At a press conference on June 6, 2002 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, in response to a question about the quality of intelligence about terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered his now-famous quote about “unknown unknowns:” “There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. […]
Tag Archives: Adult learning
Cluelessness: What We Don’t Know (Part I)
Philosophers spend a lot of time wondering and worrying about questions like: what CAN we know?, what DO we know?, and how do we KNOW what we know?; so much so that an entire branch of philosophy, known as epistemology, deals with these and related questions about knowledge, and what exactly knowledge might be. Epistemological philosophers have also […]
What is it About A$$holes?
You are driving down the highway, travelling with the flow of traffic as you near a construction zone where the traffic narrows from three lanes, then to two, and finally to one lane. You’ve merged into the single lane, when you see, in your side-view mirror, a black Dodge Ram pickup truck blithely cruising along the shoulder […]
Seeing With Fresh Eyes
French novelist Marcel Proust wrote that, “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” To me, this sounds like the exact opposite of déjà vu. We all know that déjà vu feeling. It’s the distinct feeling that, even though we are in a completely unfamiliar place, somehow, we’ve […]
Stomping Grapes or Making Wine?
Four Rules for Building Powerful Teams
Last week, my business partner Moss Jackson and I finished up a leadership development program that we had created for a long-time client. The program brought together senior leaders from different business units and corporate functions within the company, who worked in small teams on a variety of challenges. All but one of the challenges […]
Fast Food is Really Fast!
Why Are We in Such a Hurry to Make Up Our Minds??
Perhaps you’ve wondered: Why did banks and traders make such bad decisions leading up to and during the 2007-2008 financial crisis? Frank Portnoy [a former derivatives trader and current professor of law and finance at the University of San Diego] , was apparently wondering the same thing. In Professor Portnoy’s case, it led to the writing […]
The Power of the First Follower
Why Worry About Education?
I worry about the way that many people think about education–if they bother to think about it at all. What got me started thinking about it was a podcast titled “Freakonomics Goes to College, Part 2,” which I listened to at the gym this morning (and you can find at the link). The podcast focused […]