I ask a lot of questions.
Why do you think the customer reacted that way? What do you think is really going on? What would you do next?
Quite often, I hear, “I don’t know.”
There is nothing wrong with not knowing. None of us has all the answers.
But, “I don’t know” is most times not honesty but surrender, a way to avoid taking a position.
It is rarely followed by “Let me think about it,” or “Here is my best guess.”
Instead, what it often means is:
You tell me. You figure it out. Do not make me take a position and risk being wrong.
And that is the problem.
The purpose of the question was not necessarily to test whether you knew the answer. It was to get you to think.
A far more useful response is, “I’m not sure, but here is what I think.”
Now there is something to work with. A hunch. An assumption. A point of view that can be questioned, challenged, and improved.
You may be wrong. That is fine.
Thinking, getting it wrong, and correcting yourself is how judgment gets built.
“I don’t know” should be the point where thinking begins, not where it ends.