Nippin Anand 0:01
Anand, welcome to another episode of embracing differences with me. Nippin Anand, this podcast is was not supposed to be to be broadcast. It was supposed to be a blog, but I had an email from a friend from Turkey yesterday. His name is Umut, and Umut if you’re listening, I wanted to turn this into a podcast, because Umut travels every day from work to office and back to home, and he doesn’t like to read because the roads are very bumpy. So I thought, Okay, I will do this one as a podcast, and I will have to read it out, because I just printed this blog and it’s right in front of me, and I cannot just speak. I’d like it to flow a little bit. So this podcast is about the whole idea of how we respond to the question, or how we respond when somebody during an investigation or an audit or an interview says I don’t know, and I think this is something that most investigators and auditors that I know would consider A sign of incompetence and even ignorance. And I think the one who’s being investigated, it is considered a sign of stigma and shame, and it is often the curse of living in a society that views a certain kind of knowledge, which is the rational, logical, analytical knowledge, or reasoned knowledge as the most superior of all. But is that? So I disagree with that, and I think we give too much importance to one form of intelligence, and we have narrowed down the definition or the meaning of intelligence, and I think there are, and I would just like to present some of those themes or meanings that I have uncovered behind this famous phrase I don’t know, and some of them are very insightful to me, and some of them left me very disturbed. So what do people mean when they say I don’t know? The first one is that I can’t explain it when someone says, I don’t know. Let’s take the example. You know of a plumber. A plumber knows how to fix a leak. A teacher knows how to to when a student is throwing tantrums, and a fisherman knows how to splice a rope. So are we saying that the one who can explain how to splice the rope knows better than the one who can actually splice it. And what kind of intelligence is that in either case? And I think we underestimate the years of experience that gives us mastery that cannot be explained, only felt, and we give too much importance to someone who can, who can write it in words. I doubt that here’s another one. One’s got to be patient when you hear I don’t know. And every time you hear someone say, I don’t know, I would recommend that give it a 10 seconds pause. And what happens most of the times is what comes after that. Pause will take you by surprise. Silence is not a sign of ignorance. In fact, it’s our own impatience that is driving all of this. I don’t know could also mean I cannot recall. So for instance, you and I may have met before, and I may even remember your face, but can I recall your name and can I recall the clothes that you were wearing on that day? My wife is not very good at it. She can not recall people’s names, but then she remembers who she met. So we during interviews, during investigations, we want people to respond with accurate information, the weather on the day, pressure on the gage time at the start of the shift. And we don’t realize that human mind is not designed to recall details. I don’t know what I had for breakfast yesterday. So what are we talking when? When we say that we want accurate information, and the other person says, I don’t know, here’s another one. It makes no sense. When people say, I don’t know, and we talk about it a lot, people say things because it makes sense to them. And I would say people do a lot of things that makes no sense to them at all. They can harm their bodies. People drink and drive. They take shortcuts and they go Zig instead of zag. In fact, a lot of our desires, our fantasies and our fear makes no sense at all to ourselves, let alone to the other people. Here’s another one. Um, I don’t know. Could also mean leave me alone in every interview, trust is often built or destroyed in the very first few moments. So for example, when you say, Why did you do that? Can you explain we are not here to blame? And in those moments, people are just freezed and they say, I don’t know. And it’s often my bodily reaction when I’m disturbed by your presence. I don’t know. Could also mean it’s in my culture. And this was three decades ago. I used to work with Indonesian seafarers, and whenever I would ask them the question, any question, they would respond by saying, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know. And I learned later on that this was not a sign of them being undecided or they needed more time. It’s what I learned was that they would never reveal anything to an outsider. It was something that was built into the culture. And here’s the last one from me, and it says I don’t know. Could also mean I really don’t know. And this is very, very rare, actually, and I’ve only heard it twice in the 117 podcasts that I have done so far, one with Gary Klein, the decision expert and the other one with Professor Lee Clark, and it’s a sign of humility by acknowledging the limits of one’s own expertise. And whenever it happens, embrace it, because it’s very rare. And if we learn to exercise patience and give control to the other person I don’t know, can be a very powerful metaphor for humanizing investigations and conversations and fostering a culture of learning. And behind all this lies the idea of ethical learning, ethical investigations and creating an ethical organization. That’s that’s really all I wanted to say. And if you wanted to learn more about how to do ethical investigations that foster a culture of learning, I have set up a few workshops, both online and in person. There is a workshop happening in London from the 13th to the 15th of May, and then there is an online workshop starting next month, and all of that is available on our website, novelist, dot solutions, forward slash events. In fact, the one we are doing online, the first two sessions in the six part series, are for free. You can join and you can see if this is something that you would benefit from. And then you can decide if you wanted to go further. And then, of course, you will have to pay a fee, but please check it out, and if you like it. I just want to leave you with one single thought, which is that next time when someone says, I don’t know, during an interview, during an investigation, slow down and and just think about what you’ve just heard, I don’t know, could mean many, many things. And the best way to tackle this problem is to just take a few seconds pause and ask the question, can you tell me more what you mean? I don’t know, and you’ll be surprised what comes next. So I’ll leave you with that thought, those thoughts, and thank you once again for listening to embracing differences with me. Nippin Anand, have a wonderful day ahead. You.