More Known Unknowns?

Some months ago, I wrote about ‘known unknowns’ - what we know we don’t know about ourselves. I was always on a personal mission to get to know myself better. But of course, I and my colleagues knew a lot about other people - usually the villains! For nigh on thirty years, as a police officer I lived ‘inside the bubble. I knew a lot more about what was ‘going down’ that the general population. I was part of the strategy meetings, the contingency planning and within my PR role had the responsibility for communicating the message to the public.

Today, I’m part of that public, and am just like the rest of us, in the epicentre of a hugely confusing global picture. I’m getting a whole new perspective on something I used to say a lot in policing; “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

What does that even mean? Let me try and explain. Sometimes in the world, there are things going on that we don’t even know about. This can be in the context of national secrets - the big stuff that keeps presidents up at night whilst we all sleep peaceably in our beds at night. But at the other end of the scale, it can simply be stuff that people haven’t bothered to mention - like bits of information in a case that is proving difficult to piece together.

So where are we in the world, right here, right now? Its incredibly difficult to work out.

I like to take information from multiple sources. Usually, this leads to being able to corroborate stuff - build multiple sources into a clear picture of the truth. There are the usual trusted sources, such as national television channels like the BBC and ITV. But even today, some of their most trusted journalists are being pilloried on social media for using ‘undisclosed sources’ and ‘off the record’ briefings to fuel their reporting. It is being seen by the enlightened to be undermining the message of Government, and diluting trust in the sources we should be able to rely on.

So its one thing not knowing stuff because we just aren’t being told it, or don’t have access to it. Something totally different occurs when unverified information is being punted out by otherwise trusted individuals. The reasons this is so dangerous is because it is entering the news feed with some utter guff that is out there; the stuff Donald calls “Fake News”.

So we have this perfect storm, which has somewhere in amongst it the truth. But this is the information and intelligence mix that the majority of the public are basing their decisions on. The result is toilet rolls becoming a prized commodity and scenes in Lidl that would make the cut in a zombie apocalypse movie.

There are some shockingly difficult times ahead. With the 3% mortality rate at the very head of the arrow, it is followed by global financial collapse, and restrictions on travel that we haven’t seen since the first half of the 1940’s. The world is likely to emerge as a very different place from this event. In the aftermath, one thing that really does need pulling from the wreckage is how we consume information.

Ahead of that, how does your own information management fare in your organisation. What about those things that you aren’t aware of - those things that you don’t know you don’t know? Now more than ever it is essential that we are fully aware of our surroundings. Now is not the time to be blindsided by stuff we just don’t foresee.

Part of my duties in the police involved Environmental Scanning. A lot of it was driven by the need to populate Strategic Threat and Risk Assessments, from which we formed plans to develop the resources we needed to keep people safe. I predominantly used the PESTELO model, scanning the world for information across the political, economic, social, technical, environmental, legal and organisational contexts. It demands rigour and application, but done well it goes a long way to minimising what we don’t know. And when we are making decisions, the more information we have, the easier it becomes.

The next few months are going to be a survival challenge. Making sure that your board is as well informed as possible is crucial. If you don’t have someone in the organisation tasked with scanning, now is a good time to start. Here at KBO we can provide training, and mentoring in the role.