How to clear up ambiguity in a business arrangement

Choose Apple or Spotify to listen. If you hit Follow, you’ll get the latest updates

To have good business arrangements, we need to know as much as possible. Often, there can be gaps in our knowledge. So, I recommend this model to help uncover what we know and what we need to find out.

The 3 areas / questions we use to clear up ambiguity and get the full picture are as follows:

'The Known knowns' - What do I know that I know?

'The known unknowns' - What do I know that I don't know?

'The unknown unknowns' - what don't I know that I don't know?!

Each of these questions will uncover facts, opportunities, threats and areas for more attention. Finding out what you don't yet know is a smart strategy for all new business arrangements. I strongly recommend doing work in this space before committing to agreements. On a positive note, this really does open up the conversation with business partners and hopes build trust and openness.

The last one, the 'unknown unknowns' is interesting. It opens up space for creative thinking and possibility. It also creates a margin for if/when unknown, and often unexpected things happen, you can be resilient and adaptable.