After receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918, Max Planck went on tour across Germany. Wherever he was invited, he delivered the same lecture on new quantum mechanics. Over time, his chauffeur grew to know it by heart: \u2018It has to be boring giving the same speech each time, Professor Planck. How about I do it for you in Munich? You can sit in the front row and wear my chauffeur\u2019s cap. That\u2019d give us both a bit of variety.\u2019 Planck liked the idea, so that evening the driver held a long lecture on quantum mechanics in front of a distinguished audience.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Later, a physics professor stood up with a question.The driver recoiled: \u2018Never would I have thought that someone from such an advanced city as Munich would ask such a simple question! My chauffeur will answer it.\u2019 According to Charlie Munger, one of the world\u2019s best investors (and from whom I have borrowed this story), there are two types of knowledge. First, we have real knowledge. We see it in people who have committed a large amount of time and effort to understanding a topic. The second type is chauffeur knowledge \u2013 knowledge from people who have learned to put on a show. Maybe they have a great voice or good hair, but the knowledge they espouse is not their own. They reel off eloquent words as if reading from a script. Unfortunately, it is increasingly dif\ufb01cult to separate true knowledge from chauffeur knowledge. With news anchors, however, it is still easy. These are actors. Period. Everyone knows it. And yet it continues to astound me how much respect these perfectly-coiffed script readers enjoy, not to mention how much they earn moderating panels about topics they barely fathom.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With journalists, it is more dif\ufb01cult. Some have acquired true knowledge. Often they are veteran reporters who have specialised for years in a clearly de\ufb01ned area. They make a serious effort to understand the complexity of a subject and to communicate it. They tend to write long articles that highlight a variety of cases and exceptions. The majority of journalists, however, fall into the category of chauffeur. They conjure up articles off the tops of their heads, or rather, from Google searches. Their texts are one-sided, short, and \u2013 often as compensation\u00a0for their patchy knowledge \u2013 snarky and self-satisfied in tone. The same super\ufb01ciality is present in business. The larger a company, the more the CEO is expected to possess \u2018star quality\u2019. Dedication, solemnity, and reliability are undervalued, at least at the top. Too often shareholders and business journalists seem to believe that showmanship will deliver better results, which is obviously not the case. To guard against the chauffeur effect, Warren Buffett, Munger\u2019s business partner, has coined a wonderful phrase, \u2018circle of competence\u2019.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What lies inside this circle you understand intuitively; what lies outside, you may only partially comprehend. One of Munger\u2019s best pieces of advice is: \u2018You have to stick within what I call your circle of competence. You have to know what you understand and what you don\u2019t understand. It\u2019s not terribly important how big the circle is. But it is terribly important that you know where the perimeter is.\u2019 Munger underscores this: \u2018So you have to \ufb01gure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don\u2019t, you\u2019re going to lose. And that\u2019s as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to \ufb01gure out where you\u2019ve got an edge. And you\u2019ve got to play within your own circle of competence.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In conclusion: be on the lookout for chauffeur knowledge. Do not confuse the company spokesperson, the ringmaster, the newscaster, the schmoozer, the verbiage vendor or the clich\u00e9 generator with those who possess true knowledge. How do you recognise the difference? There is a clear indicator: true experts recognise the limits of what they know and what they do not know. If they \ufb01nd themselves outside their circle of competence, they keep quiet or simply say, \u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019 This they utter unapologetically, even with a certain pride. From chauffeurs, we hear every line except this.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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\nThe Art of Thinking Clearly<\/strong><\/em>
\nRolf Dobelli<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"