It’s the age-old man/woman debate. “Why don’t you ask someone?”
My wife is right, of course. The chances are that the next person we pass will have a better idea of where the theatre is than I do. That would not surprise me.
But I don’t want to ask.
I suppose I don’t want to admit that I don’t know.
But there’s no shame in not knowing something, is there? The worst that can happen is that I get misleading directions, but that’s hardly worse than driving around randomly.
The smart answer is to stop and ask. Most people are helpful and happy to share their knowledge with me.
And I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t like to ask for help.
I see it a lot when non-IT businesses set up their own IT systems.
They know what they want. They have some IT knowledge (and there’s always Google). How hard can it be?
But, like guessing where the theatre is, it’s harder than it looks.
And there’s a big difference between winging it looking for a theatre and winging it with an IT system.
Worst-case scenario, should I refuse to ask for help with directions, is that we’re late to the show or maybe miss it all together.
With an IT system, though, the worst-case scenario is a much bigger problem.
You see, single points of failure in your IT system only become apparent when they actually fail, leaving you dealing with disaster. A poorly designed system could have serious security holes just waiting to be discovered. Unnecessarily complex and expensive cloud systems exist simply because the person who designed them didn’t know.
And didn’t ask.
When asking where the theatre is, nine times out of ten the answer is a cheery, “Down there, second left and it’s on the right. Car park opposite”. It’s not a big deal and it’s not as ego-crushing as you may expect.
When we’re asked for advice about IT systems, ten times out of ten the answer is equally cheery and equally helpful.
Try it. Book a call with me here today.
Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay