Month: April 2019

Friday, 9.17pm

Sheffield, U.K.

Doctor Who: You want weapons? We’re in a library. Books are the best weapon in the world. This room’s the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself! (from Tooth and Claw in Season 2) – Russell T. Davies

There are two things that I’m thinking about today – and they are sort of related.

The first thing has to do with knowledge – where it is, how to get it and who can help you.

And the second is what that help is worth.

The reason for this is that I’d like to find someone who is an expert on a particular research methodology – someone that can help guide me as I try and learn more about it.

The problem is we’d all like to learn from the best in the field- but what if that isn’t possible – you can’t afford them, they’ve retired or moved on?

In such a situation I’m always reminded of a story my grandmother used to tell.

It was about a boy – a poor one who wanted to be an archer.

His name was Eklavya and he wanted to learn from the best teacher in the land – Drona – the one who taught the royal family.

But he was too poor and Drona refused to take him on.

Eklavya was undaunted. He went into the forest and built a clay statue of Drona and practised in front of it – treating the statue as his teacher – as his guru.

And he became good – so good in fact that when Drona and the royal princes came across him practising they realised that he was better than them.

Things didn’t turn out too well for him, but before we get to that…

There is a concept in India called gurudakshina.

Teachers, or gurus, didn’t charge fees for lessons.

Instead, once students had finished learning they gave their teachers a gift – something that showed how they valued what they had received.

A pre-historic pay what you want pricing strategy, if you will.

It was a strong concept back then and Drona, when he realised that Eklavya was going to be better than the princes he tutored, was torn.

Should he be proud of the young archer? Or worried for the future of the kingdom when a poor peasant could be better than the royals?

Eklavya stood before Drona and asked him to ask for anything as gurudakshina – he saw him as his guru even though all he had done was practice in front of a statue.

Drona asked for Eklavya’s right thumb – and the boy severed it and gave it to him – ending his archery dreams.

I did say it didn’t end well…

Now there are more layers of story to this – but for that you need to read the epic.

The point is this – knowledge has no value when it is secret.

If you know something – then until people know what you know they can’t tell if it’s worth anything.

So knowledge is not an asset – not in the sense that you have to control it and use it carefully in case it wears out.

If it’s good people will value it – and value you.

In addition, when you put your knowledge out into the world you lose nothing.

You don’t know less – you haven’t had something stolen from you.

Unless you have a different point of view – one that sees knowledge as a business and something you can make money from.

Which, to be fair, is the foundation of the entire modern education system and the exploding number of courses out there.

Or you could read a book.

The educational business model that looks most appealing, however, is probably one that is closer to the gurudakshina concept.

The online MOOC provider Coursera, for example, lets you audit many courses. You can do the whole course for free – only paying if you want a certificate at the end.

If you’re in the knowledge business – and we all are to some extent – that’s an approach that might be worth adapating and adopting and seeing what that does for you.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Sunday, 7.34pm

Sheffield, U.K.

You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. – Henry Ford

Choosing what you do with your time is one of the most important decisions you will ever make.

Yet many of us are required to make key choices early in life – from the point at which we choose what to study in school to the opportunities we come across when first looking for work.

How many of us started a job that was supposed to last a few weeks and then found ourselves at the same organisation a decade later?

What advice would you give your younger self, knowing what you now know?

This is a hard question to answer, for me anyway, because we don’t know what could have happened if we had made different choices.

One of the early contributors to career development theory was John Holland, an American psychologist and Professor of Sociology.

He came up with the idea that what you do is an expression of who you are – and came up with six types of personality – a formulation called Holland’s Hexagon.

These six types have the following characteristics:

• Realistic people like to get things done.
• Investigative types like to think and watch and understand stuff – working alone rather than in groups.
• Artistic personalities are creative, inventive and more emotional than the others.
• Social people are helpful and want to build supportive, caring relationships.
• Enterprising types want to persuade and lead, be in charge and win.
• Conventional types look for structure and order and want to do things the right way.

You aren’t, however, just one of the types – instead you’re probably a combination with three or so types that you could list in rank order.

For example, you might be primarily an investigative type, who likes getting things done and persuading people, who also likes creative activities.

The main application of Holland’s work has been in career development advice – once you select from the types and get an ordering that describes your preferences – you can then look for careers and jobs that match that list.

The idea is that there is a job that will work for every combination.

You just have to find the match.

The other way of looking at this model is to look at what you do right now – what you’ve been doing for the last month or year and see if your preferences describe your activity.

The chances are good that if you’ve been in work for a while what you do lines up with who you are.

If not, that’s probably why you’re not that happy at work.

Or, on the other hand, you don’t mind the work at all.

In fact, you enjoy it – but it’s the other things about the job that get you down.

The workload, the micro-management, the bullying, the pressure… perhaps a host of other factors.

The appeal of Holland’s model is its simplicity – you can relate to the divisions easily and have a quick view on how you might describe yourself using it.

What the model doesn’t take into account is important too – things like power dynamics, culture, the availability of resources, politics, and personal rapport with colleagues.

In the end, knowing who you are is a start.

A good one.

But very quickly you realise that what matters is who everyone else is and what game they’re playing.

So that requires us to develop the ability to constantly rebuild ourselves over time – to constantly learn and watch and observe.

Because the world is changing – like it always has done.

Our ability to prosper in that changing world will depend on how we see ourselves in it – how we create meaning and purpose and value for ourselves and others.

That means you need to be ready to recreate who you are, to match the needs of what is around you.