Coaching practices for What Did I Not Know
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For What Did I Not Know, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- Someone senior just found out about a change after the fact and was hurt they were the last to know
- I walk into the same situation already knowing exactly how it goes, so I stop actually looking
- I keep launching into explanations assuming people are starting from where I picture them, and I’m forever either talking over their heads or boring them with stuff they already know
- I keep getting hurt that my partner didn’t do the thing I needed, but when I’m honest I never actually said it out loud
- My conclusion only makes sense because of a bunch of things I’m silently taking for granted about people and how the world works
Practices that may help
- Inform stakeholders before they ask, not after they complain
I’s are one-way — they receive information; the cost of surprising them is always higher than the cost of telling them.
The RACI Matrix, Made Practical - Fresh-eyes inquiry: "What if I knew nothing about this?"
Before engaging a familiar situation, ask what you would notice if you were seeing it for the first time.
Beginner's Mind (Shoshin), Made Practical - Ask what the audience already knows before explaining
Probe prior knowledge explicitly rather than assuming it.
The Curse of Knowledge: Why Experts Struggle to Teach - Make implicit communication explicit
Say the thing you think is obvious — because to your partner it often isn’t.
Closeness-Communication Bias - Surface and examine the assumptions you are making
Name the assumptions filling the gap between the data you selected and the interpretation you reached.
The Ladder of Inference - Hindsight Bias: Why Everything Seems Obvious in Retrospect
Hindsight bias is the tendency, after an outcome is known, to believe you would have predicted or expected it all along — making the world seem more predictable than it was. It is one of the most replicated effects in judgment research and quietly corrupts feedback, performance reviews, and lessons learned, because we evaluate decisions by their outcomes rather than by the information available at the time. - Source monitoring
When you feel you know something, also ask yourself where you learned it and how recently.
Feeling of Knowing: Why Your Confidence Misleads You - Log the information you wished you had
In every decision entry, write: what would I want to know that I don’t?
Decision Journaling: Learning to Decide Better Over Time - Notice and drop "should" language
Replace "I should have known better" with "I did what made sense given what I knew."
Common Humanity, Made Practical - Calibrate your confidence against real testing
Test yourself to find out what you actually know, not what you feel you know.
Metacognition: Knowing What You Actually Know
Related concerns
- Prior Knowledge Assessment
Before reading anything new, write down everything you already believe about the topic.
Write what you already know before reading a topic
- Find What You Dont Know
Before engaging a familiar situation, ask what you would notice if you were seeing it for the first time.
Fresh-eyes inquiry: "What if I knew nothing about this?"
- Metacognition Knowing What You Actually Know In A New Job
Metacognition is thinking about your own thinking — monitoring what you understand, judging how well you know it, and adjusting your approach in response. Research links accurate metacognition to better learning and decisions, but it also shows people are systematically overconfident, so the practical work is calibration: closing the gap between what you feel you know and what you can actually do.
- Prior Knowledge Learning
Before reading anything new, write down everything you already believe about the topic.
- Prior Knowledge Probe
Probe prior knowledge explicitly rather than assuming it.
Ask what the audience already knows before explaining
- When Recognition Primed Decision Articulate Cues That Triggered Recognition
Name what you noticed that made the situation feel familiar — this tests the recognition and transfers it.
Articulate the cues that triggered your recognition
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.