The Journey of Not Knowing

The Journey of Not Knowing is a fast-paced, entertaining book that gets to the heart of a critical state in today’s business climate and society overall: the constantly changing, ambiguous twenty-first century and the uncharted waters ahead. This book will inspire leaders of any size organization to come to grips with the scariness of the unknown while it advances a new approach to leadership that leverages the discomfort of the new as a powerful source of inspiration rather than a deterrent to building a better future.

Written by former Amazon executive, coach, and lawyer, Julie Benezet, the book combines storytelling, business experience, and human psychology to create a roadmap through the ambiguity of building something better in the context of the realities of humans in organizational life.

The book tells a story of a day in the life at Arrow, Inc., a fictional company. It follows the defended behaviors throughout that day of its eight very recognizable leadership team members as they work first to avoid and then finally to solve the mystery of why a client fired them. The reward of the discovery is a critical piece of new business and substantial personal growth. To get there, each of the team members must face their past, present, and future. The memorable characters in the book are persons with whom the listeners may cringingly identify. The book creates a framework for them to confront their own resistance to change, and tools to start them on their way toward pursuing new possibilities for their lives once they can confront and embrace the scariness of the unknown.

The author opens the book with a description of an experience at Amazon that led to her belief about leadership and the unknown. It ends with a primer on the Journey of Not Knowing leadership model, using the Arrow story to illustrate its principles.

The Journey of Not Knowing forms the core of a leadership program that been attended by executives from around the world over the past five years.