Enlightened Ignorance: A New Paradigm for Business

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:00:46

Welcome back to the show. I am your host, Keith Haney.

Today's guest is someone who's been called one of the most original thinkers in business today and the Robin Williams School of Business Consulting. Alan Gregoman is an internationally renowned author and strategy innovation and unlocking a hidden potential of grownups.

He is the president and chief Innovation officer of ventureworks, a best selling authority, sought after keynote speaker and founder of Passion for Learning, a nonprofit teaching girls technological skills for life and career success. Allen's newest book, the Wisdom of Ignorance, flips conventional thinking on its head.

In a world obsessed with expertise, Allen argues that not knowing what he calls enlightened ignorance may be our greatest asset in a fast changing world.

Through compelling stories, a six part framework, he shows how purpose, curiosity, humility, respect, future focus, and even a little paranoia can unlock genius and drive breakthrough innovation. We welcome Alan to the podcast.

Alan Gregerman: 00:01:48

Well, greetings. Thanks for having me on.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:01:51

It's good to have you on, Alan. I'm looking forward to talking to you.

Alan Gregerman: 00:01:55

Yeah, no, I'm delighted.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:01:57

I'm going to ask you my favorite question to kick things off for us today. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Alan Gregerman: 00:02:03

Oh, gee, well, I'm a little bit older maybe than some of your listeners, so I've gotten a lot of advice.

You know, it ranges from my mom saying never get an apartment or buy a house on a busy street to the best business advice and career advice I ever got was when somebody told me, look, you're not going to resonate with every customer or every employer. And so that's okay. It's not about you. You need to find the place where you can really shine and make a difference.

And so, I mean, I run my own business, but when I'm talking with customers, if they're not that excited about what I do, I just go, I appreciate the chance to talk with you next. And then I just keep moving on.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:02:48

My kids tell me it's not about me all the time too. So maybe it's something there.

Alan Gregerman: 00:02:52

Oh, I think, yeah, we won't get into kids. Maybe. I don't know.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:02:56

Okay, so let's talk about your book. Your book challenges the idea that expertise is often always the answer. What inspired you to write the words of wisdom of ignorance and why now?

Alan Gregerman: 00:03:09

Okay, good. So we tend to think so. I actually, as a bit of background, am an innovation consultant.

I actually work with companies and organizations around the world to help them come up with new and better ways of thinking. So imagine this.

We always think about that innovation is kind of the domain of experts that really smart people are the ones who come up with breakthrough ideas. And so I wasn't certain that was the case, so I wanted to do some research and test that.

And it turns out actually throughout the course of human history, most ideas come up out of either necessity or somebody who doesn't know something, asking some questions and imagining what's possible.

And so the book is really all about the notion that actually if we approach every problem as though we don't know the answer, that we don't have expertise that can solve it. We're way more likely to create a break through than if we approach it by knowing a lot. If I know a lot, I can make things better.

If I don't know a lot, I can imagine possibilities. Now what's exciting to me is this makes innovation accessible to everybody. Because the reality is all of us can say I don't know.

And it's how we take that I don't know to challenge ourselves, to be more amazing and think in new ways.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:04:28

You use a term. I'm really dying to get into this concept of enlightened ignorance. Can you explain what that means?

Alan Gregerman: 00:04:37

Oh, sure. No, I'd love to. And I probably, you know, because you're like a religious leader and I know that enlightenment has like some religion.

But anyway, here's what I mean by enlightenment. Okay? So we can. Ignorance is not a great word, okay.

And we're surrounded every day by a lot of stupidity, let's be honest, you know, in the things we see in the news, in the products that are being marketed to us, all kinds of things. And yet ignorance has been the driving force throughout human habitation on the planet to come up with new ideas.

People have had to figure out things in order to survive and get by in whatever circumstance they were in. Now enlightened ignorance to me is acknowledging that I don't have all the answers, but being excited about finding a better way to solve a problem.

So that's the enlightened part of it. And we all, quite honestly, in a world changing super fast, need to acknowledge that we don't know everything there is to know.

