THIS must be a year when talk turns into action on race. The government’s new Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities is due to report to the prime minister Boris Johnson by Christmas.
“Inquiry fatigue” leads to questions about whether it is needed. But there are only a few key areas – notably Wendy Williams’ road map for Home Office reform after Windrush and David Lammy’s Criminal Justice review – where previous reports offer a blueprint for action. There is no comprehensive action plan for race equality in Britain sitting on the shelf.
Can this new commission produce that? Many are sceptical. I would set three tests of success as it begins. Can it deepen public understanding of where we are now? Can it build consensus on key priorities for change, by navigating a contested debate about race, or will it mainly reinforce the trenches in which existing debates often gets stuck? And can it speed up change, by combining a longer-term vision with important changes that should happen within 12 months?
The commission inherits the strongest evidence base on race and opportunity in any major democracy. Yet much public discourse is unaware of its basic contours. The race disparity audit, under then prime minister Theresa May, compiled the evidence, but did not develop a clear public narrative of what needs to be done about it.
Identity clashes over “cancel culture” excite the media much more than patterns of opportunity and disadvantage that are more complex than ever before. Ethnic minorities are more likely to be university graduates than their white British peers. If that would surprise many in newsrooms, the general public won’t hear about it either. So a key question of why ethnic minorities are doing better in education than in the workplace is rarely spotted.
The commission should set out why a race equality agenda in 2020 must work at different levels. An effective strategy must recognise social exclusion at the bottom; pursue fair chances in the middle, building on progress in education to close ethnic gaps in recruitment and progression; and speed up change at the top, so this moment of change for race equality reaches into the citadels of economic, cultural and political power.
Some challenges need long-term interventions – such as the links between housing and health inequalities, or the support needed to ensure that neither white nor black poor working-class boys struggle to access higher education.
But important changes could happen much faster. One of the clearest pieces of evidence of systemic racial disadvantage in Britain is that job applicants with similar qualifications will get fewer interviews if their CV has an identifiably ‘ethnic’ name. This commission must identify a solution. It could compile evidence on which interventions appear most likely to reduce this disparity. But the most effective change could be to secure commitments within key sectors – such as the biggest businesses and the legal profession – to begin sustained transparent monitoring, year on year, of how far this remains true, sustaining pressure to close the gap.
A big, achievable change would be to end all-white boardrooms in Britain during 2021. There is an existing voluntary target for the FTSE 100 and 350, though a third of top firms have not met it. The commission should recommend that all public sector bodies and NHS trusts adopt this, and invite educational, cultural and sporting bodies, and all charities above a particular size, to commit to the same goal. Rather than an end in itself, this should be part of an agenda for every institution to discuss race equality at board level – and identify the changes it can make, close to home.
Can the commission meet these tests? The jury is out. The general public won’t yet have heard of a new panel being announced. A major ITV poll captured a worryingly deep disillusion, especially among the black British, about race in Britain. Bridging that trust gap will be difficult.
Civic society voices will wait to see if a group invited to report to the prime minister can demonstrate its independence. Chair Tony Sewell has a strong track record in education, while early skirmishes have focused on his past scepticism about structural discrimination.
“I know that inequality exists and I am committed to working with my fellow commissioners to understand why,” Sewell said in response.
Johnson says “the Commission will be inclusive, undertaking research and inviting submissions where necessary”. An open call for evidence would be the obvious first step – challenging those outside government to bring solutions to the table, not just critiques of the status quo
Critics of this government will have low expectations, but should set themselves a similar task. By the time this commission reports, will they be campaigning on a clear, compelling manifesto of five priorities for change on race?
Over 5,000 years ago, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, two armies comprising tens of thousands of men were ready to begin a war. The Pandavs were led by Arjuna, a warrior whose archery skills were unbeatable. At the last minute, before the war was to commence, Arjuna put down his weapons and declared to Krishna his decision not to fight. He reasoned that the war would kill tens of thousands of people all for a kingdom. It took the whole of the Bhagavad Gita to convince Arjuna to fight.
Even after Krishna destroyed all his doubts, Arjuna asked to see Krishna in his form as a supreme God. In short, Arjuna wanted to avoid confrontation at any cost.
