IGNORANCE MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT

stamped out through selective breeding
Some people are naturally more Ignorant than others

and have a gift of becoming totally incompetent
Ignorance is the constitutional right of all those with

a higher education. Those with a low education have

no right to be ignorant
Ignorance is something that needs constant attention

and loving care
Ignorance doesn’t need to be managed. It grows quite

happily left to its own devices
Ignorance management requires a systemized approach

and a culture that perpetuates its growth
Strategic direction

Which of these statements most applies to your ‘strategy’
regarding IM
What’s a strategy?
Our strategy is to develop a strategy.
Our strategy exists in the head of our glorious leader

and is kept well away from those who don’t need

to know, i.e. the rest of the organization.
Our strategy encompasses the ignorance of top

management only and bears no resemblance to

events in the real world.
Our strategy is based upon the combined ignorance of

our whole workforce and as such nobody can make any

sense of it whatsoever.
Our strategy is clearly aimed at making us excel in

chosen areas of ignorance far above that of our

competitors.
Which of the following statements best describes your ability
to realize your organizations strategy
‘"You can’t teach an old dog to suck eggs", IM?,

we’ve been there done that.’
We hire consultants in to supplement our strategic

ignorance- they’re so ignorant they make our Directors

feel good.
All managers and decision makers in our organization

live, eat, sleep, dream, discuss and debate IM to such an

extent our employees proudly declare management is

clueless about IM at the workplace.
We think long and hard about what type of ignorance we

need to excel at, but we’re totally clueless about how to

get it.
We have a strategy and activities to support our

development of IM and incompetency, only we are totally

ignorant as to how well we are doing and totally

incompetent at measuring our inability.
We measure our progress and produce meaningless

reports that we interpret in such a way that it supports

whatever strategy we have on any particular day.
Organization

Which of these statements most applies to your organizations

positioning on IM
‘Ignorance is bliss’ and we intend to keep it that way.
‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ we only give

away knowledge that is harmless.
‘Knowledge is power’ - it is best kept in the hands of

those that don’t need it.
‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you’ (and what you

don’t know can’t hurt us).
‘Using knowledge only wears it out’ so keep it locked

up in a cool dark place
‘Why should we be the only ones to suffer from our

ignorance. We share totally useless information with

our competitors and anybody else gullible enough to

listen.
People

Which of the following statements best identifies the general
level of ignorance within your organization
Our workforce may be characterized as being
‘pig-ignorant’
‘Thick as two short planks’ sums up most of our

employees.
With a little prompting and a few clues most of

our employees are able to distinguish between their

backsides and their elbows.
Our employees are real smartypant types that know

everything about anything that is of absolutely

no use whatsoever to man nor beast.
Our employees are ‘professionals’ who know everything

about what they need to know but haven’t got a clue

how to use what they know.
Our employees know everything there is to know about

everything that nobody wants to know about on a global

scale.
Which of the following people focused ignorance management
principles best applies to your organization
Any type of ignorance is good enough for us.
We know exactly what type of ignorance works best for

our people and select them accordingly.
Only professionally qualified, highly ignorant people

are selected to work here.
Our employees undergo ignorance training to bring them

up to the level of incompetence required.
Gifted ignorant people are promoted into

knowledge management functions.
Exceptionally gifted ignorant people are promoted into

management positions.
Systems

Which of these statements best describes your organizations

approach to managing IM with systems
We use bits of paper with joined up forms of writing.
We have standard forms for recording ignorance and

make basic use of PC’s for things other than playing

games and installing trendy screen savers.
We have corporate information systems with complex

security codes that exclude everybody.
Anything that moves is turned into an information

system that is openly and widely available to all those

that don’t need it.
We have a corporate database with meaningless search

algorithms and search keys to ensure that nobody can

find the knowledge they need.
We have Intranets, extranets, internets and any other

kind of net we can use for plugging our PC’s into for

flooding the rest of the world with ignorance.
Competencies

Which of the following statements best reflects your organizations
approach to managing incompetence
We ensure our employees are already incompetent when

we hire them.
It is through the diligent application of ignorance that our

employees obtain total incompetence
Anybody can be incompetent. The trick is knowing which

incompetences you need to excel at.
We facilitate our workers by grouping specific ignorant

workers into clusters of total incompetence where they

can annoy each other.
We give our employees on the job training and coaching

to ensure they develop the right level of incompetency
If they still don’t get it we use electro-shock therapy
Which of the following statements reflects your organizations

competence in Ignorance management
‘Don’t tell anybody anything’
‘Only tell people what they don’t need to know’
‘Tell people enough to know that you know and that’s

all that matters’
‘Tell them everything in triplicate so that they can’t see

the tree of knowledge through the indiscriminate forest

of information
‘Tell them they have all the knowledge at their disposal,

but don’t tell them how they can get at it’
‘tell them that knowledge is out there somewhere....