And in fact, if the world is going to be different five years from now, I probably know very little about what there is to know. In fact, my kids remind me all the time that I'm relatively clueless. No, but seriously.

And so if the world is going to be different, the, the stuff I know some of it will be okay, but some of it isn't going to get me where I need to get to. So I need to be open to new ideas, and I need to figure out how to solve new problems and new challenges and create new opportunities.

And that's where the enlightened part of ignorance is, starting from a point of realizing it's okay not to know as long as I'm not satisfied not to know.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:06:17

So I love that I have a sign above my office I always use, especially when I'm dealing with difficult situations, that says, you can't stop stupid.

Alan Gregerman: 00:06:26

But.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:06:28

But how does. What role does curiosity play in. In breaking that enlightened ignorance mindset or concept?

Alan Gregerman: 00:06:36

Okay, good. Well, so that's perfect.

So let me first start, and let me remind every single person listening to the podcast that curiosity is actually an innate human gift. Okay? So I think everyone who's listening who ever was a child was born with curiosity. Okay? As kids, we knew very little. We had to figure things out.

We didn't know how to ride a bicycle. We didn't know why certain trees fell in the forest and were hollowed out and creatures lived in them. We didn't know a lot of things.

And so we had to, by nature be curious to figure out the things that mattered us.

We didn't know how to climb on the top of all the apparatus on the playground, but we looked at other kids, we were curious, and then we planned our course. Probably fel on our bottoms a lot, and then we got to the top. So curiosity is innate. So I want people to start with that.

The other thing I want them to think about is what I call in this book and in other places, the 99% rule. And that is the notion that 99% of all new ideas are based on somebody else's thinking or something that somebody sees in nature.

If that's the way the world works, then shouldn't we all be curious to go out there and find ideas?

Let me give you a really practical example that I think everybody will understand, and that is if you have a raincoat or an umbrella or all kinds of things, it probably has Velcro in it. Okay? Velcro is part of, like, life today. Velcro wasn't conceived by really smart people in a lab.

It was conceived by a guy walking his dog through the mountains, and his dog got covered with burrs. Unlike people in previous generations, dogs have been pets for like 30,000 years.

Who had this happen and plucked the burrs off and said, what a pain in the whatever. This guy, George de Mestral said, this is really kind of cool that you can brush against something and suddenly it sticks to you.

He went back to his house, pulled an old microscope out from his attic, looked at it and said, wow, this is pretty awesome. I bet there are lots of applications for it. So Velcro, something that we all use, discovered by a guy, was curious.

I. I believe all of us can be curious too. We just need to get up from where we sit, pay attention to the things around us, and go, wow, that's kind of cool.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:09:02

I love that. I never knew that story. Now I know the story of Velcro. I can impress my kids. Your book, you outline six key traits to unlock innovation.

And those are purpose, humility, curiosity, respect, future focus, and paranoia. Which of these do you think leaders struggle with the most?

Alan Gregerman: 00:09:23

Well, so I think there's a disconnect with some of those. So let's start with. I believe leaders struggle with purpose a lot and purpose in two senses. So here's what I want people to think about.

Purpose is vital to our success. If you think about anything you've ever accomplished, it's because you were driven by a sense of purpose to make something happen.

Whether it's in your work life, your career, your personal life, or your civic or social life.

You saw a purpose that mattered to you and you made something happen that challenged you actually to be curious and to figure out how to do something new. A lot of companies have really good purposes. A lot of organizations do. Leaders do.

They put them on their website, but then they never help everyone in that organization to make the connection between their purpose and that particular person, person's role in the organization.

So I find this disconnect with leaders who lament that people haven't gotten with the program in quotes, you know, that they're not doing what they need to do. When it's leaders who haven't helped them to understand how they can be awesome and make a difference in achieving an organization's purpose.

I tend personally to look for organizations that are purpose driven, that are trying to do something that matters in the world. And I would much rather be their customer or volunteer with them, because that matters. So purpose, I think, is important. The next thing is curiosity.

And I think leaders screw up there. How do they screw up there?

