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Learning To Know What You Don’t Know

Three tips to help you fill your "Don't Know What You Don't Know" knowledge gaps. The learning curve that’s involved with operating a business can be tremendous. Too often we stop somewhere near the middle of that curve, and the business stagnates. Often, one of the the biggest impediments to business growth is not knowing what you don’t know about the business.

By Tony Wanless /

small business management
Attempting to fill your knowledge gaps can make you feel like you don’t know much at all – but it’s worth it.

Three tips to help you fill your “Don’t Know What You Don’t Know” knowledge gaps.

The learning curve that’s involved with operating a business can be tremendous. Too often we stop somewhere near the middle of that curve, and the business stagnates.

Often, one of the the biggest impediments to business growth is not knowing what you don’t know about the business.

We all like to think we know a lot about the important areas of our operation, but the truth is that most of us have a special skill and we deliver it in a form in which we’re comfortable. This may be in our own business, or as part of a larger operation. 

We know a lot about that skill … but we don’t know enough about the business landscape to grow that business beyond a certain point.

Simply, we don’t know what we don’t know (DKDK). The problem is, we need to know it. 

 
A blog from one of my favourite business coaches, Les McKeown, who runs a system called Predictable Success, is apropos.
 
McKeown says that to be successful, we all have to reduce our DKDK, and offers three ways to do it. I’m simplifying them slightly here and adapting them to more of a small-business setting. 
 

3 Small Business Tips to Help You Fill Your Knowledge Gaps

1. Get a mentor or coach

Try to make this person someone from inside your industry. They will help you find the hidden groups of information or technique that you already have but forgot or didn’t realize you knew. 
 

2. Teamwork

Work with a team with differing skills so that you can pick up some information that another team member might have, but you don’t. For a smaller business setting, I’d translate this to mean working with people in business areas completely different than your own. Sales people might want to work with marketing people, for example, so they can view something through a different lense.
 

3. Move around

Become involved in small projects outside your skill area so you can learn. By working on these projects in this way, you’ll rapidly reduce your DKDK. Again, for small businesses, this probably means working on larger group-type projects that combine many skill areas. Engineers might want to work with marketers, for example, to learn how the other side operates and views a challenge.
 
McKeown suggests that the Don’t Know What We Don’t Know area is probably the largest part of your information storehouse. 
 
I take that to mean our skills gaps are where we all have to work harder.  
 
I don’t mean working on your weaknesses instead of your strengths. It means filling in the knowledge gaps so you’ll be better able to run the business or work in it. 
 
For example, I’m studying design to see how its version of storytelling compares to and complements writing. But I know I’ll never be a designer, nor do I wish to be one. It’s just helpful to know how it works and what its role is. 
 
However, I think there is one other caveat here. If you’re going to learn from others, you’re going to have to be willing to look a bit like a fool. When you work with someone who has a skill you know nothing about, you can often feel like a newborn.
 
That’s hard on the ego and some people can’t handle it.
Tony Wanless

Tony Wanless