Leaders wishing to thrive in today’s fast-changing, volatile world know they need to be constantly generating new knowledge that will translate into innovations, and encourage their teams to do the same.

But that’s easier said than done.

Sometimes people let their biases put limitations on their learning. And even when they do gain valuable new knowledge, they don’t always recognize how it connects to other information they have so that all of it can be put to the best use.

There are, however, strategies that leaders can employ to help themselves and their teams capitalize on the knowledge they need to tackle a world filled with uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

You need to be mindful of the biases that can limit information and distort your view of the world. It’s not about ridding yourself of them entirely — you wouldn’t be able to do that anyway. Also, biases are not always a negative. Sometimes they’re simply preferences that help us make decisions quickly and operate more effectively. If someone lies to me repeatedly, I will understandably develop a bias against the information they offer me.

The key is to use biases consciously and mindfully. A bias that you’re aware of and know how to compensate for can be useful. But an unexamined bias, or one you’re unaware of, will distort your view of the world and limit the information and possibilities you’re able to consider.

If you discover a bias but don’t do anything to formalize that new understanding, you’ll often find that your new understanding doesn’t last. Those biases return to lurking in the background, still affecting decisions in the wrong way.

What you want to do is translate those insights of yourself into a new understanding of the world. Keep asking questions, of course, but make sure you put just as much energy into setting out your answers in ways that you can return to and make use of them.

How might you do that? The classic approach is to keep a journal, and use writing as an opportunity for ongoing reflection on yourself and the world around you.

Other approaches might include mentoring relationships with a trusted adviser, talking things through with your spouse, or therapy. 

There’s no one answer — the key is to put clear processes into place to bring your biases, emotions and other hidden aspects out into the sunlight. The less comfortable we feel acknowledging an aspect of ourselves, the easier it will be for any insights we achieve to slip away and become unacknowledged once more. Every knowledge-mindful leader needs to find their own process for fighting that tendency, and holding on to hard-won insights.

Part of a leader’s job is to help others grow in their knowledge and insights. One way to help team members learn how to learn is to play devil’s advocate. 

Ask questions that cut against the assumptions people have, or that force them to justify the goals they’ve set and the strategies they’re using to achieve those goals. One of the great things about playing devil’s advocate is that people usually recognize what you’re doing. As a result, they don’t feel you’re attacking them. They know you’re asking questions to test out new ways of thinking, bring biases or emotions to the surface, or acquire new insights.

Often our own ego becomes our greatest enemy. By making space for reflection, we can break down our illusions and find the pathways that lead us to renewal and growth.

Modeling that kind of maturity is a great way to lead others on your team to reflection and renewal too. You can’t simply order your team to grow, or dictate what they need to realize. Instead of telling your team that they’ve failed, or that their ideas are flawed, try encouraging them to reflect on how they arrived at a particular way of understanding a problem. 

Offer guidance instead of imposing control, and as the employees talk through and reflect on their own processes, they’ll rethink things and start to question their own underlying assumptions. The key is to ensure that your team knows that while the end results are important, what really matters is building the processes that let you replicate, refine and elevate those results over time. 

This requires evolving your understanding, drawing on new sources of information, and constantly questioning and renewing your ways of thinking and acting. Making mistakes is a natural part of that process, as long as you acknowledge, analyze and learn from them.

To drive results, leaders must learn how to use all of their knowledge and understand how each piece interrelates with another piece, shaping their decisions and interactions with others, and their impact on the world. And that’s what we call “Knowledge Mindfulness.”

Laila Marouf is the founder and chief knowledge officer of The Knowledge Mindfulness Group.