Guest Writer: Andrew Mason
I asked my friend Andrew Mason to write down some thoughts that have been going through his head lately. Andrew is Bay Shore Community Church’s media ninja and a also apart of the 8Bit team. Check out what he wrote. He’s a smart dude
“The Curse of Knowledge” at Work
What’s the Big Deal?
You may not even be aware of it yet, but there is a horrible curse lurking dormant within the walls of our churches & businesses. I don’t care if you’ve been working or volunteering for five minutes or five years…..It’s attacks everywhere.
And the longer it goes unaddressed? The worse it gets. ….And the scary part is….It’s glaringly obvious to everyone. Everyone but you & me.
It’s the “curse of knowledge”.
Now wait a sec! How could more knowledge possibly be a bad thing? Don’t we want as many people as possible to be “in the know?”
Definitely. And that’s the problem.
This nasty curse surfaces when we assume other people know what we know already.
And this happens……ALL THE TIME.
The Problem
The book entitled “Made to Stick” defined an experiment where a room was filled with people assigned to the roles of musical “tapper” and “listener”. The tappers were given the rhythms to well-known melodies like “Happy Birthday” and the “Star-Spangled Banner” to tap out for their listeners. When asked, tappers believed that there would be a 1 in 2 chance that listeners would be able to guess the melody correctly.
But in reality? The listeners only guessed 1 out of every 40 times.
Tappers were flabbergasted at the seeming ineptness of their listeners, assuming the problem was with them. In reality, it’s impossible to tap the rhythm of these songs without hearing the song in your head as well. But to the listener, it just sounds like a disjointed rhythms with no accompanying melody.
It’s not my fault!
How often do we assume that an outsider just “knows the ropes” the way we do? How often do we assume that it’s never “our fault” that we don’t communicate the message of Christ, the expectations of a volunteer, the rules of the game, or anything else you want to fill in that blank?
I once heard Andy Stanley say, “Your approach trumps your message content every time.”
Read that again. He states that your approach to what you are saying trumps the actual content every time. It’s not outsiders’ fault if we don’t effectively communicate the message of Christ in a way they don’t understand. It’s not guests fault if they don’t buy into a vision of your organization if it isn’t clearly defined (Do we even know what our vision is?)
How do I keep Fresh Eyes, then?
If the curse of knowledge has crept up on you, here are a few ways to freshen up:
1. Listen to outside sources - Go to conferences, read blogs, find as much creative juice as you can! One of the reasons we get stagnant is that we only listen to the same sources over & over! It’s much harder to have an insider culture when you’re listening to outsiders! (Highly recommend the Drive Conference, Catalyst, & Echo. Everything I’m talking about in this post is a hodgepodge of lessons I’ve learned in these venues!)
2. Have someone else grade you - If there’s a time you’re not sure if you’re hitting the mark or not, get a non-biased third party to “grade you” on how you’re doing. Your friends may tell you “good job”, but outsiders will give you the hard truth.3.
3. Start Now! - If this entire article was depressing to read, because you’re just not even sure where to begin, then start somewhere. It’s almost like a kid cleaning a messy room. Pick a corner, and do the job one bite-sized chunk at a time. At this point, doing anything new is better than doing nothing at all.
Finally…I’ve worked at Bay Shore Community Church for 10 years. It’s a huge privilege to work with the best team ever, & we’re borderline fanatical about constantly changing. Why? We’re aware that familiarity is a breeding ground for complacency. Complacency breeds assumptions.
And by pure human nature, I already assume WAAAYY too much.
This translates into how we speak, how we handle ourselves, and what we expect out of others.
We have to fight for fresh eyes….and build a bridge to span the distance between our assumptions and what outsiders really see.
We have to be willing to actively listen to outsiders. We have to be willing to stop assuming.
And we have to be humble enough to change, even when doing things the wrong way…….is just plain easier.
