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Tue, 01 Feb 2005

More on Ignorance

Laurent is running a dojo. Christophe, one of the members of the dojo, made this comment about why the dojo is different than work:

"At work, it's not well seen to voluntarily uncover whole zones of our own ignorance."

As a family therapist I was taught to throw off the notion that I had expert knowledge about other peoples' lives. To approach people with a not knowing stance. This is a hard pill to swallow, whether you're a newbie therapist or newbie programmer. Your instincts tell you to hide your ignorance, to feign expert knowledge, but this only stunts your growth and inhibits the work you are trying to accomplish.

Taking this lesson with me from one career into another has served me well. I've actually grown attached to feeling ignorant on a daily basis, it lets me know I'm in the right place.

"Everybody on an XP team should feel like an idiot regularly." --Extreme Programming Applied: Playing to Win, p. 62, Ken Auer and Roy Miller

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