What do we know? Actually.

Banksy’s film is a prank. Is it? Dunno. Most likely. I know it’s a film. I like a lot of his work – it makes you think. Not knowing what we don't know has become quite the phrase over the last few years. Donald Rumsfeld got both praise and ridicule in equal measures for the idea – this is what he said. You may need coffee to read this.

The Unknown

As we know, 
There are known knowns. 
There are things we know we know. 
We also know 
There are known unknowns. 
That is to say 
We know there are some things 
We do not know. 
But there are also unknown unknowns, 
The ones we don't know 
We don't know.

— Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing


All of its variants have been trotted out with one exception - "We don't know what we know we know.." You could change the middle know to ‘think’ but that would ruin the perversity of the riddle.

I've sprung it on some of the most respected people I know and to their credit they will mostly agree. They will think what it means – stare at me and say – yes. 'Cos it's true. I know - I suffer from it too. To really ‘know’ means to have unfathomable resolve about the thing. Be able to state with certainty all its properties. To be completely comfortable that it is so.

Well I'm not so sure I can say that about much - if anything.

I know that I'm watching a film, reading a book or flying a light aircraft. And I know when I'm not - but I don't really know all the bits I could or should to be any good at any of it. Life is probably way too short anyway.  How can we know everything.  When questioned I truly know far less about the film, the book and flying than I thought. Almost nothing in fact. We are actually rubbish at memory anyway. I know.

Applying this thought to business is a scary thought. If it's true then how prepared are we for anything? Ever? How can we make better decisions in important scenarios? Add to this the number of things that need 'knowing'. The list is often huge - much of it not knowable in the first place.

The other part of all this is we humans try to code the known. Ergo we bake in all the unknowns - hey presto! Certain failure. Systemising stupidity in.

So what to do?

Well you may disagree with the premise anyway and have already stopped reading this. But I think increasingly the answer is to say “I don't know...” and figure from there. To my mind the 'knowing' is not so much the prize as the continuous act of thinking. We are far better off coding the unknowns. We will have far more data on that anyway.  A brain frying thought. Working through the known unknowns is actually exactly what most people do anyway.  Without realizing that. They just kid themselves that they know.

Recognizing patterns in knowns and unknowns is only any use in a transitory sense - so really knowing is not possible nor the right premise. Go into every complex decision process as if we know nothing. It yields far better results, way more creativity, better behaviours and healthier less judgemental conversations.

Summary? I don't know!

Have better hunches and create a system for hunch making.

Posted via email from Just Thinking!