curse of knowledge | Project Success

Ease Of Use & Lean CX Leadership Card 24 – The Curse of Knowledge

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Have you ever been speaking with someone, and when you’ve finished you realize you didn’t understand a word they just said?

It probably wasn’t your fault. There’s a very common personal bias that affects us all, and it’s called the curse of knowledge. It happens when a person has learned something or been doing something for a long period of time, and it becomes very hard for them to imagine other people not knowing it as well.

You may have experienced jargon or acronyms where people speak in a seemingly secret language without realizing that other people may not know those same acronyms or jargon.

One recent example I had was a large financial company adding a push button menu to their telephone system, so when a customer called through they would have to push a button depending on which department they wanted to go to. The only trouble was, they used the internal names of their departments, like “operational support” instead of things that a customer could relate to, like “changing their bank account”. This resulted in customers pressing any button just to speak with someone, and almost every call going through to the default department! Needless to say, they were then overwhelmed with calls and very disengaged in their work, before we problem solved and found out what was going on.

The curse of knowledge means you have to have empathy for the person you are speaking with, not just speaking with yourself in mind. That means giving your message in lay-person’s terms for your customers, or for your team, so everyone is clear and fewer mistakes are made.

And what are the benefits of this?

If everyone is clear on what is required, it’s been shown that engagement within your teams is higher, and productivity and profit are higher as a result. There are studies on engagement, studies on happiness, and business studies from Stanford and they all point to the same thing.

There are fewer mistakes, so less rework in performing the same task over and over, and all of this has an effect on your profit and bottom line.

I encourage you to have that empathy, think of the other person’s point of view, and explain things without the jargon or industry specific terminology if you can. You’ll be amazed at the results.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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