Stop Saying Yes
(I can’t remember where or who, so if you remind me, I’ll happily credit you)
The advice was to simply stop saying yes.
As juniors, I think we’re all guilty about feeling like we should appear to know what we’re talking about.
If someone asks if you know about *whatever* or if you’ve heard about *wherever*, you rapidly reply with a yes.
You want to make an impression and appear intelligent to those senior to you. After all, you’re the new guy. And you want to prove to them their recent hire was a good one.
However the reality is we’re still young and you never stop learning. People know you’re a junior.
You don’t have to know everything.
If you knew everything you wouldn’t be a junior.
So I started saying no. And I think it’s the best thing I’ve chosen to do.
I’m not only learning more, but also questioning people. And a conversation makes you appear more intelligent than just a one word response.
Maybe you should do it too. You might just learn something new. Dont you think?
Yes.
For further reading you may find W+K’s Walk in Stupid post useful (Thanks Luke&Wilf)
Written by Adam from www.adamanddan.com
Great post, guys. I think this applies not only to juniors, but as much to senior members of staff who can find it event harder to admit to not knowing things. I respect and appreciate management even more when they have the courage to admit that they aren’t omniscient and show that they are prepared to learn. And to go one step further – in agency life, it is so easy to say “yes” to everything clients ask of us, but sometimes, as you note, you have to manage expectations or educate the client and learn to say “no.”