I think there are two categories of ignorance here: one is a snapshot of ignorance - for example, at this moment, I don’t know how to fly an F16. However, it is perfectly possible at some time in future, I might be able to do it. We all suffer from it time to time, and frankly, this is not an issue. Given the complex world and every-evolving technologies, you can fault someone for not knowing everything under the sun ! The second type of ignorance is the dangerous one: this is the sate of ‘permanent ignorance’. The person refuses to learn and prefers to stay in this state forever. It would be very easy to ‘measure’ it: a proactive person will move out of this state anticipating the need well in advance. An average person can be expected to ‘react’ to the need and do it ‘better late then never’. However, even after the need has happened for the first time, and continues to remain a need, and still the person has not made any efforts to acquire those skills will simply be a ‘permanently ignorant’. There could be several reasons for someone being in a ‘permanently ignorant’ state - attitude, rebel, ego, motivation, low cost of failure by not acquiring the skill (like most adults don’t make full-hearted efforts to learn how to use TV remote control well just because the cost of not learning it is not earth-shattering), etc. You might need to go beyond subject matter to analyze why a person is refusing to come out of zone of permanent ignorance. One more thing: a perfectly normal person could be displaying multiple behaviors at the same time: very eager to learn in some areas, but showing highly adament behavior in others. So, I would not worry about the person, especially if he/she is fine otherwise, but try to focus on how that particular subject relates to the given person. The success of ‘remedy’ will depend to a large extent on the coach and not the subject.
[This was in response to a question on LinkedIn]
