Long before sunrise in Lagos (The Commercial nerve centre of Nigeria), sachet water manufacturing plants come alive. Generators hum, machines roar into motion, and production begins in earnest. This is not casual trading; it is organised manufacturing driven by schedules, regulations, labour coordination, and power supply. Survival here is engineered, not improvised.
It was into this structured yet pressured environment that a notice arrived from a sachet water manufacturers’ association. Drafted by a lawyer and issued with formal authority, the message was intended to provide operational direction during a sensitive period. Instead, it created widespread confusion.
The notice read:
The notice read:
Important Notice to Sachet Water Manufacturers
Kindly be reminded of our standing policy on the suspension of no sachet water sales every Thursday between 5:00am and 12:00 noon.
In addition, due to the current situation within the (Redacted) area of (Redacted), all sachet water manufacturers are hereby informed of an indefinite suspension of no sales on Thursday between 5:00am and 12:00 noon until normalcy is fully restored in the zone.
All sachet water manufacturers operating within our zones are strongly advised to comply strictly with this directive.
To the legally trained or academically inclined, the intent may have seemed obvious. Yet for many manufacturers, plant supervisors, and operators unfamiliar with legal construction, the phrase “suspension of no sales” became a riddle. Were factories to shut down or operate freely? Was production prohibited or permitted? Uncertainty spread quickly. Frustration followed. Compliance fractured. One well educated member of the association, who is also my client, later shared the notice with me, noting that it had failed to communicate meaning to those who mattered most.
This is the Curse of Knowledge at work.
The Curse of Knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when people with specialised knowledge forget what it feels like not to know what they know. They assume shared understanding, shared vocabulary, and shared context. Meaning is implied rather than explained. The result is not clarity but confusion. As a Yoruba proverb reminds us, the one who has tasted honey cannot fully explain bitterness to the tongue that has not.
The term was formally introduced in 1989 by economists Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Martin Weber. Their research demonstrated that individuals with superior information consistently fail to ignore it when predicting how others will think or behave.
Once knowledge settles in the mind, it distorts perception. Communication becomes unintentionally exclusionary. A classic illustration comes from Elizabeth Newton’s 1990 Stanford experiment. Participants tapped out the rhythms of familiar songs like Happy Birthday, while listeners tried to identify them. The tappers, hearing full melodies in their minds, predicted high success rates. In reality, listeners guessed correctly less than three percent of the time. What felt obvious to the knowledgeable was nearly unintelligible to others. The melody existed only in the expert’s head.
This pattern repeats everywhere.
In medicine, doctors speak of myocardial infarctions instead of heart attacks, assuming comprehension that does not exist. Patients leave consultations confused, anxious, and often noncompliant.
In business, leaders speak in abstractions about synergies, frameworks, and value creation while frontline teams struggle to translate words into action.
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In product design, creators assume users share their familiarity, producing systems that frustrate rather than serve. In education, teachers leap over foundational steps, leaving learners behind without realising it.
George Bernard Shaw captured this failure succinctly: the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. Leadership, at its core, is the creation of shared meaning. Without it, authority weakens and vision dissolves. As an Igbo proverb warns, the elder who speaks in riddles governs confusion.
Overcoming the Curse of Knowledge
Escaping the Curse of Knowledge is not accidental, it requires intention, discipline, and humility. Here are 6 guidelines that can help:
Know Your Audience
Every effective message begins with audience intelligence. What do they already know? What language do they use daily? What problem are they trying to solve? Communication that ignores audience reality is self-indulgent, not strategic.
Strip Meaning to Its Core
Ask yourself what action you want people to take. Then express that action in the simplest possible form. If a message cannot be summarised in one clear sentence, it is not yet ready.
Use Analogies and Familiar References
New ideas travel faster when they ride on old knowledge. When complexity is anchored to everyday experience, understanding follows naturally.
Build Meaning Step by Step
Never start from the middle. Start from the beginning. Assume nothing. Clarity is cumulative. Like a house, communication must rest on a solid foundation.
Test for Understanding, Not Approval
Share drafts with people outside your expertise. Where they hesitate or ask questions is where meaning is missing. Confusion is feedback.
Choose Plain Language Over Elegant Confusion
Simplicity is not the enemy of intelligence. It is its proof. Replace impressive words with effective ones. Speak to be understood, not admired.
Tell Human Stories
Stories organise information into meaning. They provide context, emotion, and sequence. As Richard Feynman observed, if you cannot explain something simply, you do not understand it well enough.
Communication is an ecosystem. Expertise may sit at the top, but understanding grows from the base. When the base is neglected, the entire structure collapses. By dismantling the Curse of Knowledge, leaders create alignment, trust, and momentum.
Albert Einstein once advised that everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. In a world drowning in information yet starving for clarity, the true mark of leadership is not how much you know, but how well others understand what you mean. Communication that does not produce understanding is noise. Communication that creates shared meaning is power. And finally we must never forget that in leadership, power begins where understanding takes root.
Ishola, N. Ayodele is a distinguished and multiple award-winning strategic communication expert who specializes in ‘Message Engineering’. He helps Organizations, Brands and Leaders Communicate in a way that yields the desired outcome. He is the author of the seminal work, ‘PR Case Studies; Mastering the Trade,’ and Dean, the School of Impactful Communication (TSIC). He can be reached via ishopr2015@gmail.com or 08077932282.
