A college graduate is armed with book knowledge and skills, ready to take on the world. For most, it doesn’t take long to realize the limits of that book knowledge. Experience is key in any endeavor, and experience takes time to build. There are no shortcuts.
That’s not to say that book knowledge doesn’t have value. Of course it does. It’s just that book knowledge is pretty much all you bring to the table early in your career. As the years go by, however, your experience contributes a greater and greater portion of your total productive value. Knowledge and skills will always be important, and workers must continually learn, but there will always be more college graduates to hire for book knowledge. As a veteran worker, your value is increasingly found in the wisdom base that you’ve spent years building. You’ve made good decisions and bad decisions, you’ve seen projects succeed and fail, you’ve seen good employees and bad employees… and you’ve developed the instincts to recognize which is which long before they come to fruition.
In other words, your “wisdom-knowledge ratio” increases as you age.
Knowledge is usually interchangeable. Experience usually is not. It’s a unique quality, and thus carries tremendous value. Are you putting your wisdom base to productive use?
Tags: advisor, wisdom base
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on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 12:39 pm and is filed under Advisor Tips, Commentary.
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The Wisdom-Knowledge Ratio
by AdvisorCatalystA college graduate is armed with book knowledge and skills, ready to take on the world. For most, it doesn’t take long to realize the limits of that book knowledge. Experience is key in any endeavor, and experience takes time to build. There are no shortcuts.
That’s not to say that book knowledge doesn’t have value. Of course it does. It’s just that book knowledge is pretty much all you bring to the table early in your career. As the years go by, however, your experience contributes a greater and greater portion of your total productive value. Knowledge and skills will always be important, and workers must continually learn, but there will always be more college graduates to hire for book knowledge. As a veteran worker, your value is increasingly found in the wisdom base that you’ve spent years building. You’ve made good decisions and bad decisions, you’ve seen projects succeed and fail, you’ve seen good employees and bad employees… and you’ve developed the instincts to recognize which is which long before they come to fruition.
In other words, your “wisdom-knowledge ratio” increases as you age.
Knowledge is usually interchangeable. Experience usually is not. It’s a unique quality, and thus carries tremendous value. Are you putting your wisdom base to productive use?
Tags: advisor, wisdom base
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 12:39 pm and is filed under Advisor Tips, Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.