Are You Cursed By Book Knowledge?

Reading books is usually a good idea, but it comes with a downside which can make you a poor consultant.

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The Failure Of Digital Nomads

Fourteen years ago Dell teamed up with a group of marketing influencers to launch a website and white paper for Digital Nomads.

The goal was to promote the launch of a new range of notebooks (essentially mini-laptops).

This seemed like a good idea to everyone at the time. Improved internet connections, a globalised economy, and changing social trends portended an explosion of people working from anywhere.

But have you actually tried working from anywhere?

Have you tried working from cafes, restaurants, and, of course, the beach?

The more people experienced digital nomadism, the more they turned against it. They would work from anywhere when they had to (e.g. at airports and in hotels on work trips). But most people would opt against it when given the choice.

I spent a year on the road from 2014 to 2015. The problems with being a digital nomad become apparently pretty quickly:

• It’s hard to develop a fixed routine.

• Time zone differences.

• Glare on your laptop screen.

• Unreliable internet connections.

• Some software platforms are blocked in some countries.

• If you go to the bathroom, you have to bring your laptop with you or risk someone stealing it.

• It’s hard to focus on work when you’re in an exotic location.

• It’s often expensive (you have to buy things to sit in a cafe).

This is a classic example of the knowledge vs. experience clash.

If you read up on the major trends and thought intuitively about the idea, you might have recommended hopping aboard the digital nomad trend. But if you had personally experienced it, you probably wouldn’t.

Aside: All the reasons above are why remote work is so popular compared with digital nomadism. People love working from home because none of the above will apply.

Perhaps the slight irony in this story is digital nomadism has become much more popular in the past few years but primarily with the creator audience who sell the lifestyle to their own followers.

Too Much Theory Can Be A Problem

Too much book knowledge can be dangerous. Often you simply need first-hand experience to really make good recommendations.

The best example of too much book knowledge over the past couple of years has come from the Web3 folks.

There has been no shortage of people expounding the benefits of Bitcoin, NFTs, blockchain and tokenomics.

But very few of them had had any direct experience in trying to utilise it.

Bitcoin sounds like a great idea until you actually trying to pay for something in Bitcoin.

Once you have direct experience, you quickly realise that it doesn’t really solve any problems and it’s largely just hype propagated by people for a range of vested interests. Some want attention, others want to make a quick buck.

The problem with having primarily book knowledge expertise on a topic is it makes you feel like you are an expert when you’re really an academic (or, maybe, even a historian). There’s nothing wrong with academics or historians, but we recognise the limitations in the advice they can share.

I’ve often found people with book knowledge on a topic are remarkably overconfident in their recommendations. They also fail to recognise uncertainty in the way people with first hand experience do.

Know The Limits Of Book Knowledge

Books are a metaphor of course. A metaphor we’re using to also encompass blogs, magazines, newspapers, and any resource acquired through reading, listening, or watching…rather than doing.

And this doesn’t mean that reading books is a bad idea. It would be worrying if you didn’t read books relevant to the sector you’re in. Staying close to the cutting edge of the industry is a good thing to do. It simply means you need to know the limitations of book knowledge.

There simply aren’t enough trees in the world to hold all of the information that books leave out. You can read books about leadership and team meetings, but it’s hard to learn how to sound authentic, adopt the right body language, tone of voice, facial expressions and more from book knowledge. Some things you just learn by doing (and trial and error).

I’ve read more books on strategy than most people. Pretty much every book assumes you can simply tell people what to do and they will do it. The book assumes you have plenty of time to do all the research and background work you need. The messy reality of sitting in meetings with stakeholders, looking them in the eye, and gaining their support is rarely covered. Yet that’s the entire ball game.

The best way to think about books is they give you the big picture - almost like a summary of an experience. They can provide useful advice, but not deep expertise in the topic. Often they outline what should happen if everything goes well and everyone does what they’re supposed to do. It’s important to know what should happen

You can read books on dating, raising children, or even martial arts for example. But it would be laughable to claim to be an expert on either without going through it.

Try To Surface Limitations In Your Knowledge

This creates a problem, however. As a consultant, you can’t experience every scenario yourself before making a recommendation. Recommendations often cover a broad range of topics and you’re just one person.

It’s also not practical to become an employee of a company for a few months to gain first-hand experience.

But what you can do is go through an observational analysis process and see how processes are implemented today (and uncover why). You can observe the experience first-hand.

Look For Reasons Why You Might Be Wrong

I’d recommend you proactively try to find the limitations of your knowledge or surface reasons why your objections won’t work.

A while ago I wrote about why clients often don’t implement consultant’s recommendations. One of those reasons is a failure to consider the implications at the ground level.

A good solution to that is to speak to people at the ground level and ask them to let you know why your recommendations might not work. You can always ask questions such as:

“What would be the problem if [potential recommendation] was implemented here?”

“What are the main reasons why [recommendation] hasn’t been successful before?”

“If [company] implemented [recommendation], what would the impacts be for you?”

If you get a shrug or comments like “not sure it’s even been considered” or “not sure” then you’re on to a winner. But, believe me, most of the time you will get a terrific list of reasons from someone with hands-on expertise about why your recommendations will crash against the messy reality on the ground.

And that’s exactly the kind of knowledge you need to make better recommendations.

Summary

You can and should consume information widely on your topic. In many cases, you should have deep knowledge of the topics you’re giving advice on. It’s hard to make great recommendations without out.

But be humble about this knowledge. Recognise that your knowledge makes you an academic, not an expert. There is a danger of overconfidence if you read too widely.

Expertise comes from combining book knowledge with hands-on experience. If you can’t gain that experience, then make sure you’re investing a huge amount of time on any project with the people who do have that experience.