DaChispa

I had a problem accessing my wireless connection recently so rang my service provider for help. I had a very clear idea of what I thought it wasn’t so kept ignoring the suggestion of the technical guy on the end of the line by telling him ‘no it can’t be that because it hasn’t changed’. Eventually, with gentle persistence, he got me to do what he asked and, lo and behold, the problem was resolved. This was clearly a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing and is a microcosm of another issue that I see all the time in business. We bring in an expert to help solve a problem or deliver a solution and then only implement it if it fits our pre-defined concept of what we are expecting. Maybe if we didn’t frame the problem in the form of the answer we think we want and really listened to what they were saying, we might get better results.

I have learnt a valuable lesson – listen to the experts. They usually have more experience than you and can actually be right!