The Curse of Knowledge

“Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us.”

I’ve started reading Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath.

According to the Heath’s, there are six principles that, if followed, greatly increase the chances our ideas will catch on.

The principles are simple and reflect a certain degree of common sense – yet, we don’t often follow them!

The villain (as they call it) is the curse of knowledge.

They tell the story of an experiment performed by a Stanford candidate for a PhD in psychology.

The student assembled two groups of study participants: tappers and listeners.

The tappers were given a list of simple tunes (Happy Birthday to You, for example) and had to tap out the rhythm for a listener.

The tappers predicted the listeners would identify half of the tunes correctly. In practice, the listeners were only right 2.5% of the time.

The tappers often got frustrated during the experiment not understanding how the listeners couldn’t identify the tune. 

The problem: The tappers knew the tune. It played in their heads as they tapped out the rhythm. The listeners did not.

What messages might you be putting on your PowerPoints based on a tune only you can hear completely?

Effective communication is critical to change.

I can’t wait to read the rest of this book!

Comments

[ann michael]

Tisha - on many occasions I'm glad others aren't in my brain with me - I think I'd scare them!!! :-)

Thanks for stopping by!

Ann

[Tisha]

Yes indeed, we often get trapped in our brains and tend to forget that others are not there with us.

Thanks for sharing the book, I will check it out.

[ann michael]

Thanks Mario!

You'll have to let me know when you finish the book.

Ann

[mvellandi]

Ann,

I recently received the book as a gift, and am eager to read it as well. It's easy to fall into the trap thinking people will understand our point of view..."you know"? pun intended.

I like your writings, and have added you to my blog under "business excellence"

Regards

[ann michael]

Valeria: I can hardly wait!

Roger: I just loved that experiment and felt that it applied to so many things. We often spend hours and even months working with companies to define strategy and direction and then the execs get frustrated with people that don't "get it" after one or two PowerPoint presentations!

The execs, and some of the other staff, had the advantage (disadvantage?) of defining and developing the approach over a longer period of time. They know what was considered and rejected or revised and why. No one else knows that context - yet relaying it all to "the masses" shouldn't be necessary and makes the message too complex.

Distilling it into something "sticky" seems like the way to go.

[Roger von Oech]

Good connection to Powerpoint.

Last December I saw Chip Heath tap out "Happy Birthday" to 100 savvy designers. It made perfect sense to him, but not one recognized the song!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Ann:

You'll like the book. the best part of it is that you look at things differently. I loved the end, where they bring it all together and explain why they chose to write it that way. You'll see...