KnowsJack

KnowsJack is my new blog site for what is really a very old (hopefully you read this as “wise”) consulting business.  I wanted to do something a little bit different than a traditional consultancy site, and the name — I hope — gives you a sense of who I am, how I think, and what it is like to work with me.

We all know the phrase, “He doesn’t know jack” in which the final noun is often left off and meaning that one doesn’t even know, um, much at all.

But most people don’t know, nor pause to think of, is that the opposite of that phrase, “…he knows jack”, means pretty much the same thing.  It is a yin-yan of unknowing — either way that phrase is said, it suggests ignorance.  And over the years I’ve learned a lot about ignorance.  And the more I’ve learned about it, the more I’ve come to like it.  It is a religion of sorts for me, spelled with a capital “I”, Ignorance.

Far from being equivalent to the practice of stupidity, Ignorance has amazing powers and is very difficult to practice.  Here are a couple of examples.

• Suppose you are a product manager for a large company.  You’re doing well, developing and marketing your product, but always wish you were doing better.  Of course.  Your head is filled with knowledge about specifications, designs, research, feedback, and a million other factors that you must handle every day.  And yet, which one of these pieces of information will help you take your product to the next level?

• Or let’s say that you are a small business owner and you spend much of your day ensuring that everything is running well-enough…and yet you know that you and your company could be doing much better.  You know a lot about your business, but some of what you actually know is far more important than the rest of what you know.

We all know people in these situations.  How often do you hear someone lamenting that despite how well they are doing, they could “…do much better if only….”?

So what they don’t yet know is pretty valuable, even if they already know it but can’t pick it out.  And there is more.  There are things that they don’t even know that they need to know, things about their customer, their product, their business…all of that, and often they are the things that are among the most valuable to know.  They are the game-changers.  They are the sources of transformation.

This can sound like a bit of a logic game, but it isn’t.  It is just something that we don’t really stop to consider.  It is a very sharp two-edged sword, this ignorance.  By being able to practice Ignore-ance, we allow ourselves to focus on those things we consider most relevant.  But most of our potential for growth lies in those things that we do ignore or are ignorant of.

And getting to know them starts with the Discipline of Ignorance.

Forget What You Know…and Become an Un-Knowitall

Ever noticed how getting away from the office, home, whatever for a few days, seems to clear your head and give you some fresh perspective?  That’s Ignorance in action.  Its effect is directly proportional to how much you “forget about everything”.  We don’t use that phrase by accident and we usually don’t realize what we are actually saying: our best insights often come as a result of changing our practice of “ignore-ance”. I’ll submit to you here that the more you can become an “Un-Knowitall”, the more you’ll learn,  succeed, and find enjoyment in what you are doing.

If you think I’m kidding about this, just playing with words, then please stay tuned for future installments.  I can tell you now that the smartest people in the world are practitioners of this very discipline, and it is, at its roots, a tenet of Bhuddism.  This is not Forest Gump.  Think empty mind.  Ignorance is powerful stuff, but not really part of the usual business vocabulary. In a world where every day we are called on to be knowledgeable, in charge, in control…forgetting about everything is not really an option and being called Ignorant is not something most of us aspire to.

And hence the slightly tongue-in-cheek name, KnowsJack.  Much like I work with my clients to help them discover what is unknown and hence most valuable, I’ll work here in this blog to take us to the outer banks of unknowingness, where we don’t know what we don’t know.  And we’ll come back with solid gold.  Contrarians, for sure.  You will see what was not visible before.  It’s not magic, though it can seem that way.  But it does take practice and years of experience.  It takes an unwillingness to ever be happy with an answer — a desire to be ignorant rather than knowledgeable.

So here on KnowsJack.com, or working by your side, I’m dedicated to taking this journey with you.

What KnowsJack Can Do for You

I would be remiss if I did not actually let you know what I can do for you.  I have four main areas that I work in: Executive Coaching, Company Positioning, Customer Understanding, and Business Development.