#398 Knowledge versus experience
Knowledge versus experience
Aspects of management work
Knowledge is important.
Hardly anyone will dispute this statement. However, it is usually argued, often rightly, that experience is just as important to be able to implement knowledge in a practical and targeted manner. However, the relationship between knowledge and experience is not simple. The relationship is often unclear, difficult, ambiguous, and frequently contradictory. Just last week, I was presented with a job advert for comment in which it was clear that if all the requirements in terms of knowledge and experience were met, then A-Levels would have been compulsory at the age of 16. This approach is not realistic.
How should we deal with the aspects of knowledge and experience?
Definition
Knowledge is written down. Knowledge is documented. It is not a collection of concurring opinions. Knowledge is based on findings from valid and reliable methods (more on these in the podcast; see links below). Knowledge evolves and adapts accordingly over time as insights are gained. Experience, on the other hand, is based on self-experienced moments. These were experienced, internalised and led to values and ways of acting. Views and beliefs are also derived from this. However, experiences can sometimes be based on very small amounts of experience. If you have had three bad experiences in your life with people who have worn blue shoes, you will avoid them, even though the number of n=3 provides no basis for this. It is therefore important to mention that experience is important, but should not be equated with facts or knowledge.
Relevance
Both aspects mentioned are relevant for organisations. Undoubtedly, knowledge is the basis for performance and value contribution in the organisation. A passion for a topic, an interest or a brief familiarisation with a topic alone does not entitle an employee to take the lead on a topic. Until the early 2000s, the mistake of putting people with a business degree who were not experts in a subject in front of people with expertise was made. Today, we know that specialised knowledge is important. A lateral entry is never out of the question, but managers must also learn quickly and comprehensively and not want to lead.
Experience is a good guideline, but it must be scrutinised substantially. Experience alone must not be allowed to manifest itself as knowledge or even facts and be fixed as immutable. Equating experience with facts is not permissible or expedient. Experience, on the other hand, can be extremely helpful in certain situations. If you encounter a question you cannot answer during negotiation and receive negative consequences, you will learn to prepare yourself better. After 15, 20 or even 25 years in an industry, you will rarely encounter moments when you are asked questions that take you by surprise. This experience is, therefore, extremely helpful in terms of pragmatic application and practical realisation.
Realisation
Operate a proactive knowledge management system. Experience is also documented in corresponding systems. If you encounter problem topic Y with negotiator X, other people in your organisation will not necessarily encounter the same situation and the resulting problems. However, you should also accept that knowledge is easily transferable, whereas experience is only transferable to a limited extent. If you had to document all your experiences from now on, you would forget aspects. This aspect applies in particular to any kind of experience that you already take for granted. Knowledge is transferable, experience only to a limited extent. To close the gap between the two aspects, offer seminars, coaching, mentoring, etc., so that the best possible result is secured in the long term.
Conclusion: Knowledge and experience - a successful organisation knows, uses and values both factors.
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More on this topic in this week's podcast: Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the podcast transcript, read below.
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Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn
Website: www.NB-Networks.biz
Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.
Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, moderator.
