Miss Management: It doesn’t take one to know one

August 12, 2010 | Galynn Nordstrom

Warning: imminent philosophical digression.

When I started college, back in ’02, I initially was pursuing a degree in philosophy, for some reason. By my sophomore year, of course, I had already come to the reluctant conclusion that a degree in philosophy ultimately would likely achieve nothing more than a degree in philosophy, which might make my conversations with customers consist of more interesting questions than “would you like fries with that?” but would do little to advance my occupational opportunities. So I switched to journalism. But I have continued to have a fondness for philosophy and philosophical debate (for example, apply Arthur Schopenhauer’s “38 Ways to Win an Argument” to any political commercial), and often as I wander around the Web I find discussions that seem particularly well-suited to the world of commerce.

Last week, for example, I was reading an “Opinionator” column from the New York Times online (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com: “The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is, Part 1") by Errol Morris, who talks about the origins of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which can be summarized as “our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence.” Apparently, Cornell professor of social psychology David Dunning was inspired by a story in the 1996 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in which a bank robber walked into two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight, standing in front of the tellers with a gun, with no attempt to hide his face from the security cameras, which he in fact stared into directly. His picture was telecast that night, and less than an hour later, he was arrested, and was completely surprised by the fact. Reporter Michael Fuoco wrote: “Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras.”

Now: back to business

Reportedly, Dunning considered that, if the man was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber. It’s an extreme example, of “not knowing what we don’t know,” but it makes me feel a little better about the fact that it only took me a year to figure out that an undergraduate degree in philosophy was not likely to lead to gainful employment. Morris’ and Dunning’s online conversation eventually turned to the topic of “known unknowns,” “unknown unknowns,” and finally, possible “unknowable unknowns.” Thinking about current economic conditions, I thought about applying this concept to current business theory.

A known unknown, for example could be something like: I know there’s a difference between relative humidity and dewpoint figures, but I’m not sure what it is. I can, however, look it up, and dazzle my friends in California. There is a certain comfort in knowing that I could know, if I wanted to. Known unknowns probably form the basis of most business decisions today.

An unknown unknown creates a situation in which we might know neither question nor answer, neither problem nor solution, because we are simply unaware of what is possible, or already exists without our knowledge. Sort of a “seeing neither the forest nor the trees” condition. We don’t know what we don’t know, which probably forms the basis of most business problems today.

Unknowable unknowns: well, who knows? Morris poses the question “Are we constituted in such a way that there are things we cannot know?” He and Dunning are speaking in sociological and psychological terms, but from a philosophical standpoint, I’d prefer to think of them as signposts along the way to answering the question “what is the meaning of the universe?” Maybe there is no answer to that question. But from a business standpoint, it’s worthwhile to try to assemble as much knowledge as possible into an interactive and systemic whole. Perhaps a greater understanding of the interrelationships among everything will lead to the solutions to most problems today, business problems included.

Next week, I’ll put these three variable unknowns together with the Three Laws of business that I discussed in my May 26 blog, in my quest for the Universal Business Plan.

One basic tenet: a good solution always solves more than one problem. But the fact that you can make invisible ink from lemon juice doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s also the solution to invisibility from security cameras.

Comments

Comments are the opinion of individual posters and do not reflect the views of Specialty Fabrics Review or Industrial Fabrics Association International.

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  Joan

  Aug 24, 2010
  7:20 pm CDT

  It's nice to see intelligence and humor that makes me laugh!

  Thank you for the great read - we all need a good laugh and some deep thinking - this was both. Keep up the great blog! 

  I'm looking forward to your next blog and now (being new to your blog) - Ill have to go back to see the past ones.

   

  Bravo!