their mission should they choose to accept it is to try

to find something worthwhile on the internet
Ignorance transfer

Which of the following statements best fits your organizational
approach to knowledge transfer. ‘People in our organization
caught transferring knowledge to other workers are...’
Timewasting
Given a good finger wagging and told not to do it again
Are given a good seeing to in the car-park
Are told to put all their knowledge into the knowledge

vault where it can be left to fester, unused
Are given a pat on the back and promoted out of harms

way
Are given other jobs to do where they themselves are

totally ignorant of what to do that they couldn’t possibly

tell others what to do
New ideas

Which of the following statements best reflects your organizations

approach to dealing with new ideas
New ideas? chance would be a fine thing
I once had a new idea but it gave me a headache

so I had to lie down and have a rest. Fortunately

when I woke up again it had gone, and so had my

headache
New ideas are dangerous. They are very likely to

rock the boat and cause us work
New ideas are ignored until they go away by themselves
New ideas are enthusiastically received and are then

just as enthusiastically ignored
New ideas are carefully analyzed, matched to our

strategic intentions, feasibility studied, piloted

and then discarded because they are out of date
How to score

If you’ve now carefully considered, ticked or formed an answer for each of
the questions and are now seeking enlightenment as to how you need to score your
answers then you are probably one of the naturally gifted ignorant and a candidate
for ignorance management.

If you have skimmed through the questions to try to get a feel of how you score,
but secretly want to see how the scoring mechanism works so that you can fill in
the right answers to get the best score orthen you are a contender for the devious
position of CIO (Chief Ignorance Officer).

If you’ve stolen your neighbors question list because he or she filled
it in with such vigor and enthusiasm that they obviously know something,
then you are a prime contender for the knowledge grasping bureau or
knowledge police.

If you’ve been looking at your neighbor to see what he or she has filled in,
or have been asking how other people have answered specific questions
before you fill your question list in then you’re probably a knowledge
professional and have a high degree of ignorance and a highly developed
set of incompetences.

If you’ve delegated the question list to somebody else to complete then
you are probably a manager who is likely to get the sets of statistics you
deserve.

If you’ve studied the answers and realized that they can’t possibly tell you
anything meaningful and do not conform to the basic principles of scientific
research and investigation then you are a sad boring git who needs to get a life.

If you’ve actually filled in the question list in pen and put your name it then
you’d better hope that we don’t get hold of it to show your CEO.

If you have now:

-colored in all the boxes and filled in all the ‘o’s or

-drawn pornographic pictures all over the question list

don’t worry, there are lots of therapy groups out there capable of dealing with
people with your kind of
special problems

If you’ve skipped the questions altogether to get a look at what sort of garbage
is written in the scoring section to support your hypothesis that this is all a waste
of time then you’re going to become a failed ignorance manager.

This organizational ignorance maturity matrix will help you get a grip on ignorance management
within your organization.

Maturity level	People	Competencies	Systems	Organization (philosophy)
0	pig ignorant	‘don’t tell anybody anything’	bits of paper with joined up form of writing	‘ignorance is bliss’ and we intend to keep it that way
1	thick as two short planks	‘only tell them what they *don’t* need to know’	standard forms and basic use of PC’s other than for playing games and installing trendy screen savers	‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ -we only give away knowledge that is harmless’
2	able to distinguish between their backsides and elbows - with a little prompting	‘tell them enough to know that you know and convincing them that’s all that counts’	corporate information systems with security codes that exclude everybody	‘knowledge is power’ it is kept in the hands of those that don’t need it
3	know everything about anything that is absolutely no use to man or beast	‘tell them everything in triplicate so that they can’t see the tree of knowledge through the indiscriminate forest of information’	anything that moves is turned into an information system that is openly available to all that don't need it.	‘what you don't know won’t hurt you’, and what you do know can’t hurt us
4	know everything about knowing what they need to know, but don’t know how to get it	‘tell them they have the know-how at their disposal - but don’t tell them how to get to it’	a corporate knowledge database with meaningless search algorithms and search keys to ensure that nobody can find the knowledge they need	‘using knowledge wears it out, so keep it locked up in a cool dark place’
5	know everything there is to know about everything that nobody wants to know about on a global scale	‘tell them that knowledge is out there somewhere..their mission should they choose to accept it is to try to find something worthwhile on the Internet	Intranets, Extranets Internets, hairnets, fishnets and any other kind of net you can plug your computer into used for flooding the rest of the world with ignorance	‘why should we be the only ones to suffer from our ignorance? Let’s share totally useless information with our competitors.’