Your Employees Can’t Read Your Mind… or Can They?
(no, they can’t — blame the curse of knowledge)
The human brain plays a cruel trick on us all.
Once we know something, we literally can’t imagine not knowing it.
Psychologists call this the “curse of knowledge” — that cognitive bias that makes experts terrible teachers and leaders unconscious saboteurs.
Every time you think “they should have known,” you’re falling victim to that curse of knowledge. And it isn’t just causing daily frustration — it’s actively destroying team performance, eroding trust, and creating a culture where everyone spends more energy trying to guess what success looks like than actually achieving it.
I’m here to break it to you: Whatever it is you think they know — they don’t know it. And it’s because you never told them.
Your brain has trapped you in a prison of your own expertise, and your team is paying the price.
The Expectation Gap
I know what it’s like. You have a crystal-clear vision in your head. The strategy makes perfect sense, and the next steps are obvious.
Then your team delivers something completely different than what you imagined. And you’re left wondering if you’re speaking…
