Really Knowing

When do you really know something? Is it when you can recite it on demand? Must you further be able to manipulate it to help you make decisions, chart courses of action? Or, must you actually understand it?

There are distinct differences between all three of these levels of knowledge possession. In particular, it is useful – important – to not mistake the second for the third.

But let’s start with the first. Have you ever consulted with someone who seemed to have an impressive grasp of the general nature of your business, but could never come to grips with your particular problem? This is the memorizer. This person has only a tenuous possession of the information, a superficially theoretical understanding that, while internally coherent, cannot be meaningfully applied to issues encountered in the real world, or used to comprehend them.

Read the rest of Jim Stroup at Managing Leadership.

"Detroit in Four Squares"

Political Calculations uses a chart to analyze the performance of the U.S. automakers and then suggests how they could be really bold.

Quote of the Day

An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.

- Agatha Christie

Blue Ribbon Gallery

Fortune has a slide show of which companies made most of its lists, such as the Fortune 500 and the Best Companies to Work For.

Museums of Boredom

Have you ever gone to a history museum and concluded that the heavy hand of academia has crushed the joy and excitement?


Andrew Ferguson explores one example:

In an age of hyperspecialization, profs and curators face the same professional hazard: As they burrow into the remotest crannies of whatever sub-sub-subdiscipline has entranced them, they forget what their jobs are for. A far-gone English professor will try to turn freshmen into deconstructionist literary theorists when all they really want is for someone to explain what The Golden Bowl is supposed to be about; in the same way a museum curator will forget why people come to look at museums in the first place. At the Smithsonian the curators appeared lost in a dorm room bull session or the defense of a second-rate dissertation. A wall plaque from a recent exhibit gives the flavor: "In daily life, national identity often merges, overlaps, and interacts with many other kinds of identities, [which] can help illuminate the forces that have shaped American history." The plaque was alongside a display of a cheesehead hat from the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign.

Which is More Dangerous?

All things being equal, which subordinate is more dangerous to the average boss?

1. The saboteur?
2. The bully?
3. The weakling?
4. The sycophant?
5. The overt enemy?

Quote of the Day

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

- Plutarch

Making Matters Complicated

There are several proven ways to complicate matters. Among them are:

1. Call in the lawyers.
2. Have a dispute about one issue with more than one government agency.
3. Appoint an 18 person committee to address the situation.
4. Appoint more than one committee and let their responsibilities overlap.
5. Bring in teams of consultants from different firms.
6. Have multiple missions.
7. Establish at least seven management tiers and never reduce those in a crisis.
8. Punish simplicity and reward complexity.
9. Let jargon flourish.
10. Frequently change the goals.
11. Reorganize every four months.
12. Hoard vital information.

"Great Books of the Western World"

Bring this back!

L. Gordon Crovitz on The Great Books program. An excerpt:

These were not just any books, but "Great Books of the Western World," marketed by Encyclopaedia Britannica. The authors included Aristotle, Aquinas, Milton, Locke, Hume and Mill along with some especially dense texts such as Apollonius' "On Conic Sections." The celebrities who bought the special Founders' Edition at $500 per leather-bound set included David Ben-Gurion, Frank Capra, Marshall Field, Conrad Hilton, Henry Luce and Walter Lippmann.

The Great Books were marketed door-to-door through the 1960s with the message that anyone could become well-read. "The ability to discuss and clarify basic ideas is vital to access. Doors open to the man who possesses this talent," read one advertisement. Another said, "Great Books alone can't make you a vice-president. Or chairman of the board. But they can stimulate your mind, and sharpen your judgment."

Execupundit Update: In the fifties, many an elementary school book report may have been based on this great series: http://www.tkinter.smig.net/ClassicsIllustrated/index.htm

Quote of the Day

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;
Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow