I'm somewhat of a slow learner, and one of the main reasons I would rarely ask for help was because people are not as helpful as they think they are. Most of the time it's a lazy attempt to answer questions at the surface level only, and attempting to follow up with further question ends in frustration quickly. People think they're helpful but in fact have small amounts of patience generally speaking. This was obvious when I was student of really good teachers who made sure to answer literally any question without judgement.
Unless you're asking someone who has great confidence in their knowledge, asking a question can lead to an unpleasant situation. I've always scratched my head at this, since to me it's no problem to admit ignorance, but I've come to learn this isn't the case for most people, especially in front of others (i.e. a meeting).
IMHO, getting others to ask more questions starts by allowing others to ask you anything without thinking it has multiple layers of meaning and/or intention.
> I've always scratched my head at this, since to me it's no problem to admit ignorance, but I've come to learn this isn't the case for most people, especially in front of others (i.e. a meeting).
Leaving ego aside, there's plenty of societal conditioning that explains this too. The negative feelings you may feel by not knowing something (i.e. in a meeting, or in a class...) can certainly plausibly be connected to being reprimanded for not knowing something. It's definitely the bizarre case that not having an immediate answer for something can result in "losing" an argument. Obviously this isn't the way it should be, but it certainly is the way it is many time, whether that be in low stakes argument about a TV show in a bar or a high stakes discussion about what technology you should use. But it goes back even further than that I think. In many ways, our entire school structure is designed around the idea that your success is tied to your ability to answer questions on the spot. Political debates are the same way, right? The reality is that the answer to every question in a debate should be some version of "well, I'd go and ask my cabinet and consult experts in this area..." So I don't think it should be that surprising that it makes people uncomfortable to not know something.
I think a debate is something you can only have between parties that have similar goals (axioms) but different methods. Like a scientific debate, everyone shares the same information and same the goal of reaching understanding but they are split on the methods to interpret that information.
Usually in politics, opposing parties enter a debate with irreconcilable goals, so they are are incentivized to disagree with each other no matter what, this leads to a situation where the discussion is centered around "zingers" and rhetoric to give the impression that some side is winning and "gaining ground" against the other. The presidential debate, for example, is not really so much a debate but a platform for candidates to state their viewpoints and signal to their demographics.
It's all foolishness-- to think that we can settle normative questions with positive arguments. I mean, sometimes positive arguments can influence us to change our minds, but the normative doesn't flow from some kind of axiomatic interpretation of positive statements and facts.
We can only start to get close where we can agree on outcomes we want-- then we can start to weigh policies and see whether they get us closer to them.
Right, good point. I was being a little salty thinking of workplace environments, especially large companies where this "ask more questions" is often said, yet it's not true and can get you in trouble sometimes. I've had experiences with a boss at the time, where asking too many questions on a new task would seem like an avoidance of work or lack of confidence in getting it done. The team had a mindset of "ask anything", yet in some contexts they would interpret questions in a negative light because I guess it can seem like something is wrong and work is not getting done.
The ability to quickly answer a question is related to knowing the answer. The school system teaches students enough facts ("When Boston has been founded?") that the idea of a quick known answer sticks.
Certainly most interesting questions don't have a known answer. Some have answers that can be quickly inferred from known things; the ability to quickly come up with such reasoning chains is also prized.
But a lot of more interesting.questions can only be answered after some thought and consulting with sources. For many people, receiving such a question from a beginner is uncomfortable: they and onlookers expect beginners to ask simple questions with well-known answers.
I experience this too. People would literally rather make things up than admit they don't know or are not sure. Or they dress up a shallow/obvious response with impressive words and people accept it as a great answer.
I experienced this a lot as a kid. Adults tend to leave out a lot of context in their answers to children. Often, it seems like they don’t even try to see the question from the child’s point of view. For instance, I didn’t do well in school. When I asked adults why doing well was necessary, they would give answer along the lines of “if you don’t do well, then the only job you’ll be able to get is as a janitor.” Perhaps that’s true, (or not?) but the answer was largely devoid of meaning to me as a child.
I try to give kids honest answers, but there's a chasm of missing metacognition and unshared context that is hard to bridge.
I speak of spending a lot of time at work. And argue that developing intellectual interest and stamina that supports one feeling good during that time is one of the most viable / likely paths to live a happy, fulfilled life.
It's still a huge leap of imagination. How can you tell a kid what being in a dead-end job that you hate is like? It may not sound too unlike what you're asking them to do, burying themselves in their studies.
So we can talk about finding the interesting parts of studies--- interesting subjects. History as stories. Writing as imagination. Math as trying to figure things out. It's immediate and also hits the important part of the argument. As Csikszentmihaly said, “Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”
And now that I'm a teacher, I try to run classes that have a whole lot of the things that I liked best in other work, and to share them with kids.
I think Maths (and physics) education is better when teachers also add some of its history. Most of maths was discovered for some need and lot of people working in the domain had really funny lives. Some anecdotes linked to some theorem or formula could make them easier to remember for certain students.
I taught upper quartile 5th graders contest math. Talking about Gauss adding up the series 1, 2, 3,... 100 quickly and frustrating their teacher really resonates with them.
