Jesse's Blog

This is a repost of an article I wrote for my company blog ages back thinking about how people deal with knowledge based jobs.

When it comes to how people handle knowledge in their professional lives, you find two ends of the spectrum: Dragons and Minstrels.

Dragons love to hoard what they know.

They tend to amass a wealth of useful information, and if you get the chance to look at some of the things that they're sitting on, you find rare gems that haven't seen the light of day in generations.

Unfortunately, dragons aren't all that good at sharing. The knowledge they've store away is, in their minds, a form of job security, and woe betide the poor mortal who tries to ask for something. Dragons will roast you alive, or bite your head off.

It's a shame, really. Knowledge is the life blood of a company in the modern age, and so allowing a dragon to keep that to themselves is a disservice to the company as a whole. In every story, dragons are eventually slain, because the hoard they obtained made them a target.

On the other side of the spectrum, you've got the Minstrel. Like all good things, information sharing can be taken to extremes.

Minstrels are the ones that never seem to complete projects, never seem to contribute, but always seem to be standing around talking about something or other.

They seem to appear out of nowhere, singing about something they've learned while others are trying their best to get something done. Minstrels have great intentions, however what they fail to understand is that in singing about their knowledge lends nothing to the company's ultimate success or failure, because that information is not replicable.

If this person had spent their time instead by producing written content, teaching through Q & A, submitted to existing, searchable bodies of knowledge, or in using that knowledge to further a goal to completion, then this person wouldn't be a minstrel. This person actually falls closer to the center of the spectrum, and is a welcome contributer.

In any profession, we start by absorbing information, and during this time, we are an investment made by those who teach us. However, as anyone who studies martial arts will tell you, there will come a point where you literally cannot be taught anything more. The only way to further your skills is to teach others. When you teach, you must review the basics and in doing so, learn them in greater depth with your more experienced eyes.

I'll leave you with this question; where on this spectrum do you fall?