In 1191, Muhammad Ghouri from Afghanistan attacked the Hindu king Prithviraj Chouhan. He was defeated, but Prithviraj let him go free. Prithviraj was probably influenced in his decision by his Dharma of compassion, or in the hope that Ghouri would never attack again as his life was spared — a good example of avoiding confrontation.
It is believed by many that Ghouri had attacked many more times and had been defeated but was allowed to go free. Regarded as one of the costliest mistakes of history, Mohammad Ghouri returned with a stronger and much larger army in 1192 CE. Prithviraj was defeated. Ghouri had Prithviraj's eyes gouged out and killed him mercilessly. Islam got a foothold in India after the defeat of Prithviraj, and most of Punjab, parts of Bihar, Bengal and parts of Gujarat fell under the rule of Ghouri.
Going back to the Mahabharata, Asvathama, who fought for the Kauravas, killed all the children of the Pandavas. When he was caught by the Pandavas, they decided to let him go because he was a Brahmin. In fact, Asvathama was Brahmin only by birth. By Karma, he was a Kshatriya. The same Asvathama at a later stage fired a powerful nuclear arrow towards the pregnant Uttara.
Once again, Lord Krishna had to appear and protect Uttara. Had Asvathama succeeded, he would have obliterated all the future Pandava dynasty. Here we see the urge of the Pandavas to go by the rules of Dharma and follow a moral code. Lord Krishna himself insisted to Arjuna that in some cases, the moral rules would need to be ignored.
The first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Nehru, believed that India did not need an army at all. He reasoned that India was a land of Ahimsa and so would not need to fight anyone. In 1962, China invaded India and has since occupied 38,000 km² of the Aksai Chin region in Kashmir, which is an extension of the Tibetan plateau. One can see here again a tendency to avoid any confrontation and naively believe the other party will play fair.
In 1965, Pakistan launched Operation Gibraltar against India. It was designed to infiltrate soldiers into Jammu and Kashmir and cause an uprising. Under international pressure, the then PM Lal Bahadur Shastri went to Tashkent and signed a peace treaty with Pakistan. While there, he died mysteriously. The treaty called upon both sides not to interfere in each other's affairs. It was not worth the paper it was written on.
In 1971, another war broke out between India and Pakistan. India won the war, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. Even though India won the war, it failed to grasp any long-term gains. Indeed, Bangladesh was quick to ask the Indian army to leave once they had been liberated.
The same Bangladesh today has turned against India and is persecuting Hindus. Following the 1971 war, the then PM Indira Gandhi and Pakistan PM Bhutto signed the Shimla Agreement. Both nations committed to establish peaceful coexistence and mutual respect. Again, an agreement not worth the piece of paper it was written on. Indian forces had captured around 15,010 km² (5,795 sq mi) of land during the war but returned it after the Shimla Agreement as a gesture of goodwill.
In 1984, under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian Army launched Operation Meghdoot, a military operation to seize control of the Siachen Glacier. This operation was a pre-emptive move as it was believed that Pakistan was also planning to take control of the glacier. In spite of the Pakistani attacks, India granted it MFN (Most Favoured Nation for trade purposes) status in 1996. However, Pakistan did not reciprocate. India withdrew its MFN status in February 2019 following the Pulwama attack.
On 20 February 1999, PM Vajpayee visited Pakistan and signed the Lahore Declaration. It was hailed as a turning point in relations between the two countries. However, in a classic case of treachery, just a few months later between May and July, under the leadership of Chief of Army Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan army occupied Indian territory in Kargil. Some Indian soldiers protecting the area had their eyes gouged out.
India successfully dislodged the Pakistani occupiers. In the conflict, 527 Indian soldiers were killed and 1,363 wounded. India's Jat Regiment managed to occupy a strategically important mountain peak on the Pakistani side of the LoC near Dras, Point 5070, and subsequently renamed it Balwan.
On 24 December 1999, Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814, was hijacked by five members of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. A plan to send in commandos to neutralise the terrorists did not materialise. The then PM Vajpayee agreed to release three terrorists in exchange for the release of 160 passengers.
Of the terrorists released, Omar Sheikh went on to finance one of the hijackers of the 9/11 attacks and the kidnap and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Maulana Masood Azhar formed Jaish-e-Mohammed, a United Nations-designated terrorist organisation. Maulana Masood was the mastermind behind the Parliament attacks in 2001, the 2016 attacks on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, and the killing of CRPF jawans in 2019 in Pulwama. He is responsible for hundreds of Indian deaths.
