Up Your Business is an exclusive GEARS Magazine feature where I share stories, insights, and reflections about business and life.
Is it just me, or are you also getting tired of hearing some of these tired, overused, trite sayings like the new normal, follow the science, thinking outside the box, paradigm shift, it is what it is, and my least favorite, you don’t know what you don’t know?
During a recent Zoom meeting with the GEARS production team, I expressed my feelings about these vain attempts at cleverness and asked the other team members if they had any they’d like to add to my list. Their list included follow the money, hindsight is 20-20, one day at a time, at the end of the day, win-win, and a few others.
Managing Editor Rodger Bland was more clever with his email response to my question, “It is what it is. So, think outside the box and go big or go home. But at the end of the day, you don’t know what you don’t know; so, follow the science, which is better than to follow the money, unless you can show me the money. Sadly, each paradigm shift is our new normal as we take it one day at a time. But really, how’s that working for you? I guess hindsight is 20-20 after all.”
You’re probably wondering, “If ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ is Thom’s least favorite, why did he choose it as the title and topic for this article?” My answer is that at first glance, it’s such an obvious point that it appears to be a waste of oxygen to say it or waste of ink to write it. However, there’s something provocative about it for me. I can’t help but wonder if there aren’t some profound lessons hidden in this saying. So, let’s dissect it and see if has more meaning than meets the eye, and if we can learn some things in the process.
Please humor me by accepting my assumptions in the following illustration.
Let’s agree that the Circle of Knowledge contains all existing knowledge – all knowledge short of God’s.
If I asked you to draw a slice that represents all you know that you know, if you’re honest with yourself, you probably couldn’t make it small enough. Examples would include things like your name, your address, your profession, the kind of car(s) you drive, and so on. We’ll use the smallest slice to illustrate what you know you know.
You’d likely draw a slightly larger slice to depict what you know you don’t know. Examples of things you know you don’t know might be you know what brain surgery is, but you don’t know how to do brain surgery, or you know planes fly, but you don’t know how to fly a plane. When you know that you don’t know, you can do something about it to fill the gap – get training or hire someone with the skills and knowledge to do it. If you know you don’t understand bookkeeping or accounting, would you prepare your own financial statements and tax returns?
The largest section of the Circle of Knowledge is the realm of the unknown. You don’t know these things because you have no awareness of them. These things are called blind spots – you can’t see them until something or someone illuminates them. If you’ve participated in psychotherapy or a self-discovery workshop, you might have experienced revisiting your past – perhaps all the way back to your early childhood. This often reveals blind spots in your past. Once you’re aware of these blind spots, you can choose to act on them or not. In either case, when you weren’t aware of them, they didn’t even exist as far as you knew.
On a more practical level, you might have some blind spots concerning your business – things you don’t know you don’t know. For example, you might have an unhappy customer spreading bad stories about you. Without the customer or someone else telling you, you’d have no knowledge of it and, therefore, would not take any steps to address it. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Not quite the same, but similar to not knowing is when you don’t acknowledge that there’s a problem because there’s no way to fix it. Years ago, when GM introduced the 700-R4 transmission, it had a notorious 1-2 slide-bump. GM’s response was, “That’s how it works – it’s normal.” This was a true statement until a fix was developed for it. Once there was a fix, it became a problem that needed to be fixed – a paradigm shift of sorts.
Additionally, one good reason for hiring an outside consultant for your business is called “The Iceberg of Ignorance.” Like an iceberg, most of the problems in a company are concealed below the surface. Consultants often discover issues that are hidden from your view. I’ve consulted with hundreds of businesses during my career. In most cases, the business suffered from problems that the ownership/management was unaware of until I pointed them out. I don’t recall one client that refused to address the problems once they were aware of them. You don’t know what you don’t know, and you can’t fix problems you don’t know about.
There’s another type of blind spot within the realm of you don’t know what you don’t know. This “subrealm” is potentially dangerous if left unattended. It occurs when someone thinks they know that they know, and they don’t. While this can manifest as a character flaw usually tied to ego, it can also show up out of honest ignorance of one’s shortcomings.
An ego-based example would be a mechanic that deeply believes they’re the best they can be. They don’t feel they need to attend tech classes and seminars; they think they should be teaching the classes. However, it turns out that the very same mechanic is the cause of most of the warranty work in the shop.
An example of honest ignorance can occur when an employee receives praise when they should get reprimands or corrective guidance. Some shop owners are afraid to confront nonperformance, which leads to a continuation of the same level of performance. The employee thinks he’s doing it correctly because they’ve never been told otherwise. This example is more of a management problem than an employee problem, but it needs to be addressed in any case.
Many other examples fall under the heading of you don’t know what you don’t know. But I’m going to have to “circle back” to you (Yuck! There’s another one.) with those examples. My plan for this year is to share stories and case studies that will reveal things you can do in your business to make both incremental and significant changes within the realm of you don’t know what you don’t know.
You might not like some of the things I’ll tell you about yourself. But I’d rather tell you the truth and have you dislike me than withhold what you need to know and have you like me.
About the Author
Thom Tschetter has served our industry for nearly four decades as a management and sales educator. He owned a chain of award-winning transmission centers in Washington State for over 25 years.
He calls on over 30 years of experience as a speaker, writer, business consultant, and certified arbitrator for topics for this feature column.
Thom is always eager to help you improve your business and your life. You can contact him by phone at (480) 773-3131 or e-mail to coachthom@gmail.com.