How many times in your workplace do folks say, you know, we're a little bit stuck, or we think about this the same way, let's get up from our desks and wander around looking for other ideas. Let's be curious that there's a better way. I think it's close to zero.

In a lot of organizations, we show up on Monday morning, we look at the stuff in our inbox, we do all that. We can't wait till it's time to go home.

And then we do that for five more days, and then it's weekend and we can do whatever we want with our free time. Leaders need to say to people, we don't have all the answers.

We need to get up and pay attention because there are actually brilliant ideas out there.

There are other role models, models in life, in business, in nature, that we ought to learn from, but we're not going to do it if we just sit here and don't think about it. So leaders need to be purposeful, make a connection for everybody, and then challenge people to get up and believe there's a better way to do things.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:12:05

The last one you have on here just fascinates me. Paranoia. Can you tell me more about that? I hadn't heard that in leadership circles before.

Alan Gregerman: 00:12:13

No, no, no, that's fair. You know, and I have to admit, as I was writing the book, that's the one that my wife, who spent her career in healthcare, said, no.

Are you being serious? You're going to put this in a book? Okay. So here's what I want people to think about. Let me actually step back and ask everybody.

Remember a book that I believe most people read as a child called where the Wild Things Are. Okay. And you probably read it to your kids or your parents read it to you. So this is a book. It's a wonderful book. I love this book.

Made into a terrible movie, but it was a wonderful book. And the basics of the book was Max, a young boy, doesn't behave well, so his parents banish him to his room. And in his room, he has a nightmare.

And that nightmare is that his room is filled with monsters and he's very, very scared. Well, what happens is Max is clever. And so he figures out how to win over the monsters and.

And make the monsters believe that he should be their king, kind of. That's the story in a nutshell. What Max was exhibiting was that we all, as kids and even as adults, have nightmares.

We all worry about things that in our subconscious are telling us things aren't as ideal as we'd like them to be. In a world changing fast, there are a lot of monsters or competitors or around us, there are new businesses, there are new ways of doing things.

There are new kind of social norms that we need to get with. Fortunately, I have grown children, so they explained to me that I need to do things differently.

But there are all kinds of things that are around us that potentially cause a threat if we don't figure out how to adapt to them. I always tell people, you need to, in today's world, always be looking behind your back to see who's approaching or what's approaching.

And you need to act accordingly. That's the sense of paranoia. It's that we just can't do all the things we want to do without thinking about the world around us.

We need to be worried that somebody might have a better way of doing.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:14:19

Something that's really good. I like to explain that, and I love that book, by the way. Innovation. Sometimes people see it as the enemy of productivity.

How do you balance innovation in a corporation or organization with productivity?

Alan Gregerman: 00:14:40

Now you're killing me because I hear that so much of the time. Okay, look, let me kind of try to be clear and share just a few ideas.

One is, we've talked a little bit already about the fact the world is changing super fast, okay? And so the reality is, in an era of change, if we don't change, we become irrelevant.

So I want everybody to think about, we're going to have to change. We might not have to change tomorrow, but a few tomorrows from now, we'll have to change. And then five years from now, we'll need to be different.

At the same time, I would never suggest to any organization that they bet the ranch, okay? I don't want to just instantly change. What I want to do is get better and better and be more valuable at the core of what I do.

That's the productivity part, but it's also an innovation part in the sense of what can I do better with the things I already know?

So that the people I serve in any walk of life find me to be a valuable partner, But I also need to be regularly experimenting with what the future might look like. So you mentioned one of my six things is the idea of future focus.

If I know the world is changing, but I don't know exactly how it's going to change, I need to continue to test. I need to put ideas out there and see if they're resonating with a new generation with a different set of customers in a new way of doing things.

You know how many people listening today call a cab when they could get an Uber from an app on their phone, right? Or if I'm too lazy to get food, I don't have to go out. Somebody's going to deliver food for me. That's like a change, right?

And so we all kind of got with the program. I went into a bank recently, and I said, I'd like to deposit some cash. And they said, oh, we don't take cash. Everything is electronic.

