{"id":26941,"date":"2020-10-27T10:53:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T17:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=26941"},"modified":"2020-10-27T10:53:04","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T17:53:04","slug":"you-dont-know-what-you-dont-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/you-dont-know-what-you-dont-know\/","title":{"rendered":"You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life is full of idioms! Phrases that aren\u2019t intended to be taken literally but do have a specific meaning for the hearer. I highly doubt that any of us stop in mid-sentence or mid-thought to realize that we just used or heard an idiom that expresses ourselves. Comments like: \u201cIt\u2019s time to go back to the drawing board\u201d, \u201cThis is the straw the broke the camel\u2019s back\u201d, \u201cWhy are you so bent out of shape\u201d or \u201cBetter late than never\u201d are all idioms and each one conveys a specific message and are commonly understood. I find it interesting why we embrace the need to use idioms when there are often clearer ways of communicating the message. Instead of expressing the difficulty of something, we may say that we just made it by the skin of our teeth. This particular idiom finds its origin in Job 19:20 \u201cMy\u00a0bones stick to my skin and to my flesh,\u00a0and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.\u201d We have adopted many idioms from scripture that convey a clear message to the hearer, such as; going the extra mile, being a good Samaritan, or a fly in the ointment.[1]<\/a> We seldom, if ever question where a particular idiom came from or how it got started. None the less, idioms are part of our daily communication.<\/p>\n

Saturday, I did my NPO brain storming session around the question, \u201cHow do we get Christians past the dichotomy of secular and sacred into an understanding of embracing work as ministry?\u201d As in my previous brain storming session, I chose a diverse group of individuals, spread across a spectrum of careers, ministry experience, cultures and Christian backgrounds. One of the exercises I used toward the end of the day – \u201cThe Blind Side\u201d – is an exploration using idioms. The exercise process basically looks at blind spots by discussing what you know you know, what you know you don\u2019t know, what you don\u2019t know that you know, and what you don\u2019t know that you don\u2019t know.[2]<\/a> As we worked through the process, I could sense a slight tension building within the participants. Many of my stakeholders had never taken the time to look at things through this type of lens. It became uncomfortable to dive into one\u2019s blind spots; into areas about not knowing. As we drew the exercise to a close a young millennial entrepreneur spoke up and stated, \u201cI guess the biggest thing we don\u2019t know that we don\u2019t know is how our lives and choices will truly impact those around us.\u201d You could have heard a pin drop. Genius entered the room.<\/p>\n

In Not Knowing<\/em> by Steven D\u2019Souza and Diana Renner they explain that today\u2019s executives find themselves in a place where their experience is no longer useful. At this point they tend to turn inward toward their senses rather than knowledge. According to D\u2019Souza and Renner, starting from a place of not knowing can lead to unlimited possibilities.[3]<\/a> When it comes to the end game, we all want to measure the impact of our efforts. The idea of not truly knowing what impact we \u2018ve had, is concerning. Can we ever have a full grasp of the impact of anything? Certain things may have a limited life span but influence lasts forever. Think of any influencer, famous or not, a family member, a friend, a mentor, the apostle Paul, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Einstein, Hitler, Martin Luther King, or Donald Trump; will the full impact of their influence, positive or negative, ever really be known?\u00a0 Maybe if leaders spent more time considering what they don\u2019t know that they don\u2019t know, we wouldn\u2019t have to spend so much time mitigating the influential consequences of some of their bad choices. How have you, as a leader, considered not knowing what you don\u2019t know when it comes to how it may influence others? Is it time to go back to the drawing board?<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/improving-your-english.com\/biblical-idioms\/<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo, Game Storming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers<\/em>, (Sebastopol: O\u2019Reilly, 2010), 149<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Steven D\u2019Souza and Diana Renner, Not Knowing: The Art of Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity<\/em>, (London: LID Publishing, 2018), 156-57<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life is full of idioms! Phrases that aren\u2019t intended to be taken literally but do have a specific meaning for the hearer. I highly doubt that any of us stop in mid-sentence or mid-thought to realize that we just used or heard an idiom that expresses ourselves. Comments like: \u201cIt\u2019s time to go back to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1602,1866],"class_list":["post-26941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp10","tag-renner-and-dsouza","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26942,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26941\/revisions\/26942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}