#sounding dumb

I finished "High Output Management" yesterday and, generally speaking, it's a pretty good read on management. The engineering bent may rub people the wrong way but focusing on managerial leverage to increase output is a pretty nifty way of narrowing the discussion.

Anyway, in one section he reminded me that both managers and individual contributors often refrain from sharing information or asking questions for fear of sounding dumb. Less information + fewer questions is likely to lead to lower quality output. Not a good thing. 

Clearly this isn't the first time I've heard this, the "There are no stupid questions" has been tossed around many times in and out of work. However, for some reason this time it hit home a little harder and my new commitment is to "sound dumb" at work more. I'm sure my team is shuddering now but I want to challenge them to make their information and decision making even clearer and for other managers to do the same. We'll see how it goes.