CLIP!!
I hope no one objects to strenuously to my resurrecting this thread for
one more thought. Sometimes I have to think things through quite a bit
before I get the viewpoint settled and feel like it is worth expressing.
Formal training is a somewhat new phenomenon in human development. For
years we had apprenticeships where one worked with a master for years or
decades before striking out on ones own. During that time, there may
have been some formal instruction, but most of the instruction was by
example, where real work was performed under tutelage and the result was
a usable (in most cases) piece of work, as well as the apprentice
gaining knowledge and more importantly skills needed to produce works.
Formal training on the other hand generally stresses reading or mental
exercise with the skill development almost and after thought. This
works reasonably well, but the formal training without hands on seldom
produces useful ability. So most professional programs have some form
of internship where one picks up the skills both motor and emotional to
proceed to apply knowledge in a meaningful fashion.
Meaningful education then can be said to have two forms, one is the
manuals and mental preparation, and the other is the executional skills.
However there are two more that are often overlooked in both
apprenticeship and formal education, planning is required in all serious
endeavors and yet is one of the unmentioned skills, strategizing is the
other, because examining what is happening and planning for
contingencies requires that strategy be employed.
Planning is paramount. And while it really determines ones ability to
execute, it is seldom taught hand in hand with either or both of the
other two. Yet, when one is apprenticed to a true master, part of the
educational process is the absorption of the planning that the master
does, although in my experience it is never directly mentioned.
However if one learns in an adhoc manner, the development of planning
takes place as one realizes the gaps in their knowledge. One might
question how the process starts, and arrive at planning from that view
point, or one might look for knowledge in some sequential manner,
learning in the process that current knowledge builds upon prior
success, so planning consists of selecting successful prior experience
and building on it.
Strategizing, however, to be effective must be taught. We can develop
strategy from experience, but the failures can be terrible and
unforgiving, so a failure that could be learned from is seldom
documented, and never mentioned to upcoming apprentices. However those
failures are part of the development of a good strategy. Teaching
effective strategy requires teaching others not only the means to
succeed, but also those things to avoid. Generally parents give us some
insight into strategy by showing us things to avoid. Don't and no are
parents primary tools to keep us out of trouble, avoiding unsuccessful
endeavors and affecting our strategies for survival. We pick up the
means to avoid the errors our parents know about, and in some cases,
learn that our parents were right, so re-enforcing the earlier lessons
that they passed on to us. But when have you ever seen a lesson on
strategy for successful living or successful management? Typically only
after a company or yourself have made some catastrophic blunder
(financial crises anyone?)
What I am trying to get at by this meandering is that our formal and
informal methods teach us more than we thought, and in some cases, the
things we learn are not what the teachers intended. Sort of the
trainers book of unintended consequences. So teachers with little
exposure to the real world can seldom provide us with strategies for the
real world. Conversely masters with skills in the real world seldom
provide us with glimpses of their own failures. The sum of these two
pieces means that there is a large body of knowledge to which we have no
direct access. Moreover history seldom records the true sequence of
events that leads to disaster, only that disaster happens and then finds
someone to scapegoat, while the most valuable piece of knowledge, that
of why is left to die on the vine, opening the door for a repeat.
Today with massive on line documentation, that is fast becoming
archaic. Accuracy of planning and strategizing is evolving at a rate
driven by Moores Law. However human nature being what it is, the
acquired knowledge won't make it into most hands for many decades, I
think. Engineers are leading the charge. The evolution of statistical
analysis of engineering failures permits engineers to look to the future
of their designs and head off catastrophic failures as never before.
Unfortunately not everyone follows the data and/or believes it yet.
Others cherry pick the data they want to use, often ignoring "outliers"
which is where real knowledge lies.
If you want to know why airplanes fail, examine the outliers, both
those that never fail and those that fail more often or more
catastrophically.
Once this makes it into mainstream, many things will change for the
better if people stick to analyzing all aspects of all the raw data.
This is why it is impossible to say that formal training is better than
adhoc knowledge, and is the prime reason that both formal training and
informal training are necessary and valuable to all professions. In
other words we are all have something to share.
Just my opinion.
Les H
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