Podcast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
Knowledge . Probably when you listen to this podcast as a business podcast you probably have some knowledge and you also have some experience . The question is how to deal with both of these aspects in your organization . We most likely agree that knowledge is important . However, most people will say knowledge alone doesn't make the cut . You need to have the experience to make the knowledge worthwhile . And that's exactly where the problem begins . Often the relationship between knowledge and experience in organization is a very unclear one . It's difficult, it's often ambiguous, people don't know how to define or put certain measurements or certain weights on one or the other and often the relationship between the two is even contradictory . I give you a very simple example . Just during a workshop of last week we looked at a job ad where they for a quite junior leadership position they listed quite something they expected as experience and we tried to do the best math we could . However, even even when you are really optimistic and anyone does anything and absolutely everything and anything on their first attempt right, which most likely no one will do, that job ad asked for someone who did their a levels at the age of 16 at the very latest . If you only do the math of what experience was expected and that of course that let's face it there aren't many people who do their A levels at the age of 16 . The question is how do you deal with these aspects ? How do you deal with knowledge ? How do you deal with experience ? So first of course define that . The definition . Knowledge is written somewhere . It is proven . It's based on evidence . It's based on facts and these facts were found with valid and reliable methods . And of course now some people might say oh god no not the scientific stuff again . Yes the scientific stuff again because otherwise we're just doing chit chat and chumbawamba . We need to get to the facts here . Reliable means when you repeat the whole experiment the same result appears . I'll give you an example . Let's say you have a scale and you have a certain weight . And you put the weight on the scale and it says 50 gram . And that's cool . It works . So you measure it again 50 gram . Measure it again 50 gram . So it's reliable . When you do it again and again you get the same result . However, the question is is the result valid ? Because when this scale is very old and probably doesn't show the right numbers you measure 50 gram 50 gram 50 gram but it's actually a hundred . It just shows you the wrong number . So reliability and validity have to have both need to be met . I'll give you another example . Let's say you want to know if your employees are happy or not . And what you do is you do surveys . It's a reliable method to find that if people are happy or not . And the question is what do I ask in this survey ? I'm going to ask you about are you happy with your salary ? The second question is do you like the office furniture ? And the third question is are the windows cleaned regularly ? And then I have a result . And now you might say wait Neil wait what about work life balance ? What about colleagues ? What about teamwork ? What about the atmosphere ? What about the corporate culture ? The work culture ? What about the benefits we offer etcetera ? So you probably have 20 more questions in mind and exactly you are right with that . Reliability and validity are not easy to match . That by the way is the reason why people who do not stick to that can chat more nonsense in five minutes then scientists can prove wrong in five years . When you don't have to stick to valid and reliable methods, so for example motivational inspirational speakers often tell people if you believe in yourself you will have the most amazing career and get what you want . And there's scientific evidence to that that this is not correct . When you are born in a war zone and you are a persecuted minority, you can believe in yourself as much as you want . Your life will most likely not be great without external help . So valid and reliable methods both need to be met . Otherwise we're not talking about knowledge . And by the way, knowledge develops . It adapts by time . It's not that science has ever lied . It's that science just continues to do research and then you find out better solutions . It's not that penicillin was hidden away for the elite or whatever conspiracy ideology you often hear that, it just wasn't found . When it was found it was published and then was made available to the general public . So it's very important that knowledge develops . However when we now look into experience . Experience means you live through something by yourself . It is it is in your inner self . It forms your values . It is the guideline for certain ways how you act and also form certain viewpoints and also your your beliefs . Your belief system is based on experience . I give you very simple example here . When someone in a business context puts you, in a certain situation where you find out at the end, oh, I invested money but the investment scheme was fraudulent so the money is gone now and the person selling it to me had green shoes and the next person selling you some investment scheme also had green shoes and again it was a fraudulent scheme then by experience you will probably say people with green shoes are people who sell fraudulent investment schemes and of course that is that might be reliable because it happened a couple of times but it's not valid because you can't connect green shoes with fraudulent investment schemes . However, often people say my my ideas, my beliefs, anything which is based on my experience is the only thing that works and that's by the way a huge problem especially in today's times . When we look at the relevance for organizations of knowledge and experience, We have to get to the point and I know this is a hard point, it's a hard pill to swallow, knowledge is the foundation of any value delivery . That's why we have preschool, kindergarten, school, then we have different exams you have to do, then we have different schools afterwards from high school to college to university, from bachelor's to master's degree to PhDs, EDs, DBAs, or vocational training in any kind of certificates and whatnot . Knowledge is the foundation of any kind of value add . I give you a very simple example . Let's say you go to the dentist and someone says look this whole knowledge thing I just