An expert is...

A good teacher or an expert is someone who, after listening to you for five seconds, knows :
  • what you know,
  • what you don't know,
  • what you want to know, and
  • what you need to know in order to achieve what you want to know.
Otherwise both of you will be spending unproductive hours going around each other repeatedly.  I am sure you have see this only too often, where two parties confuse each other on different frequencies.

Hence, if you are offering advice, do take a step back and spend five seconds to figure out what the other person knows, does not know, and wants to know, so as to offer what he needs to know.

Comments

Weekend Yachtsman said…
In the world of sailing - of which I have some experience - we say that you can tell how much someone knows from the very first moment they step over the guardrail onto the deck.

Every single thing about that movement tells you what you need to know about your new crewmate.

We also have a saying about total - but overconfident - beginners: "He doesn't even know enough to know how little he knows".
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 6:36:00 AM PST
S/360 said…
Related to your very last sentence is this: http://all-things-pure.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-we-do-not-know.html
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 6:42:00 AM PST
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