"I Don't Know"

Musings from Dennis #21: I have trained myself and my team to never just say “I don’t know” if we were asked for information that we do not have the answers for but to add on “I’ll go find out and get back to you”. And really do! It’s fine if we don’t know the answers but it isn’t fine when we push away those who wanted to know. Such was many a times when I set up event retail pop up shops in Malaysia and needed info like layouts, and stock delivery times from the department store managers in charge. “Saya tidak tahu, buyer tu tidak chakap dan saya” (I don’t know I was not given information by the buyer) and then walked away! I even once joined a licensee to pitch a Malaysian GMS store buyer for sell-in opportunities. She kept saying “I don’t know” throughout the meeting and we got nowhere. The worst experience was when I once called a licensee’s appointed rep to get some information and was told “oh my boss is not in, she is away on business and I don’t know the answer. Why don’t you call her yourself to find out”. Experiences like this can be frustrating, so it taught me to “treat others the way you yourself want to be treated"