After the attack on Parliament, the then PM Vajpayee mobilised the army to attack Pakistan. Once again, due to international pressure, PM Vajpayee stopped the army which was eager to launch an invasion. LeT, the other terrorist organisation co-founded by Hafiz Saeed, is also responsible for many attacks on India.
The blasts in Delhi in October 2005 killed four people. On 11 July 2006, seven blasts ripped through trains in the evening rush hour in Mumbai. 189 people were killed and more than 800 were injured. The 26/11 Mumbai attacks in November 2008 claimed 166 lives. The terrorists held the whole country to ransom for three days.
India had to retaliate but PM Manmohan Singh and the Congress party decided against taking any action. One of the reasons given was that India would gain world sympathy — a classic case of avoiding confrontation at any cost.
In December 2015, PM Modi made an impromptu stop in Lahore as a gesture of goodwill. He met PM Nawaz Sharif. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, it is the army which runs the show, not political parties.
LeT also masterminded the Uri army base attack, killing 19 soldiers in September 2016. For the first time under the Prime Ministership of Modi, India took offensive action. On 29 September 2016, teams of Indian Army Para (Special Forces) crossed the Line of Control into Pakistani-administered Kashmir to attack targets up to a kilometre within territory held by Pakistan. Around 35 to 40 Pakistani soldiers were killed or injured.
In 2010, a bomb blast in a crowded bakery in the city of Pune killed nine people and wounded 57. Through all this, ‘cultural’ exchanges were going on between the two countries. In December 2015, PM Modi made an impromptu visit to Lahore as a goodwill gesture and met PM Sharif. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, it is the military which calls the shots, not the governing parties.
After the Pulwama attack, PM Modi targeted the terrorists inside Pakistan with a missile attack. However, it seems to have had little impact on the terror groups. They carried out the dastardly act of killing 26 Hindus in Kashmir on 26 April 2025. PM Modi ordered attacks on nine terrorist hubs.
However, the mini conflict came to an abrupt end and both India and Pakistan declared a ceasefire. What assurances India received from Pakistan is not clear. Indeed, terrorists from Pakistan have already attempted two terror attacks but were neutralised by the Indian army. India could have demanded the release of Kulbushan Yadav, who has been incarcerated in Pakistan on spying charges for nine years.
Though India has always come out on top on the war front, on the negotiating table it seems to surrender all the gains with little in return. Pakistan-based terrorists have killed hundreds of Indian soldiers over the decades and got away with it.
India needs to revisit the great political master Chanakya and his treatise Arthashastra on war and peace.
MISINFORMATION and disinformation are not new in the age of social media, but India’s mainstream news channels peddling them during a time of war was a new low.
Hours after India launched Operation Sindoor, most channels went into overdrive with ‘breaking news’ meant to shock, or worse, excite.
Channels beamed blurry images of the Pakistan attack on Indian territory with nearly 400 drones last Thursday (8) night, on a loop, and news tickers announced an Indian advance into enemy territory.
They claimed a Pakistani fighter pilot had been captured alive in Punjab, only to revise it a while later to say that not one, but two were in India’s custody. Minutes later came reports of an aerial attack in Islamabad, right next to the house of Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and claims that he had taken shelter in a bunker.
Before one could process why India, known for its restraint, would escalate tensions at this scale on just the second day of attack, the next salvo of misinformation was launched – the Indian Navy had ‘destroyed’ the Karachi port, accompanied by images of a ravaged facility.
The next report claimed Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir had been ousted in a coup and was being held in ‘custody’ (by whom was anybody’s guess). These ‘news’ items painted a picture of unprecedented aggression by one nuclear state against another.
Except, none of these stories were true. The defence press briefing last Friday (9) made no mention of captured pilots, an attack on Karachi port, or any development concerning Munir.
Indian fact-checkers debunked the videos of the Karachi port attack aired by some channels as footage from a 2020 BBC report from Gaza.
Last Sunday (11), clarity emerged when India’s director general of naval operations said that Indian battleships were stationed “with full readiness and capacity to strike select targets, including Karachi,” laying to rest speculation of an attack on the port. The Indian defence establishment also confirmed it had ‘downed’ Pakistani fighter jets, but made no mention of any ‘captured’ pilots.