And I said, well, wait, time out. This is a bank. But you don't take money. And they said, oh, no, you got to get with the program. Money is different today than it used to be.

Now I have gray hair, okay? So I think of money as actual stuff, but whatever. No. So the world is changing, so we need to change.

And we don't change by dramatically making ourselves over, but we change by experimenting, seeing which of those experiments stick. And then we decide to invest more in the experiments that seem to resonate with the folks we serve.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:17:14

You said something else I found interesting, too, about innovation or breakthroughs often come from outside of our industry. How do you. Because we're always looking that paranoid. Part of us is going, somebody else is getting it, and I may not. How do you.

How do you balance that? Or give me some examples of that from.

Alan Gregerman: 00:17:30

Oh, there's so many. Well, so there's so many examples. So think about. Let me give you one wonderful example. So let me share with people.

I've been a business consultant for, like, 40 years. If that's too big a number. You didn't hear me say that. Okay. And I have no formal business training. I actually have a PhD in geography.

But I've helped 400 companies and organizations to create, I think, fairly important breakthroughs. Part of it is because I'm not wedded to the things they learned in business school. I'm open to anything being possible. But here's an example.

I get called in a number of years ago to a really large bank that shall go unnamed, but it was the largest bank in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And they called me and they said, you know, Alan, somebody said, you're clever.

And we need to improve customer service because we ranked 20th out of the 20 largest banks in America in providing customer service. So I said to myself, well, there's a pretty big upside here, you know. But anyway. But anyway. So I said, what have you done?

And they'd done exactly what you're alluding to. They said. And they put in front of me a study that they'd paid $2 million for that studied the customer service practices of the leading banks.

And they put it in front of me. And I quite honestly started to laugh. It was going to be a really short meeting. And they said, you're laughing because this is good.

And I said, no, like other people I laugh when things are funny. And so they said, well, no, no, no. What do you mean? What's so funny about this? And I said, can I ask you a question?

This will be a very short meeting. Are banks renowned for providing a high level of customer service? And they said, no.

And so I said, so you've just spent $2 million to figure out how to be the best of the worst. That doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense to me. And they looked at me and said, what should we do?

And I said, let's do exactly what you suggested. Let's go out of our industry to places where they're really good at customer service and see what they do and then adapt that to banking.

And they said, like, what do you mean? And I said, like the Ritz Carlton hotels, people seem to love them. Like, if I got to stay at a Ritz Carlton hotel, I'd be a happy camper. Okay?

And Nordstrom, you know, the high end department store, people love going to Nordstrom because they treat you like you're really special you, even though you're just a guy like me. Okay? So we went to all these places and I said, let's write down notes about what they do to make their customers love them.

Like, they're open longer hours than banks. They actually return calls. They actually stop what they're doing to be helpful to customers. They don't make customers wait in line.

If customers have children, they actually figure out how to do something that's valuable and interesting to keep the children active. Why wouldn't a retailer want to actually do something fun with your children? Then you could focus on shopping and spend more money, whatever. Okay?

So we wrote all these things down. Then we came back and we said, okay, let's apply these to banking. And these people struggled.

And I said, well, you know, the future of your bank is whether you can do something better than banks.

Long story short, they decided not to adopt all the great ideas we came up with, like being open till eight at night, seven days a week, having children's financial literacy corners with toys and things they could learn, having designated bankers who would get back to you if there was a line so you didn't have to wait. All kinds of things they decided not to do because it was unlike banking.

A guy who was there started a new bank that did all these things that became the most popular bank in America. And they eventually were acquired and went out of business because they thought like everybody else. So, I mean, that's one example.

But the world Is filled with.

What I say to people is, if you're trying to do something that's a bit different than what you've done or your organization has done, find a place where they're awesome at it, and it might be outside your industry, that's okay. You know, why not? If you want to be awesome, find people who are awesome. Don't just find people who are like you.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:22:06

So how do you help? So that bank kind of failed because they didn't adopt your ideas. They didn't. They couldn't think outside of their organization. They were afraid to.

How do you help people overcome the fear of going outside of their norm to do something different?

