Knowledge Gaps- How To Fill The Hole

What Are Your Knowledge Gaps?

We all have knowledge gaps.  I will get into why that is and how you can help fills those gaps.  But first, I want to start out by saying that lately as I cruise the Internet for leadership based blogs, forums, discussions, it seems that more and more “leaders” seem to think that they have all the experience and answers they need.  I have said it before, the minute you stop learning and developing yourself is the minute you start to fail.  Why?  Knowledge gaps have something to do with it.  But it boils down to complacency.   There is no reason for it in my book.  It is actually the easier road to travel.  The other road of constantly developing yourself and others will produce much more fruit over time versus complacency.  With that said, lets look at knowledge gaps and what they are all about shall we.

Where Did Knowledge Gaps Originate?

Knowledge gaps were defined by George Loewnstein in 1994.  He is a behavioral economist at Carnegie Mellon University.  He came to a simple, but yet in depth answer as to what triggers knowledge gaps, curiosity.  Curiosity causes a bit of a rub internally for us.  We are curious about something because we don’t have the knowledge to fill it.  Knowledge gaps can be simple, like a movie script that takes us through twists and turns and we want to know how it ends.  Or a media headline that states “This common household cleaner is extremely toxic to infants.”  I made that headline up but I bet you instantly are wondering what it could be.

Knowledge Gaps And Know – It – All’s

I opened the post about me looking around the Internet and finding a lot of people basically thinking they know everything.  By simply having this mindset reduces the likelihood of someone realizing that they indeed, like everyone have knowledge gaps.  If you compound this with over estimating self confidence you have a person who in the end will fail to truly lead others to reach their potential.  What to do with people like this?  Well there are certain tactics you can use to help these types of people realize that they have knowledge gaps.  One tactic is to disagree with the person and provide evidence that will both cement your position and build curiosity from the know-it-all.  It may take some massaging, but it will get through.

The More You Know, The More You Want To Fill Knowledge Gaps

What?  Does that even make sense?  Yes it does actually.  When you start to dig into certain things that inspire you, that speak to your strengths, and that you naturally go towards you begin to open up the box and dig through it.  Take me for example.  After my MBA I could of easily left it at that.  But since I have a passion for leadership, and helping others reach their potential, I realized that I have many knowledge gaps that I need to fill.  And the great / challenging thing is that I always will.  But the more I learn and grow the more I seek to fill those knowledge gaps.  That is why complacency is so detrimental to all of us.  The wider and deeper our knowledge gaps become, the less likely we will proactively seek to fill them.

Final Thoughts of Knowledge Gaps

I need to be honest here as well.  Yes, we do all have knowledge gaps in many forms.  I really do not want to try and fill my knowledge gaps when it comes to chemistry or complex math problems for example.  I am perfectly fine (at the moment at least) to let those gaps go deep and wide.  They don’t speak to my strengths nor passions.  But I do, on a daily basis want to fill my knowledge gaps in the areas that stir something up inside of me.  The final question for you is, what knowledge gaps do you have and how will you fill them?

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