No One Knows it All

Recently, our family celebrated my son’s eighth birthday. 

Like any parent, I cannot believe where eight years have gone since I first held him in my arms. It’s been a pleasure to experience life with him and watch him grow. 

Of course, not every moment of parenthood is pure joy. During a recent moment of conflict, he looked at me and said, “Hey dad, you don’t actually know everything about the world.” 

I instantly had one of those Yosemite Sam cartoon moments— you know, the kind where you lose your mind and steam erupts out of your eyes, ears, and nose. My blood pressure quickly returned to normal, but not before I addressed his poor attitude. 

I later reflected on that moment and realized that as much as I would love to achieve perfection, I am far from it. Maybe this kid was onto something, even though he was being disobedient. I don’t know everything there is to know about the world, and I am certainly not all things to all people. 

I can easily look within myself and see that I have my own share of weaknesses. But thankfully, I work with a multitude of people who have a variety of strengths and abilities that I lack. I don’t need to know it all because others around me make up for what I don’t know. 

That’s the nature of our workplaces. Each relies on the diversity of strengths, skills, and knowledge of its people to be successful. No one person has to have it all. Everyone relies on each other to get the job done right. And that helps build a better team and a better sense of workplace community. 

I once heard the word synergy defined as the power of the whole being greater than the sum of the individual parts. Our skills and knowledge are meant to complement one another. Which means none of us needs to actually know everything about the world.