The Indian news channels’ false reporting was called out by social media users within hours, prompting many to backtrack and apologise. A few also faced criticism for their warmongering – one ‘expert’ on a channel declared mazaa (fun) would begin when Pakistan attacks India.
Another example of the channels’ insensitivity was the use of AI-generated images and graphics – one depicting an enraged Indian prime minister Narendra Modi trampling a cowering Sharif – which trivialised the conflict and framed it as little more than a high-stakes cricket match between the two nations.
Some Indian media houses reported that similar fake news was being broadcast by Pakistani outlets. However, for someone in India, where I live, it has become nearly impossible to verify what the media is reporting on the other side of the border, as the government has banned access to Pakistani news channels, including Dawn and Geo News.
Several Indian news websites, including The Wire – co-founded by a former editor of The Hindu – also faced bans (in this case, the restriction was lifted a day later).
Amid all this, the mainstream print media, both in English and regional languages, has remained largely responsible and sober, refraining from whipping up passions. Many news websites have done the same.
If the ceasefire doesn’t hold, this could become the first major war that Indians witness in the age of private news channels and social media. Whether the screens will make the proverbial fog of war even thicker remains to be seen.
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A vivid depiction of the Kurukshetra battlefield, where Arjuna and Krishna stand amidst the chaos, embodying the eternal conflict between duty and morality
War and peace have exercised the minds of human beings for as far back as history goes. It is no wonder then that the Mahabharata war, which took place over 5,000 years ago, became a moment of intense discussion between Lord Krishna and Arjuna.
Hundreds of thousands of people on either side were ready to begin battle on the site of Kurukshetra. Seeing the armies and his near and dear combatants, Arjuna lost the will to fight. How could he fight his grandfather Bhisma and his guru Dronacharya? He asked Krishna what all the bloodshed would achieve.
Krishna replied that every effort to resolve the conflict had been blocked by Duryodhana. Duryodhana had refused to give the Pandavas even a needlepoint of land, despite Lord Krishna's peace proposal that they accept just five villages. Krishna urged and convinced Arjuna that it was his dharma to fight a righteous war, even if it came with painful consequences.
While war is characterised by violence and destruction, it can also be a catalyst for peace negotiations and treaties.
Charles Minard's iconic flow map illustrating Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Russia, highlighting the vast distances and severe lossesAge of Revolution
The great political master Chanakya (350–275 BCE), guru of Chandragupta of the mighty Maurya empire, wrote the famous treatise Arthashastra. In it, he describes in detail the steps one must take to wage war. Kautilya suggested four policies: conciliation (sama), compensation (dana, or gifts to adversaries to pacify them), dissension (bheda, creating divisions within adversaries), and force (danda, attack). These could be used singly or in combination, depending on the context.
However, like Krishna, Chanakya advocated war only when all other alternatives were exhausted.
According to Von Clausewitz, a military theorist (1780–1831), “War is merely continuation of a policy by other means.” He believed military objectives that support political aims fall into two broad types: wars to achieve limited goals, and wars to disarm the enemy—rendering them politically helpless or militarily impotent.
After suffering years of terrorist violence and the recent brutal killings of Hindus in Kashmir, India feels it has exhausted all avenues of peace with Pakistan.
There has also been a school of thought which rejects war altogether. Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, had strong anti-war sentiments, expressed through his writings and personal life. In his book, he chronicled the French invasion of Russia in 1812, led by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Vivid depiction of the Kurukshetra battlefield, showcasing Arjuna and Krishna in the chariot amidst the chaos of warAmazon
Tolstoy himself fought in the Crimean War (1853–1856), a conflict between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. Sardinia is an island and autonomous region of Italy.
Tolstoy believed war was inherently unjust and a product of government actions, rather than the people's interests. He emphasised the importance of love—both human and divine—as a force for peace and against the brutality of conflict.
Christians have a concept called a Just War, taken up only as a last resort. They also had the doctrine of holy wars called the Crusades, meant to recapture occupied territories. This idea is now considered a shibboleth.
The current Russia-Ukraine war has brought some interesting observations, according to Benjamin Jensen, director of the Futures Lab and senior fellow for the Defence and Security Department at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
He points out that the war has shown the rise of drone warfare and electronic warfare as defining features of modern conflict. Long-range attack drones have played a crucial role.
