I have sat in plenty of meetings where everyone seemed to understand a term except me. A new acronym appeared on a slide, heads nodded around the room, and the conversation moved on. For years, the temptation was to stay quiet and work it out later. I did not want to be the person who slowed things down.
Now I see that moment differently. If I do not understand something, there is a fair chance somebody else is equally lost. The difference is that nobody wants to say so.
Questions expose the real work
I have learned that a simple question can be more useful than an impressive answer. “What does that mean in practice?” can uncover assumptions, vague thinking and risks that polished language has hidden.
This matters even more with AI. The vocabulary is arriving faster than most people can absorb it. Agents, grounding, orchestration and retrieval are discussed as if they have always been part of ordinary business conversation. They have not. Pretending otherwise does not make anyone more capable. It only makes the room less honest.
When I am working with Microsoft 365 Copilot, I treat uncertainty as a starting point. If I receive a long technical email in Outlook, I can ask Copilot to explain the unfamiliar concepts in plain language, identify what decisions are being requested and suggest questions I should take back to the sender. That does not replace my judgement. It gives my curiosity somewhere productive to go.
The same approach works in Teams. After a meeting, I might ask Copilot what terms were used without explanation, where the discussion relied on assumptions, or which points need clarification. The value is not in looking clever. The value is in leaving the meeting with fewer gaps hidden behind polite nodding.
Expertise is not knowing everything
The longer I work in technology, the less impressed I am by people who always need to appear certain. Technology is too broad, and it changes too quickly, for anyone to know everything. Real expertise is often visible in the quality of the questions someone asks and in how quickly they can turn an unknown into something useful.
I would rather work with a person who says, “I have not come across that before. Show me how it works,” than someone who fills the silence with confident guesses. The first response creates progress. The second creates risk.
For MSPs, this is especially important. Clients do not need us to perform certainty. They need us to investigate carefully, explain clearly and be honest about what we know. A technician who raises a hand early can prevent hours of rework. A business owner who asks what a Copilot proposal will actually change in the client’s day can stop a shiny but pointless project before it starts.
Curiosity needs practice
I do not think curiosity is a personality trait reserved for naturally inquisitive people. I think it is a professional habit. I can practise it by keeping a short list of things I did not understand during the week, then using Copilot in Word or Loop to explore them, organise my notes and identify what deserves deeper learning.
The goal is not to remove every gap. That is impossible. The goal is to become comfortable enough with the gap to examine it openly.
I no longer see “I don’t know” as an admission of weakness. I see it as the first accurate statement in a useful conversation. What matters is what I do next: ask, test, read, listen and come back with a clearer view.
Knowledge has limits. Curiosity keeps moving.
CIAOPS 