The Willingness to ‘Not Know’ Together

How willing are you, in your team, department, organization, family, and community…to not know together? Please imagine with me how much more open the conversations would be if we paused to say

‘At this moment, together we are in a state of ‘we don’t know’.

In my experience, pausing and acknowledging ‘together, we don’t know’ or ‘we don’t know…together’ has significant benefits.

1. The space for imagining, curiosity, wonder, innovation and simply thinking outside of the box gets bigger.
2. People, rather than feeling frightened that even leaders don’t know, experience a sense of everyone being in something together and this feeling of ‘together’ draws people closer giving a deeper sense of ‘team’.
3. Leadership pops up within the group, different people taking a lead at different times based on what they feel is important.
4. Solutions are found.
5. There is greater ownership of the solutions when they are discovered together.

Helpful at times of ‘We don’t know…together’ are processes that assist people to have the space to engage with each other in the conversations that will lead to solutions. Methods that I use with exceptional results towards solution focus include Whole Person Process Facilitation, Open Space Technology, and World Cafe. During the meeting, people experience a real sense of team, an added bonus.

Now, can you imagine saying to your team ‘We don’t know…together’ and this becoming an anticipated and accepted state? Can you imagine having the in-house capacity to facilitate meetings that create the space for the important conversations to get from ‘We don’t know…together’ to ‘Now We Know…together’? How important do you believe the acknowledgement of not knowing is to getting to the best solutions?