After the Russian invasion in February 2022, then-Ukrainian ambassador to India, Igor Polikha, urged PM Modi to help stop the war. He said India had qualified in diplomacy through Kautilya several thousand years ago, when Europe had no civilisation.
Unfortunately, President Zelensky of Ukraine has presided over the destruction of his country, having failed on both diplomatic and military fronts.
(Nitin Mehta is a writer and commentator on Indian culture and philosophy. He has contributed extensively to discussions on Hinduism, spirituality, and the role of Gurus in modern society. You can find more of his work at www.nitinmehta.co.uk.)
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Doreen Simson, 87, a child evacuee from London; 100-year-old former Wren Ruth Barnwell; and veteran Henry Rice, 98, in front of a full-size replica Spitfire during an event organised by SSAFA, the UK’s oldest Armed Forces charity, to launch the ‘VE Day 80: The Party’ countdown outside Royal Albert Hall, in London
Winning the war was no longer any kind of surprise. After all, Hitler had committed suicide. What had once seemed in deep peril a few years later had become a matter of time.
BBC newsflashes on May 7 announced Germany’s unconditional surrender, so the next day would be Victory Day, in Europe at least. Cue perhaps the biggest party that this country had ever seen – with jubilation and relief reflecting the heavy toll of five years of war.
How far will the meaning of VE Day still resonate today, some 80 years on? Most wartime memories come from childhood now. More than three million people in Britain today were born before VE Day – but over half were aged under five as the war ended. About 120,000 people in Britain today were at least 14, the age that most people left school then. You have to be at least 98 today to have been able to join the armed forces, legally before 1945, though some did fib to serve under-age.
It is estimated that 8.6 million people served during the war – five million from the British Isles, the rest from the empire and Commonwealth. It is probable there are fewer than 15,000 survivors today. The UK Ministry of Defence has no official figures on the number of living veterans, though the US Ministry of Veterans produces annual estimates.
But the 2021 census asked about military service for the first time, enabling better informed estimates than before. British Future’s crunching of that census data finds that 5,000 men and 4,000 women in Britain aged 98+ report serving as veterans – about a quarter of the age group – including service after the war as well as during it.
Up to 4,000 veterans aged over 100 are more likely to have seen active service during the war itself. Ten veterans wrote a letter to the nation inviting us all to remember. That they included three Indian Army volunteers – Corporal Mirza Khan, Sergeant Mohammad Hussain and Sergeant Major Rajindar Singh Dhatt – reminds us that the armies which fought and won the war look more like the Britain of 2025 than that of 1945.
Recognising the ever-dwindling few will be one poignant focus of the VE Day anniversary. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy notes that it is “one of the last chances we have to say thank you to this generation of heroes”.
It would surprise many that more than four in 10 surviving veterans are women (largely because women are four times as likely as men to live to 100).
The anniversary is a good chance to increase knowledge of the auxiliary services roles – undertaken by around one-10th of women, such as the ‘Wrens’ in the Navy or the WAAFI in the air force.
Yet, this 80th anniversary faces challenges to capture public attention. Next Thursday (8) is not a bank holiday, so will be a day of official ceremonies, but a normal working day too in many schools and offices. Three days earlier, the bank holidaday next Monday (5), will see a parade on the Mall and community celebrations, including street parties.
Our politicians will have to switch from a focus on the local elections to the national commemorations. The July 1945 general election – with a landslide defeat for the war leader Winston Churchill – was a powerful demonstration of the democracy that the war had been fought for, and the determination to forge a better peace.
The message of this VE Day anniversary should not just be that we mark it because a few of those who took part in the war are still alive. If that was the reason, there would be little point in marking the 2039-2045 centenary at all.
So a bigger challenge for our leaders, marking this anniversary, is how far they can begin to shape a new narrative about what these foundational moments in our history would mean once the war does finally slip beyond living memory. That is a central part of what it is to be a nation – to have a story about how our past, present and future are linked. What does who we are today, and how we got here, mean for the next chapter?
The events of 1945 shaped the lives of everybody who has lived in this country since – not only because the war was won, but also thanks to the choices made at home and abroad after it ended.
Yet this has been a year when those foundations of democracy and the multilateral order are in peril. How we could do with recapturing the spirit of 1945, however distant it may seem to us now.
That was a time when money was scarcer than today – yet where people faced the future with hope.
