{"id":367,"date":"2008-09-26T08:13:56","date_gmt":"2008-09-25T22:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=367"},"modified":"2008-07-09T08:42:55","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T22:42:55","slug":"too-ignorant-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2008\/09\/too-ignorant-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Too ignorant to know&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For many people, knowing what they don&#8217;t know is just about impossible. These are the people whose behaviour led to the saying &#8220;A little knowledge is dangerous&#8221; as they don&#8217;t understand how little they really know.<\/p>\n<p>Consider a young child who has just learnt that 2&#215;3=6. That child will proudly tell you she knows what multiplication is and how to do it. Yet if you asked her 34&#215;76, she would have no idea how to solve it. As adults, we expect her to have limited understanding and give her time to learn more about multiplication &#8211; and encourage her learning to date.<\/p>\n<p>What is a bigger concern is adults who act like that child &#8211; they know a few things and assume that makes them an expert &#8211; and charge people as if they have an extensive knowledge. Or use their assumed knowledge as a basis for applying for jobs above their level.<\/p>\n<p>I have dealt with suppliers who believe in their own expertise to the point they can&#8217;t admit any ignorance or lack of knowledge. They assume a superior attitude to their clients and tell them how to do things, even if they are wrong. And even argue with clients who suggest or request an alternative.<\/p>\n<p>The hard part is in dealing with these people as they aren&#8217;t likely to listen enough to learn how little they truly know, or even recognise how much someone has been coaching and helping them.<\/p>\n<p>In some situations, I have taken the time to lead someone towards a greater understanding &#8211; and sometimes they have accepted the new knowledge, too! Some tips I have found to be more effective are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>never patronise them &#8211; they don&#8217;t like it any more than the rest of us!<\/li>\n<li>occasionally add in why you are doing or requesting something even if you are in the position of being able to tell them. For example, I may say something like &#8220;I didn&#8217;t include that example because it was negative and I think a positive example will be more effective&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>maintain their self-esteem by asking questions to either help you or confirm your understanding. Remember that they will have some expert knowledge even if not as much as you want or need!<\/li>\n<li>if providing them with resources or information that may help them learn, present it carefully. Instead of &#8220;here, you need to read this&#8221;, try &#8220;I found this article very interesting &#8211; what do you think of it?&#8221; or &#8220;I&#8217;m not sure I agree with this document &#8211; do you?&#8221; or even &#8220;I want to go to this seminar &#8211; would you mind coming with me in case it gets too technical for me to understand?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>put your expected answer in the question so they can be involved in decisions and learn from the process. For example, &#8220;I assume that the second quote is better because it includes delivery as well. Do you agree?&#8221; may work better than &#8220;Which quote should we choose?&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We all have things to learn &#8211; and usually the more we learn, the more we realise we have a lot more to learn! So we can hope that giving bits of extra information to an annoyingly ignorant person will lead them to an understanding of their own limitations!<\/p>\n<p>Use your words wisely!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For many people, knowing what they don&#8217;t know is just about impossible. These are the people whose behaviour led to the saying &#8220;A little knowledge is dangerous&#8221; as they don&#8217;t understand how little they really know. Consider a young child who has just learnt that 2&#215;3=6. That child will proudly tell you she knows what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[236,419,417,418,415,390,93,416],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-info-tools","tag-answer","tag-behaviour","tag-expert","tag-expertise","tag-irnorance","tag-knowledge","tag-learning","tag-teaching"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}