"It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life ... that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Three phrases I keep working on using more often are “I was wrong”, “I don’t know”, and “I need your help”. I’d certainly be justified in doing that! Each one of these can be hard for me to say, and each for different reasons. Another important one is “I am sorry” although I’ve found saying that doesn’t usually make as much difference as I wish it would. “I’m sorry” seems to work better when combined with a very sincere “I was wrong” and best when followed by a genuine change in my behavior to prevent my making the same mistake again.

I’ve found that they best thing I can do when I make a mistake is to acknowledge it as soon as can and to own my responsibility for the consequences and for correcting them to the best of my ability. Sometimes, I will have provided wrong information, other times, I will have taken the wrong action. In any case, it is important for me to admit I was wrong. This is the first step to making things as right as I can and to finding ways to avoid a similar mistake in the future. Of these three important phrases, this is probably the easiest for me to say. It can be embarrassing to admit when I am wrong, and sometimes in the heat of disagreement it can be difficult to realize at first. Still, it is usually pretty clear when I’m wrong and the best way to move forward it to admit it. 

One day last week, I got a very nice, and gentle, email from a good colleague pointing out that there has been a typo in the greeting of the last four email messages I’ve sent to all our faculty and staff about some technology issues we’ve been having. Over the past four days, I have sent four messages to this group that included identified them as our “Faulty and Staff” Oh man, was I embarrassed! Fortunately, there was another update I needed to provide and I used that opportunity to apologize to all the faculty for this unfortunate error.

Over the next two hours, I received nearly 40 emails from people assuring me they were not offended, had done similar things themselves, and/or found the whole thing pretty funny. One of the messages was from the Director of our English Education and Credential Programs. I didn’t receive a single message from someone complaining! As mortified as I felt to have referred to our colleagues with the word “Faulty”, it was pretty great to see that kind of response when I apologized.

It can be harder for me to say “I don’t know”. For as long as I can remember, I have often been the one in my family, and groups of friends, who tended to know the answers to many questions. I admit many of these were pretty trivial! For quite some time, our boys referred to me as “The keeper of all useless bits of knowledge”. One day, our youngest mixed up this honorary title and called me “The useless keeper of all bits of knowledge” and that dubious title has stuck with me ever since! I’m glad to say that it always used with love and good humor and I think it’s pretty funny.

In my career in IT, I have amassed a great deal of knowledge and it has been important to know, or know where to find, the answers to many questions. I take pride and pleasure from being able to provide good information across a wide range of subjects and have enjoyed working to keep my knowledge current. While the scope and level of detail of my understanding has changed as I moved into management, it has remained critically important that I demonstrate a thorough knowledge of key topics.

I’m sure that the importance of my knowing, and the positive reinforcement I have received for this all my life, are important to why it is hard for me to say “I don’t know”. On some level, it feels like I’d better not have to say that too often! On another level, this phrase is one of the best keys to gaining a better understanding and can play an important role in building and maintaining trust with colleagues, friends, and family.

When I say, “I don’t know”, I give others the chance to provide the answers I don’t have, and I always have the opportunity to follow up by finding an answer or asking another colleague for the information. In the process, I can expand my understanding and give others the chance to demonstrate their knowledge. This process also helps me build trust with others that I will admit when I don’t have an answer, can be trusted to find one, and to demonstrate that there are other highly-knowledgeable members of our team that we can trust to provide important information.

“I don’t know” can also be a good first step to “I need your help”. When I don’t know, but I’m sure someone else on our team does, that is a great opportunity for me to ask for help. I think “I need your help” may be the hardest of these three phrases for me to say. I was raised to be independent and self-reliant and I tend to be proud that I can do it myself. I know that I have also suffered from a common issue I’ve seen many of my colleagues struggle with in IT careers. It often seems, and sometimes is, faster to do it myself than to ask for help, especially when the person I am turning to for help will need training and experience to complete a task as quickly as I could myself.

Asking for help is beneficial in many ways and I will keep working to do this more often. By saying “I need your help”, I can make better use of my time, achieve better results for my department and the university, give others the opportunity to contribute and grow, and build stronger working relationships with my colleagues. I also set a good example for the members of our team that struggle, as I do, with the temptation to do it all myself.

There is much that “I don’t know” and “I need your help” to learn. I ask you to share your thoughts and feelings about these essays through the comments on my blog, or Facebook, or Google+. I’ll do my best to admit “I was wrong” when I’ve got the wrong idea about something. I welcome your input!

P.S. If you’ve read this far and wonder about the picture above, it is one of our cat, Lucky, objecting to my harmonica playing. I don’t think I’m that bad, but he really doesn’t care for the harmonica! For some reason, this whimsical image fit today’s topic. Maybe I need help improving my playing, I don’t know what it is that bothers Lucky when I play, or maybe I’m just wrong to play when he is nearby!