Alan Gregerman: 00:22:23

Well, sue, that's a really good question. So let's be honest, and we talked about leadership before. It takes someone who's a leader.

They don't have to be the overall leader of the organization, but they have to be responsible for a part of the organization that wants to get better. And they have to really want to make a difference. They want to be different.

If a leader wants to be different and challenges all the people on their team to be open and think about new ways to do things, new things, excuse me, are likely to happen. So that's what I do, is I look for places where people want to do something different. You know, I'm working right now, so I do.

Most of my work is in business, but 20% of my work, I volunteer with nonprofit organizations.

I'm working with a large nonprofit organization that's trying to rethink the way that we support people who were previously unhoused, especially women with children. And sadly, there are a lot of these women in our society.

So the reality is that we need to help everyone in our society to get on their feet and use their talents and their genius to make a difference. But some people need a bit of support at first. Here's an idea we're working on. It's not based on traditionally, you.

You got a government grant, you paid for housing, you provided some services.

My belief is this, that we ought to go out to the community and ask just regular people, not government agencies, how we support these people and whether they're willing to make these people part of their life.

And we can go to religious congregations and say, would you be willing to be responsible for a handful of people in our community who need your help and to harness the. The talents of the people in your congregation to support them as they get on their feet? That's a different idea.

It's based on the idea that people actually make progress in all walks of life by connecting with the right people in community who take an interest in them. A government program can't take an interest in a person. It can provide a benefit. But humans caring is what all of us need, I think.

And so that's a place where we're doing that.

We couldn't be doing that if the leader of the organization didn't say, I want to be more in our community, connected with people and bridging the gap. And he has an ulterior motive.

His ulterior motive is we want to make it so that homeless people or previously unhoused people don't feel embarrassed or uncomfortable in our community, that our community embraces them and says, we're going to get you back on your feet.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:25:01

I love that. I love that mission that you're doing, and I commend you for having that kind of heart and compassion for people.

The humanity we need to show is remarkable. So thank you for what you're doing. I appreciate it.

Alan Gregerman: 00:25:14

I just do it because we're humans, right?

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:25:17

Right.

Alan Gregerman: 00:25:18

And so I believe we have a responsibility to care about other humans as equals to us. Come on. Okay.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:25:29

So after writing this book, what was the greatest takeaway? You. What does it.

What did the book do in terms of advancing what you're already doing and maybe open up some doors of thinking that you hadn't thought about before?

Alan Gregerman: 00:25:40

Okay, good. Yeah. So, I mean, you write for those of you who are listening who have written a book or are writing a book or thinking about writing a book.

You write a book because you want to get ideas out, and you hope that those ideas will spark conversations with people who will take the idea or use the idea as a starting point to think about how they can be remarkable. So that's what I'm trying to do.

And I'm keen that as the book gets out and it actually just launched in the middle of October, I'm kind of keen on the notion that I'll find out about people who the book resonates with, who are doing things, and who either I can help or I can just applaud from the sideline. So I want to do that course.

I like to share ideas, and so I'm always looking for opportunities to speak, some of which I need to get paid because my wife would like to continue to live where we live, though I drive an old car, but it's all okay.

But others of it are speaking, I do, with small Nonprofits around the U.S. and around the world to help them to unlock the Genius or potential in the people that they serve.

So I want the book to kind of get out there, spark conversations with people who will both pay me and people who will do something that matters to the world that can't afford to pay me. So I want to do that. What lesson did I learn? I learned that writing a book, and this is my fourth book, is a lot more work than I.

You know, I guess I don't learn this lesson very quickly, do I? Because I've written four books, and each one is a lot of work.

So I've learned kind of the time and discipline to write a book is actually a good skill because it's not my strength, and so I value that. I also learned that you make a lot of sacrifices when you're writing a book, but then when the book comes out, there's a lot of, like, excitement.

There's a lot of energy. I don't know. Is that endorphins? I don't know. I'm not a medical professional, but. So right now, I'm really excited about getting the book into.

I also like that the book opens doors for me to connect with people, you know, so I've connected through my books with. I now work with a paper mill in the poorest part of rural northern India.

