Page 26 - CCCA 295084 Magazine_Summer 2019

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“ The basic idea is to get people talking about their

understanding so that together you can both discover the gap
between their potential knowledge and their actual knowledge.
It takes longer and requires greater patience, but it’s the only
”
way to get legitimate buy-in to your ideas and advice.

CHrIS Gr AHAM, F oUnDer, Te LLPeoPLe

Think about it: a person who thinks their understanding of Virtually every time, our actual knowledge is much less than
a situation is 4.5/7 (or higher) isn’t listening to you. Why would our potential knowledge.
they? As far as they’re concerned, they’ve got a decent handle
on the situation. Don’t Tell People They Don’t Know
But if you can get that person to realize their understand- Something else to notice from the previous section: even if you
ing of a situation is closer to 2/7, now they’re open to different were surprised by how little you could recall offhand about your
viewpoints.
favourite novel, imagine how it would’ve felt if I’d just told you
that you don’t know very much about your favourite novel.
Actual Versus Potential Knowledge
I expect you would feel defensive. (Consider the toilet story:
The Illusion’s cause lies in a weirdly pervasive feature of human If I ask you to rate your understanding and you say “5/7”, and I
memory: the failure to differentiate between actual and poten- respond with, “Actually, you’re closer to 2/7”.) And when you’re
tial knowledge. feeling defensive, your frst impulse is to defend yourself, rather
Think of your favourite book—a novel, not a children’s than try to learn something new.
book—one that’s changed your life in a meaningful way. You’ve The same thing happens when you tell someone they’re wrong
read this book a few times. When people ask for recommenda- or say that you’re right because of reason, reason, reason. Even if
tions, this is the one you suggest. you are right, people aren’t listening. Instead, they’re focused on
Do you have it? Good. how to justify their initial idea or view that you rejected.
Now write down the novel’s frst sentence. If that’s too diff- All else being equal, people are much more amenable to dis-
cult, write down the names of all the novel’s characters. If that’s covering the limits of their understanding than being told the
still too diffcult, write down a high-level summary of each limits.
chapter. (Can you even remember how many chapters there
are?) My experience is that even the most dedicated readers Yeah, but I Know I’m Right
struggle with this exercise. Last year I started the Roar Festival, a music festival fundrais-
My favourite book is Infnite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
It’s long—over 1,000 pages—but I’ve read it three times, lec- er for Camp Ooch (a camp for kids with cancer). The festival
happened in September but I only came up with the idea in
tured on it at a university and lead a six-month reading group August—meaning, I had to convince my friends that we could
on it. I own several reading guides and have read a dozen more create a festival, from scratch, in eight weeks.
online. Yet, I still can’t tell you the names of more than six My friends were skeptical: “No way. Impossible.”
characters or give you anything more than a cursory review of A typical response at this point would be to try to convince
the novel’s plot. my friends by showing them all my research into festival plan-
Of course, when I’m able to refer back to the book (review ning. (After all, I’m the only one who’d done the research.) In
passages, check citations and otherwise refresh my memory), I other words, I could try to bludgeon them with reasons.
can give you much more detail—and this is just the point. Instead, I said, “Okay, that’s interesting. Tell me more about
When we reason about the world—talk about our favourite
book, how a toilet works or why a business decision is likely that. What seems impossible?”
“Um… Well, it just seems like too much to do in too little time.”
to unfold a certain way—we confate the actual knowledge we “Okay, interesting. That’s defnitely possible. What all do you
have in our minds with the potential knowledge we have access think is involved?”
to, somewhere, in the world.
“…”

26 CCCa MaGazINe | SuMMer 2019 ÉTÉ