The Sanford Berenberg Experience: Learning the risks of Learning

Good morning,

I love to learn new things. And just about everybody will admit that new knowledge is a good thing to have. Unfortunately there's a risk to gaining new knowledge.

In many cases the knowledge that we learn is far from the subject matter. That is, we learn part of something, and not all. Then again, very few subjects can be learned in one 30 minute sitting.

This sounds very intuitive and really should be a simple concept for everyone to understand, yet we often forget this.

Take the executive who gets his first call center assigned to him. He reads a book or two on how call centers work, and now manages that call center as if he was an expert with this tunnel of information. The actual call center managers, with wider and more extensive knowledge and experience in the subject, have to cope with this very narrow focused manager who thinks he's an expert.

I have seen this over many years and in many areas of life. From the drug addicted college student who becomes a born-again Christian knowing three verses of the Bible to the seasoned operations manager who has run the same operation the same way, year after year for 20 years, both have a limited scope of knowledge, but act as if what they know handles all situations.

Knowledge in and of itself is neither good nor bad, it is only what is done with it.

With more knowledge, used appropriately, more things can be done for the benefit of others.

Knowledge used inappropriately, like ignorance, can often go and hurt others in many different ways.

The goal is to understand what knowledge we have learned, and, sometimes more importantly, to understand what we have yet to learn. That part is often the hardest because we often do not know what we do not know until we learn a little bit more of what we do not know. Sounds confusing, sadly often is. John Kennedy, son of President John F Kennedy, died in a plane crash as he knew how to navigate and fly an aircraft by sight, but he had not learned to fly by instruments alone. His last flight was at night, when he could not see as well. He had part of the information on how to fly, but not the information he needed as difficult situations arose.

One trick is to understand that the more that we know equates to the more that we do not know. If we approach all situations both with the knowledge that we have and the understanding that we do not have all of the knowledge, we better prepare ourselves to succeed and the same time learn more but we do not know.

That means those who are smug about knowing something learn they need to change their attitude and realize there's a lot more out there. That those who know little and are afraid that they don't know much at all need to realize that they are often wiser than those who think they know.

Knowledge is a tool, like a shovel in a shed it is one tool which can do specific jobs certainly isn't the only tool needed.

Get out there and learn, but realize as you learn, what more you still need to learn. Good news is that you can Learn and Grow daily, every day of your life.

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.learnandgrowdaily.com

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com