted uncertainty, it frees employees to concentrate more fully on their work, on bringing their \u201cA\u201d game and their whole\u00a0non-rational intuition to solving communal puzzles.<\/p>\n5. It helps personal development.<\/strong> \u00a0An \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d culture opens all corporate citizens to honestly ask for help. \u00a0People actually like to help. \u00a0 They actually often feel honored to\u00a0be asked to teach something or guide an uncertain colleague. \u00a0It builds relationships. \u00a0It builds personal honesty.<\/p>\n6.\u00a0 It encourages humility.<\/strong> \u00a0Humility is a real business skill. \u00a0A salubrious quality. \u00a0It saves us from smug overconfidence and opens our heart to the new.<\/p>\n7.\u00a0 It encourages a culture of ethics and truth. <\/strong><\/p>\n8. It creates meaning.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0It takes effort to go beyond the immediate and the obvious. Leadership\u2019s sincere and open search for integrated solutions, based in mission and culture,\u00a0gives permission for every corporate citizen to look to deeper long-term truth, both personally and corporately.<\/p>\nAll this is not to say that ignorance is bliss. \u00a0Ignorance is to be assiduously remediated and overcome. \u00a0Obviously. \u00a0But ultimately admitting \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d when appropriate is really a statement of power and centered leadership.<\/p>\n
As Greek historian and general Thucydides put it, \u00a0\u201cIgnorance is bold. \u00a0Knowledge reserved.\u201d \u00a0Thanks Thucydides.<\/p>\n
Image: Pixabay.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"TimAskew_15538\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/436\/2015\/11\/TimAskew_15538.jpg\")
<\/a>Tim Askew is the owner of sales firm Corporate Rain International<\/a> and a member of the Inc. Business Owners Council.<\/a> He has several advanced degrees, and has been a tennis pro, actor, opera singer, Broadway producer, dishwasher, bartender, minister, and college assistant dean. Askew is the author of the new book The Poetry of Small Business<\/a> (available on Amazon).\u00a0<\/em> @TimothyAskew<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Timothy Askew; reprinted from Inc. with the kind permission of Timothy Askew. Voltaire once wrote, \u201cJudge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.\u201d I hope Voltaire is right, because a lot of my experience of what little success I have had as an entrepreneur has come out of my supreme ignorance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[27,83,1428,840,566],"class_list":["post-3744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith-and-the-workplace","tag-community","tag-discernment","tag-ignorance","tag-knowledge","tag-uncertainty"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n