Also telling about Hippasus allegedly being drowned by the Pythagorean cult for showing irrationality of sqrt(2) is always exciting :D A lot of middle schoolers love the slightly gruesome.
Adults tend to leave out a lot of context in their answers to anyone.
Even knowing this, I constantly have to step back, sometimes a number of times, to explain the background of the background before then getting into the actual details of the "thing" I'm supposed to be explaining.
Working on a project for X months and then having to compress and abstract that knowledge into a 30 minute introduction to a group of people staring from a clean slate is a gig that requires more preparation than expected or allowed for.
yah, after a while, asking for help feels like reaching frontline tech support (or first-page google results) over and over and getting the "did you restart?" answer. it's often not only not helpful, but a real drag on finding a useful answer.
in daily life, folks intrinsically tend to curate others who give them good answers (information), and that's how such 'masters'[0] gain real esteem. typically you realize through experience what questions these 'masters' can answer well and what they can't, leading to genuine social bonds (trust is the real social currency but trust and good information tend to go hand-in-hand). this esteem is so valuable that others game our social systems to get it falsely, which is why social media is such a shitshow (not because of poor moderation as many seem to believe, since moderation doesn't actually change what people believe, except maybe at the margin, but esteem does).
basically, people who can answer questions well deserve esteem. the social awkwardness you describe come from people who don't deserve the esteem but want it (or worse, think they deserve it) anyway. and incidentally, the prevalence of this awkwardness is a dependable sign of social degradation (low-trust to low-ethics vicious cycle), as people generally have no problem admitting ignorance in high-trust environments.
[0]: i resist the term 'expert' for being thoroughly subverted by fake esteem seekers and mediopolitical propagandists.
This first happened to me in school. I had the misfortune of many rather incompetent teachers. Asking them genuinely interested follow-up questions would more often than not be met with an annoyed generalization. Still persisting to extract an answer reliably put them in punishment mode, so I quickly learned not to do that. Consequently, I lost all respect for them and the system. I was being punished for being curious.
A similar dynamic plays out everywhere, to this day. It can easily become a paralyzing minefield, especially when “safe spaces” are involved.
When I find myself in a potentially uncomfortable position like this, I remember the single most useful advice I’ve ever gotten from a sales coach: whenever you’re in the spotlight answering questions, be well prepared but remember that you cannot know everything. If you don’t know something this instant, say so. Compliment on the question if it’s a good one, offer to find out, then follow up personally. Instant pressure reliever, professional conduct and wise guy filter all in one.
Admitting ignorance has political impact in many organization. If you’re not playing much of the political game it’s not an issue.
If you’re trying to put yourself in a pedestal and gain influence without going the long way of building trust though consistent delivery, successfully getting away from situations where you have to admit powerlessness or ignorance is a valuable skill.
Seems like you're describing a lack of integrity. I think it important that we remember, people / institutions / things that lack integrity tend to fall apart.
Politics exist in every organization with more than 3 people and a lot of people, and I am not sure to agree with your point on the lack of integrity.
To go to an extreme, our govs are severely lacking of integrity but aren't falling apart: there is some level of gross that will happen in any sufficiently large group, and properly navigating these situations is a valuable skill that is needed to get any decent progress inside these groups. You won't become a manager/high level clerk/elected official through sheer integrity, and these positions still need to be filled by competent people.
I'm not saying everyone needs to play weird games, just that's it a complex situation with no single guideline.
This is in my opinion, doublespeak to some degree. I used to view it this way. Ultimately our governments reward lack of integrity - the evil king rises to power faster than a good king (perhaps term limits in western democracy play a role here) but ultimately honesty and integrity will, by the nature of their immutable consistency, always eventually triumph given sufficient effort. However - in an environment owned by the dishonest this often wont be realised, particularly if the risks are too high. What we are left with IS a lack of integrity being one key to one success in these scenarios. The question is... is that the life you want to lead? Stalin existed with total control, but ultimately everyone lied to him out of fear. He was successful from a human aquiring resources perspective, but. Is that a world someone wants to live in?
> since to me it's no problem to admit ignorance, but I've come to learn this isn't the case for most people, especially in front of others (i.e. a meeting).
I do not think this is case. Most people are perfectly fine saying "I don't know" in a professional context. At least that's my experience.
The only times I can remember when someone seemed to be uncomfortable admitting some lack of knowledge is when we get new team members, because doing so requires a certain amount of trust. As an older member, highlighting your own ignorance will put others at ease within minutes though. "What have you been working with before? Ah! Never got to use it myself." or even just pretending you don't know some technical detail, quickly looking it up during a call.
I struggle to picture what working with software developers would be like if we couldn't admit ignorance. It would probably be a complete disaster.
I don't think this is what you're talking about, but sometimes I purposefully leave out key details that I know a child can figure out. It's a little puzzle for them, and teaches them to think for their answers instead of just expecting them from someone else, fully formed.
Unless you're asking someone who has great confidence in their knowledge, asking a question can lead to an unpleasant situation. I've always scratched my head at this, since to me it's no problem to admit ignorance, but I've come to learn this isn't the case for most people, especially in front of others (i.e. a meeting).
IMHO, getting others to ask more questions starts by allowing others to ask you anything without thinking it has multiple layers of meaning and/or intention.