Ep38: When Knowledge Isn't Enough

Have you ever been given information – fascinating information, even – that you almost immediately forgot? There was most likely a critical piece missing in your education on that topic - the stark
difference between knowledge and knowing just enough to get hurt.

And that is the subject of this episode.

Why is that important for business?

Generally speaking, people know the right thing to do. What they need is practice on how to do it. This is the difference between hearing something and knowing something, and it can make all the difference to the culture and the operations of a company. We are too often given knowledge, but not made comfortable in the art of conversation of conveying that information or using that information in practice.

When you hear something - even if you are amazed by that
information – the brain is still in a relatively dormant state. If
you introduce it into practice, however, then neurons start to
fire, and the information begins to be coded in your brain. In
fact, if something is explained to you, 10 minutes after you will
retain but 10%. But if you are involved - if there is a story that
you can place yourself into the context of the information, or if
you interact with the information in some way - retention goes
up to 60%.

Companies often go through long process, and somehow stumble their way through complex issue to get to a conclusion that is really well thought out. But then they want to tell everyone in the company their conclusion and expect people to catch on where their brain left off. The journey is important; it is critical to find ways to involve people along the way. Not including them doesn’t preclude their ideas or stop them from sticking their oar in after the fact, so you aren’t saving time by doing it yourself.

If, as a leader, you are frustrated that your people don’t think things through thoroughly or in the way that you do, it’s because they don’t have line of sight to the same things that you do. Play the mental video for them in slow motion so that they can see all of the things that you are thinking about, and then they will start to see what you see, as well as things that you don’t see.

It is important to not just know the right thing to do, but to really dive deep on equipping people with the familiar ground of how to do it.

What story do you want to tell?
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