When it came to matters like hunting, some important knowledge could be transmitted using words—like where one might find some diamphidia larvae to poison an arrowhead, or which animal sinews made the best bowstrings. But the most important forms of knowledge could not. This kind of knowledge, they insisted, could not be taught because it resided not just in their minds but also in their bodies, and because it found expression in skills that could never be reduced to mere words.

But to prove that the knowledge gaps exist, it may be necessary to highlight some knowledge first. “Here’s what you know. Now here’s what you’re missing.” Alternatively, you can set context so people care what comes next. It’s no accident that mystery novelists and crossword-puzzle writers give us clues. When we feel that we’re close to the solution of a puzzle, curiosity takes over and propels us to the finish.

My bewitchment with information is different. It is with the mind’s hunger to understand, ‘its desire to know’ as Aristotle said. And that kind of knowing seems to require three things: 1) supplying the facts, 2) seeing the social collective context and 3) dismantling denial.

People want to think for themselves more than they want to think as someone else. Offering people ideas, only when they ask us, and only through the language of information and experience, keeps them thinking for themselves. And ironically that language increases the chances that our ideas will penetrate. The language of information and experience is not an interruption. The language of advice is.

One way to keep meetings short and avoid the signalling that comes from repeating information that everyone knows is simply asking everyone, “What do you know about this problem that other people in the room don’t know?