Sunder Katwala is the director of thinktank British Future and the author of the book How to Be a Patriot: The must-read book on British national identity and immigration.
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Fresh eyes can expose what the Curse of Knowledge has hidden.
Leadership today can feel like flying a plane through dense fog.
You’re managing priorities, pressures, and people. You’re flying through turbulence, and the instruments keep changing. And still, you’re expected to chart a clear course, adapt to change in real time, and help others do the same.
But what if the biggest threat to your trajectory isn’t external? What if it’s how your own experience shapes what you can no longer see?
When experience becomes a blindfold
The Curse of Knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when we become so familiar with something that we stop examining it. Once we “know” something, our brains tag it as settled. We make it part of the mental autopilot.
That’s helpful for getting through a busy day. But it’s dangerous in an environment that demands change.
Here’s how it shows up:
“That’s how we’ve always done it.”
“We already tried that.”
“Our customers wouldn’t go for it.”
These aren’t facts. They’re filters — installed by past experience, running quietly in the background. We don’t notice them because they feel like truth. But the real problem is that we stop questioning them.
The Curse of Knowledge makes it harder to see new solutions, new paths, and new ways to solve the new challenges you’re facing.
And in a business like yours — where competition is fierce, timelines are tight, and customer expectations keep evolving — that can cost you dearly.
From obstacle thinking to possibility thinking
There’s a different way to lead through uncertainty, and it starts with possibility thinking.
Possibility thinkers don’t assume that the first roadblock is the end of the road. They’re willing to look again. To question what seems fixed. To ask, “What else could be true?”
This isn’t wishful thinking. It’s disciplined curiosity.
And in industries balancing new technologies, workforce dynamics, economic pressures, and rapid change, curiosity is one of the most underutilised competitive advantages available.
Here are three practical ways to break out of the Curse of Knowledge and shift from “obstacle” to “opportunity”:
1. Assumption smashing
Most of what limits your thinking isn’t a real rule. It’s a made-up one — created by your brain based on all your past experience and expertise.
People absorb assumptions from their own history: what’s worked, what hasn’t, what got praised, what got shut down. But just because something was true once doesn’t mean it’s true now.
Assumption smashing is the act of surfacing those invisible “rules” and breaking them on purpose.
In innovation sessions, it often takes just one bold move — and it shifts the entire room. Once someone questions what others were treating as non-negotiable, it unlocks the permission to do the same.
One person’s reframing can become everyone’s breakthrough.
As a leader, that person needs to be you. You go first — and show others that it’s not only allowed to question assumptions, it’s expected.
2. Change the question
If a team is stuck, the problem might not be the problem. It might be how it’s being defined.
Small changes in language lead to big differences in thinking. Let’s say the goal is to reduce customer churn. It could be framed as:
“How can we retain customers?”
…or:
“How can we surprise our customers?”
“How might we create something they’d brag about?”
“What would make them stay, even if a competitor charged less?”
Each question sends the brain down a different path.
The goal isn’t to wordsmith. It’s to find the frame that leads to fresh possibility.
3. Borrow a brain
Sometimes teams are simply too close to the problem.
That’s why bringing in someone who doesn’t “know how it works here” can be so powerful. They’re not stuck inside the same patterns. They don’t carry the same assumptions.
Invite a colleague from another department. Pair up a veteran with a next-generation team member. Ask a new hire what they see.
Fresh eyes can expose what the Curse of Knowledge has hidden.
You’re already flying — just don’t forget to check the map.
Pilots check their instruments constantly. They don’t assume. They cross-check. They adjust course when needed.
As a leader, that same discipline matters.
The Curse of Knowledge isn’t a flaw. It’s a cognitive bias — a natural part of how human brains work. But it doesn’t have to decide what’s possible. It can be challenged, and others can be led to do the same.
You’re already flying the plane.
Now ask yourself: Are you still headed in the right direction?
The most dangerous limits are rarely external.
They’re the ones that go unquestioned.
Susan Robertson empowers individuals, teams, and organisations to more nimbly adapt to change, by transforming thinking from “why we can’t” to “how might we?” She is a creative thinking expert with over 20 years’ experience speaking and coaching in FTSE 500 companies. As an instructor on applied creativity at Harvard, Susan brings a scientific foundation to enhancing human creativity. To learn more, please visit: SusanRobertsonSpeaker.com.
‘Action must replace talk on race equality’