One of the hardest parts of delivering training is working out what participants do – or don’t – already know. Gavin Scott, a brilliant facilitator and Elevate contributor, calls this “the epidemic of expertise.”

In May’s session on Dynamic Trust, we shared the Trust Equation, developed by Charles Green over 25 years ago. When we asked participants if they’d seen it before, around 90% said they had not – a powerful reminder that even well-established tools can be entirely new to many.

Back in March, I was invited to deliver a keynote for an International Women’s Day event at a large consultancy firm. In discussing what would be most relevant for this year’s theme – accelerating action – the advice was clear: take swift and visible steps, build momentum, and address barriers and bias head-on.

Over the years, there’s been extensive conversation around how bias has prevented women from advancing. Yet there’s one particular bias that I’d never heard anyone discuss. I shared my theory with the IWD committee – and their reaction surprised me. These were smart, experienced women deeply invested in this space, yet the insight struck a chord. They realised they hadn’t considered this angle before.

It was quickly agreed: this would become the foundation of the keynote.

The event itself was attended by both women and men – approximately an 80/20 split. Throughout the 30-minute keynote, I asked a series of questions to gauge what the audience did and didn’t know.

In several cases, the examples and insights I shared deeply resonated with the women in the room – while the men admitted they had simply never come across them. As I delved deeper into the research and presented more robust data and evidence, the response from the women was one of genuine surprise and, in some cases, utter shock.

But what shocked the women wasn’t just the data – it was realising how much they had trusted advice from books, articles, and well-meaning colleagues that, when examined more closely, wasn’t accurate or evidence-based. That realisation – that they had shaped their behaviour and careers around flawed guidance – was a genuine wake-up call.

And that’s the core of the issue: when bad information is repeated often enough, it starts to sound like truth. And women, in good faith, adapt themselves to fit it.

That moment made it clear to me: we need to share this knowledge more widely and more loudly. That’s why we’re hosting a virtual event on Thursday, 19 June at midday (UK time) – to shine a light on what we do know and challenge the assumptions we’ve too long taken for granted.

If you would like to join us, please register here.

Because real empowerment doesn’t only come from learning new skills – it also comes from unlearning what was never true to begin with.