Quotes About Understanding

Another variety of close-up involves going to the genba, a Japanese term meaning "the real place" or, more loosely, the place where the action happens. Japanese detectives, for instance, call the crime scene the genba. In a manufacturing firm, the genba would be the factory floor, and for a retailing company it would be the store. Practitioners of Total Quality Management encourage leaders to "go to the genba" to understand problems.

But let's not confuse memorability with wisdom.

Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it.

Trip over the truth. Frey's activity allowed the vestry to discover insights for themselves

We might think we understand it because it's right there, in black and white, but it has so many zeros that our brains fog up. It's just "lots." When we see how much larger it is than a million, it comes as a surprise.

TO OOCH IS TO ask, Why predict something we can test? Why guess when we can know?

This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has "cursed" us.

At this "insight" stage, it's easy to get depressed, because insight doesn't always strike immediately.

Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our

the Aha! experience is much more satisfying when it is preceded by the Huh? experience.

Loewenstein argues that gaps cause pain.

Know what your listeners care about, so you can tailor your communication to them.

Rule 2. Concrete Is Better: Use Whole Numbers to Describe Whole Objects, Not Decimals, Fractions, or Percentages.27

Rule #2. Concrete Is Better: Use Whole Numbers to Describe Whole Objects, Not Decimals, Fractions, or Percentages.

Make the baskets as small as you can while retaining the wholeness of whole numbers. If 2/3rds or .67 or 67% of people didn't like the new flavor, then make them feel like people in a room. "2 out of 3 people thought cheesy marshmallow was "disgusting." Going up to 67 out of 100 would dilute understanding.

Defining moments rewire our understanding of ourselves or the world.

schemas enable profound simplicity

If you've got to teach an idea to a room full of people, and you aren't certain what they know, concreteness is the only safe language.

What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.

Surprise jolts us to attention. Surprise is triggered when our schemas fail, and it prepares us to understand why the failure occurred.

Surprise isn't enough. We also need insight.

just enough info to be useful, then a little more, then a little more.

And as we'll see, that tendency explains the third and final surprise about change: What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.

as soon as people know what the intent is they begin generating their own solutions.