I work with students in St. Louis, Missouri, that I never would have been connected with if the person who runs their school district didn't get a copy of my book. So it allows me.

I have customers in a lot of different places, all because somebody found one of my books and it sparked their thinking, and they said, I'd like to talk with you a bit more. So I'd say it just opens it up for me to connect with new people. And that's kind of like that, actually.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:28:31

I love that. As we wrap up, Alan, I want to ask you my other favorite question. What do you want your legacy to be?

Alan Gregerman: 00:28:38

Okay. Oh, no. And you probably spent a lot of time thinking that. God, no.

And I don't like to think about it because as you get older, you maybe think about it a little bit more. I mean, I don't want to think I have a limited number of years left.

I want, first and foremost, my legacy to be that I was a nice guy who cared about other people. I want, in kind of my tradition, to have people think that I tried my best to make the world a better place for everyone.

I'd like to make a difference with the companies and organizations that I connect with. I'd like to share ideas. I'd like to spark innovation.

I'd like to be known as somebody who believed in everyone and their ability to be a genius in a world in which we say only a few people are geniuses and that I did something to help a lot of people feel encouraged that they could do more than they ever imagined. Well, of course I'd like to be a good father and a good husband.

I have to ask my wife of 37 years whether I'm doing okay at that, you know, and our kids at times. Well, you know, there are kids. So they're going to say, I think he's a nice guy, but he's a pain in the. Whatever.

So those are the things I guess I'd like to be thought of for.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:29:59

Oh, those are all great. So on season six of the podcast, we have a new episode, a new ending to the show, and that is picking a surprise question.

So pick a number between 1 and 6 for your surprise question.

Alan Gregerman: 00:30:11

So my favorite number is the number three with my number on my high school basketball uniform, and it's just stuck with me.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:30:21

Okay, here's your question then. What's something that you've never been able to do well?

Alan Gregerman: 00:30:28

Oh, no. Oh, God. So there's, like, so many. But what was I lamenting the other day?

I don't sing very well, you know, and so I hear the people in the choir, and I go, they're not asking me to be part of the choir. So I think that's something that probably really. That's been a frustration. I'm not very musical. I wish I was musical.

I wish I could sing and play more instruments than I play. I play a couple really badly.

And I'd love to be able to learn a lot of different languages because I believe we get at the heart of people when we can communicate in their language. And I think I'm okay in English. My wife is from Sweden. I'm marginally okay in Swedish. Fortunately, she's brilliant in English. I love to.

And the reason I mention languages is I imagine how wonderful it would be to be able to connect with all 8 billion people on the planet. I truly wish. I don't have time to do that. You know, I'm putting these ideas out there in the hope I connect with a lot of them, but.

And of course, I'd love to be able to speak in their language. Then I'd really get what's in their heart. So that. Yeah, so those would be the two. I mean, there's so many more.

You know, I wrote this book, the Wisdom of Ignorance, and you'd be amused to know that one of our customers said, when it comes to knowing nothing, Alan Gregorman is a genius. And so. No. So I. There's so many things I'd like to learn, but those are probably too.

If I could learn those tomorrow and you could help me, Keith, I would be. I'd be eternally grateful.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:32:19

Oh, there you go. Well, I'll see what I could do.

Alan Gregerman: 00:32:21

Okay.

Dr. Keith Haney: 00:32:23

Well, Alan, thank you for sharing your insights and your story. The Wisdom of Ignorance is a powerful reminder that innovation doesn't come from knowing everything.

It comes from asking better questions, staying curious, and embracing the unknown to our listeners.

If you're a leader, entrepreneur, or creative thinker, this book is your permission slip to stop pretending to have all the answers and start discovering what's possible when you don't. You can find the Wisdom of Ignorance wherever you wherever thoughtful books are. So.

And learn more about Alan's work@alan gregerman.com if this episode sparked something in you, share it with your colleague or friend, subscribe, leave a review, and keep us Keep up those transformational conversations going until next time. Stay curious, stay humble, and never stop learning.