💃 The Curse of (Salesforce) Knowledge🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerd! You ever get that cold and prickly feeling the stakeholder across from you isn’t picking up what you’re putting down?

A former client had asked for a custom solution to their business problem. I was walking them through a solution. Nothing fancy, just a multi-object architecture with some automation and conditional visibility logic. At the end, they nodded. Emphatically. “Yup, got it.”

Who am I to tell a heavy-nodder “nah, you don’t got it!”

A week later, they asked me why they couldn’t edit the child records directly from the parent object 🤦.

The Curse of Knowledge strikes again!

WHAT IS IT?

What is The Curse of Knowledge?

The Curse of Knowledge is a psychological phenomenon where, once you know something, it’s hard to remember what it was like not to know it. So when you're explaining a Salesforce solution, you assume more shared understanding than actually exists 🙁.

It's like trying to teach someone to ride a bike by describing gyroscopic balance and torque instead of just saying, “stare at the horizon and pedal hard!”

Your brain forgets how to be a beginner, and your stakeholder pays the price.

You talk about “Flows,” “Record Types,” and “Objects and Relationships” like you’re explaining how to make toast.

😵‍💫 “Process builders will be deprecated soon.”

🥵 “Actually this is data conversion, not data migration. They’re not the same.”

😵 “Here’s the swagger document, just go to Postman and hit the API. Send me the json response when you get it.”

This may be ABC’s to you. But to your stakeholder? It’s all spaghetti squash…aka the worst kinda spaghetti 😫. And because they don’t want to look foolish, or because they trust you, they nod and agree.

And then the real trouble starts.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

Why It’s a Curse

I ❤️ football. I was born in it. I was raised in it. But I have no idea what Cooper said there 😬.

If the stakeholder doesn’t understand what you’re telling them? You’re going to waste time building a technically beautiful, completely unused, quietly (or loudly 😅) resented Salesforce feature.

Your polished, efficient, enterprise-level Salesforce solution might be completely wrong…and no one will tell you 😬.

It boils down to understanding. Specifically, your stakeholders having a firm grasp on what you’re telling them, the options you’re providing them, the resources required to implement, the upstream and downstream impacts, the compromise, the sacrifice, the value-add, the reduction in clicks.

You 🫵 need to deliver this understanding to your stakeholders.

Here’s Steve Jobs explaining the impossible - the meaning of life - in 90 seconds and in a way a 5 year old can understand-

HOW TO AVOID THE CURSE!

Your Curse’s Apotropaic

Rule number 1, don’t use ridiculous words that nobody understands, like apotropaic!

That was a bonus rule. Here’s 3 practical tools to avoid the Curse of Knowledge with your stakeholders-

🧑‍🏫 Teach Backs

After explaining a feature or solution, ask-

“Can you walk me through how you think this will work, just to make sure I explained it clearly?”

Not a quiz….just a check. You’ll catch confusion early.

Be empathetic in your approach. When someone doesn’t understand, they may feel embarrassed and vulnerable. They need to feel like they’re in a safe place when you ask them to explain it back.

↔️ Use Analogies

Metaphors are magic.

“This is like a vending machine. The user picks a snack type, and Salesforce drops the right record.”

Analogies link familiar concepts with the unfamiliar.

🫡 Relentlessly Validate

Don’t stop at, “Do you understand?”

Try👇

“What would success look like with this feature?”

“What would go wrong if we launched this as-is?”

“Is this how you’d explain it to your boss?”

Push for answers that reflect real understanding, not polite head nods 💯.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Takeaway

Being technically smart is table stakes 💯.

So if your technical talent is a given, then what is your real value? It’s helping people understand.

Salesforce professionals who translate, teach, and validate don’t just deliver better solutions, they build trust, avoid rework, and directly inject value into their users and the business 💉.

So nix the curse (apotropaic!). Don’t fall under the Curse of Knowledge. Arm your stakeholders with easily digested knowledge 🧠.

SOUL FOOD

Today’s Principle

and now....Your Salesforce Memes