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The Universe of Cluelessness

March 8th, 2017

You’ve probably heard the statement “You don’t know what you don’t know!”   When I first heard it decades ago, I thought it was profound.  The statement hit me like a stack of bricks.   Today, the phrase is used so often that it is practically cliché.

 However, I’ve found that many leaders don’t know how to harness its power.

What does DKDK really mean and how can we use it to become more productive, effective, and happy?


Let’s break it down…:


Firstly, Knowledge is stuff we know.


Wikipedia defines KNOWLEDGE as “a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of facts, information, descriptions, or skills, acquired through experience or education, by perceiving, discovering or learning.


In the business world, we don’t really know anything until we apply accumulated knowledge into productive behavior, skillful actions, or wiser decisions.


If we look at the sum of knowledge (everything we know), logic dictates that our total universe of knowledge is comprised of only 3 parts:


1.     What we know we know–KK.  (I know how to ride a bicycle)


2.     What we know we don’t know–KDK.  (I know I don’t know how to perform brain surgery)


3.     What we don’t know that we don’t know—DKDK.  (Am I asking the right question or even starting from the correct frame of reference?  Am I even in the right ball park?)


In recent years, I’ve had the privilege of attending hundreds of CEO advisory board meetings and have witnessed many of the best and brightest business owners helping each other to succeed.    In these meetings, owners support each other, share best practices, validate thinking, and hold each other accountable.   And they (and I) learn a ton.   However, perhaps the greatest learning occurs when a member’s board challenges their thinking, their perspectives, and their questions.   These challenges often result in dramatically different, more effective, and BETTER questions.   Owners often realize that they may be working hard to chop down trees, but that they may be chopping in the wrong forest.   Consequently, the owners are able to use DKDK to make much wiser decisions about how to invest their precious time, money and resources.


I used to believe that DKDK comprised at least half of the total sum of knowledge.  I was wrong.    What I’ve come to learn is that DKDK comprises far more than 99% of the sum of knowledge.   Many of the board members comment that the more they learn, the more they understand that the best solutions lie in DKDK.  In other words, we are ALL clueless.


The most significant discovery and learning resides in DKDK.    So the most successful leaders are the ones that understand this concept.  The strongest board members learn how to use this understanding to make wiser, more effective, skillful decisions.   As a consequence, they thrive.


The only sustainable advantage that any of our companies (or ourselves) have is the ability to learn better and faster than our competitors.  Those who understand and execute this principle consistently succeed.


If you haven’t created a PROACTIVE structure and process that provides you and your employees more opportunities for greater DKDK discovery and faster learning, I’d encourage you to begin today.


Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2017.   All Rights Reserved.