When Donald Rumsfeld made his famous speech it sounded silly and ridiculous but what he was getting at was actually quite profound. Consider any management decision you might make; you usually make decisions based on the best available information (some people use dart boards but I’ll talk about them in another post!). But of that information, how do you know you have enough? Presumably, to make the decision you reached a point where you felt there was enough information but what if there were significant gaps of knowing that you are not even remotely aware?
I’m not talking about gaps in your knowledge that you do know about. I, for example, know that I don’t know everything there is to know about wireless data protocols but if I needed to make a decision that involved this I would know how to find out or who to ask. I, at least, knew the gap in my knowledge exists and can take measures to address it. But there will still be a component of any decision that is your blind spot; that part of your decision making that you didn’t even know that you didn’t know.
There is no way to ensure that you know everything you possibly need to know for a decision but you can certainly take action to make sure your decisions don’t fall victim to your knowledge blind spot. The trick is humility.
If we accept that we don’t actually know everything (nor can we ever hope to) then we open to other possibilities. We begin to listen to other perspectives that might cause us to stop and see that we do have a blind spot and may learn what to do about it. If pride gets in the way (“I do” or “should know everything”) then we remain closed in our own known knowns . . . a sure fired way for those unknown unknowns to get you. . . as they did with Mr. Rumsfeld.
