I’ve been sitting with a question lately.
When did we become so uncomfortable with not knowing?

At some point, many of us learned that having the answer makes us credible. We reward confidence, move quickly, and make decisions on the go. That’s what good leaders are supposed to do. Right?

But I keep wondering what we lose in that rush.

Because the issue isn’t simply that we have assumptions. Of course we do. We all have them. That’s just part of being human. The real question is whether we ever stop long enough to look at them.

A colleague said something to me recently that caught me off guard in a wonderful way. He told me I have a natural tendency toward something called double-loop learning. I remember hearing that term in graduate school, but I hadn’t thought about it in years.

Once he said it, though, I couldn’t unsee it.

The basic idea is pretty simple. A lot of the time, we focus on solving the problem right in front of us. That’s single-loop learning. Fix it, move on.

Double-loop learning is a little different. It asks, “Why are we defining the problem this way in the first place? What assumptions are we making here?”, or a bigger question of “What factors led us to this moment in the first place?”

That shift is subtle, but it changes everything.

His prompt had me reflecting on a personal example I might otherwise have missed. Recently, my car needed repairs, and I got quoted close to $3,000. The problem was that no one could clearly tell me what was wrong. There were guesses, but nothing solid.

And I remember thinking, I’m not paying $3,000 for a guess. Especially one that might not fix the issue.

So I started asking more questions. What am I actually noticing? What can I test on my own? What are they assuming is happening?

For me, it wasn’t about trying to outsmart the mechanic. It was more about understanding the thinking behind the recommendation.

That instinct to pause and question the frame of the problem is something I’m realizing shows up everywhere. Not just with car repairs, but in how I work, make decisions, and even relate to people.

If we fail to slow down, we get ourselves into trouble.

The moment I decide my perspective is the perspective, curiosity kind of shuts down. I stop asking questions. I stop looking for anything that might challenge me. Without really noticing, there can be a tendency to trade growth for certainty.

The tricky part is, it doesn’t feel like a trade when it’s happening. It feels like you’re being clear, decisive, and even moving things forward. 

But over time, it can narrow how we see, lead, and connect with others.

As I think out loud, maybe this isn’t about getting rid of certainty. In the spirit of double-loop thinking, it’s less about jumping to the answer and more about slowing down to ask how we got there in the first place. 

Before rushing to the answer, it might be worth asking:

• What am I assuming to be true right now?
• How else could I be looking at this?
• What could I test instead of just deciding?
• Where might I be a little too certain?

Looking at the world around us right now, I keep coming back to how easy it is to run with an answer before really examining it. That alone feels worth paying attention to.