Known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns & Leadership

“…there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

– Donald Rumsfeld

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said these words at a press confeence in 2002 in response to a question about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. While he did not invent this concept, it became his most famous line. The title of his book is “Known and Unknown,” and director Errol Morris even filmed a documentary about him titled “Unknown Known”.

The “unknown known” is a bold concept that Rumsfeld defines as “the things that you think you know that it turns out you did not”. How can these four concepts of known and unknown that Rumsfeld applied to national security also apply to the business world?

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Each of these quadrants is associated with a unique understanding and awareness of the risk in your situation:

• Known knowns: Things you’re aware of and understand (example: repeating the same tasks over-and-over at a slow paced corporate job)
• Known unknowns: Things you’re aware of but don’t understand (examples…