Don't give them the answer

Before I got into the world of training I was in a few different management roles. One was leading a team in a call centre. There was tonnes of product and technical knowledge they had to be across. There were also regular updates, promotions and new products to think about.

With 40+ people in the team there were always questions. “What’s the current promotion for this?”, “Do this work with that?”, “They want to know if this will work with their old device?”. Non-stop, all day.

I had a choice. I could be the subject matter expert or a leader. I couldn’t be both.

When I got questions my response became “let’s look it up together”. I’d kneel at their desk, we’d search it up in the knowledge base and find the answer. They were often frustrated and hurried. They had a customer on hold who needed the answer ASAP.

Would it have been faster easier for me to give them the answer? Absolutely. Would they like me more if I did? Definitely. Would I get an ego boost by being seen as the guy with the answers? Yeah.

That’s all good in the short term.

By looking it up they had to do the work. They developed their product knowledge faster. Like how you will remember a route faster as the driver, not the passenger.

What was even more important was that it built useful habits. It gave them more agency over time as they became self-sufficient. They looked things up and only asked me when something wasn’t entirely clear. They gained more knowledge. They didn’t have to ask further questions. They developed the habit of finding their own answers. That gave a boost to their confidence, not mine. Over time everyone became faster, calmer, more confident. I had more time for coaching and running things.

When new people joined, they had questions. If I was busy they’d ask the person next to them.

What would their more experienced neighbour say? The person who, just months before, was asking me questions and getting frustrated when I wouldn’t immediately tell them.

“Let’s look it up together”