The Fallacy of Subject Matter Expertise

Musical notation is a mystery to me, always will be. I’ve long since given up trying to decipher treble clefs and bass clefs and what notes go where. Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, I think was the aide memoire, and I forget if that was for the lines or the spaces.

It would help, I suppose, if I were musically talented, but I’m not. Not even remotely.

But just suppose I buckled down and forced myself to learn, and learn thoroughly, what it means if a note has one flag or two, if several are joined together, and how sharps and flats work. What makes a minor key? What’s a seventh or a fifth?

Here’s the thing: no matter how much of this stuff I finally committed to memory, and got a good sense of the theory behind it, it would have little practical benefit because I can’t make music.

Now, here’s the flip side. You know, and I know, scores of very talented musicians who can’t read a lick of music. Not a note. Yet they pick up any instrument you may offer them and in no time they’ll master it, join a band, and make money entertaining.

It’s not just music – it’s pretty well any field of endeavor. Take law, for example.

I’ve known any number of poor souls who laid out a king’s ransom of money, spent three arduous years, and managed to get a certificate with Juris Doctor on it, but because they can’t solve problems in a practical way, they’ll never succeed at the practice of law. Exactly the same is true of engineers, business students, and architects. We don’t primarily test for ability to actually do something with the knowledge, we test mainly for knowledge, or more realistically, to regurgitate it on exam day. Some professions are better than others, to be sure.

Does this mean that the acquisition of subject matter knowledge is a waste? Absolutely not. Knowledge is the tool, or device, which the professional will use in the application of their inherent skills to solve problems specific to the art. Just as owning a full set of power tools doesn’t make you a contractor, being a contractor without tools is just as futile. You need both the tools and the ability, or in the case of diplomaed professionals, the subject knowledge and the aptitude to apply it.

In fact, once you’re in the profession and have sorted out your niche, you can never get too much subject matter knowledge. Poor lawyers begrudge every minute they “have to spend” taking continuing education, picking the “bird courses” they can watch with one eye while they still grind out billable work with the other. Consequential lawyers read the law thirstily, keeping up-to-the-minute on case law and statutory development in their narrow field, thinking not only about the outcome of the cases, but feeling the pulse of the analysis, the subtle undertones of evolving legal theory.

Great professionals don’t need mandatory continuing education, they continue to absorb knowledge at the leading edge and they constantly hone and perfect their skills. They do it because they love it, and they love it because they do it. A rather nice virtuous circle.