watched YouTube videos I didn't go to university just open your mouth now . You probably won't . And by the way, I wouldn't do either . So it's very important to know knowledge is the foundation of any value creation . And if you don't believe in that, that's exactly the problem of belief systems because this is a fact . I give you an example of what has gone wrong in the nineteen nineties up to the early two thousands . There were people who said, well, these people who study, people who study business administration or economics, they just become managers because you can lead . You know all the theory . So here we go . And, of course, it didn't go down too well . I give you a very simple example . If someone would now say, Niels, you become a department leader in the automobile industry . If it's probably if it's an IT team, it will do well . If it's a project management team, I might do well . I think I could . However, with the engineering part, we have to see how much is in there . If I should lead an engineering department, people would say, Prabant, what do you wanna tell me ? You're not even an engineer . You don't even have an engineering background . You don't know what we do here . However, at a certain point in time, some people decided, by the way, people who studied business administration and economics, they decided that having that degree qualifies you to lead absolutely anywhere . And that of course is factually wrong . You need to have knowledge on the subject matter or you have to learn very quickly . These are the two options you have here . Experience however can be very good guidelines . Still it has to be questions . It it needs to be questioned . You you cannot manifest state experience and say we now put experience on the level of knowledge and facts because that's not how anything works . However, experience can help you in situations more than knowledge could do for example in certain situations . When you have a negotiation and suddenly someone puts a point forward you didn't expect and you lose the negotiation over that point, then you will learn the next time you're better prepared . And then probably a year later this happens again with a different point . And then you learn and learn and learn by experience that when you're in the industry for ten, fifteen years, you probably don't hear any questions you haven't heard before . That is where experience can help . Experience is very pragmatic . Experience helps you in this situation . Experience helps you in that very moment because you can't sit down and say, oh, just let me get a book to get my knowledge out here . That doesn't work in a in a moment of negotiation . The question is how do you now implement all of that in organization ? So first, you need to have an active knowledge management . And probably you heard the phrase, this organization has no ears, which means people say something, something very important, but it's never documented . It it just doesn't happen . Nothing actually happens . So it just gets lost . And that's the problem . You need active knowledge management . Document everything in the CRM system for example, customer relationship management . So the next generation in the organization, other people can see what's happening here . When negotiation partner x doesn't want to talk about topic y and you found that out the hard way, the next people negotiating with that person should know about this before they run into the same issue, problem, challenge situation . However, with everything you now have as an experience, let's say I give you a task . I tell you could you please sit down and document everything of your experience and no matter how hard you try you will forget something . And why ? Because there are certain aspects of the work you do which you consider so much of common sense because they are so deeply ingrained in your experience that you say no one can do that wrong . That's just common sense . I don't have to write that down . You wouldn't even think of writing it down and then other people do it wrong and you realize, oh, that's an issue for thumb, couldn't have thought . Knowledge can be transferred that happens via schools, universities, business schools, trade schools, whatnot . However, experience only to a limited extent can be transferred And to bridge that gap between knowledge and experience and how to transfer both of them together, this is why you have seminars, workshops, coachings, mentoring, and this is what you need to offer as an organization . When we wrap all of this up to get it to one point, knowledge and experience a successful organization knows both of these aspects, uses both of these aspects and very importantly values both of these aspects . Because only when you value both of these aspects you can be sustainably successful . And I wish you all the best doing so . And when you now say, that, probably is a bit of work and maybe we are not doing too well here . No problem . Let's just have a chat . Feel free to contact me . My email address is nb@nb-networks.com . In the show notes of this podcast, I will put in for you my email address, my LinkedIn . Feel free to connect with me on that And also my website nb-networks.biz . You'll also find the transcript of this podcast on that website . If you want to talk about, by the way, about very specific training, coaching, speaking, whatever, cool . If you wanna talk about something just very general, have a couple of questions and we just have a chat about that, cool as well . So feel free to contact me on any matter . The second aspect is also very important . Register for the leadership letter when you go to expert.nb-networks.com because we have live sessions . You can put your email address in there . And as soon as you do so, you only receive one email on the Wednesday morning . And in this email, you have a % content ad free guarantee . 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Apply apply apply what you heard in this podcast because only when you apply what you heard you will see the positive aspects that you obviously want to see in your organization . I wish you all the best doing so . If you need any kind of help, let me know . Feel free to contact me . I'm available 247, and I answer any message within twenty four hours or less . I'm looking forward to hearing from you, and now I wish you all the best implementing all of this in your organization . At the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say . Thank you very much for your time .