A Coaching Power Tool created by Bala Kishore Batchu
(Life Coaching using Spiritual Principles, INDIA)
Motivation
I am writing this Power Tool based on my own experience with Coaching in the past couple of months after I signed up for the ICA program. I am in the IT industry for nearly 2 decades. During this period I have been a successful manager, and a very successful mentor. When I joined ICA, with the desire to become a Coach, I started realizing the amount of ‘unlearning’ I had to do. Each time I tried to sit in front of the Client, instead of ‘just-being-there’, a parallel narrative was (is) going on in my head thinking, how do I help solve his / her issue, what suggestions should I give or what next question should I ask; none of those a Coach is supposed to be doing.
It is in this context that I wanted to develop a Power Tool about how the ‘knowledge’ that we have learnt in one context may actually become a hindrance in another context and at times inhibit our aspirations because we ‘know’ it can’t be done. Hence the title ‘Knowledge vs Ignorance’. It also explores how ‘ignorance’ is a virtue in certain instances, if not always, and explores both these from a Coach’s perspective.
Knowledge vs Ignorance
Knowledge:
noun
- acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition: knowledge of many things.
- familiarity or conversance, as with a particular subject or branch of learning: A knowledge of accounting was necessary for the job.
- acquaintance or familiarity gained by sight, experience, or report: a knowledge of human nature.
- the fact or state of knowing; the perception of fact or truth; clear and certain mental apprehension.
- awareness, as of a fact or circumstance: He had knowledge of her good fortune.
Ignorance:
noun
the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc.
It’s impossible to run a mile within 4 minutes. Human body does not allow it.
until Roger Bannister proved them wrong
Tall people are not fastest runners.
until Usain Bolt came along
Everything that needs to be invented has been invented, there is nothing more to be invented.
US patent officer in 1899
Who would want to use this instrument to communicate when we have letters and postcards.
Industrialist on seeing Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone invention
All the above statements were made by learned and ‘knowledgeful’ people at various points of time and were proven spectacularly wrong. These are just a few instances in long human history where known ‘knowledge’ served more as an impediment to learn new things or aim higher. Knowledge is essential to learn, to grow, and make this life meaningful. But it can also become a blinder by restricting our field of thought / vision. What we ‘know’ at times robs us of our hope because we ‘know’ we cannot achieve it, like in the cases sighted above.
Sometimes what we don’t know, i.e., ignorance actually becomes our asset. Take the example of a Stanford University Professor who gives tough problems as semester assignments to undergraduate students without telling them that the same problems were being grappled by doctoral candidates else where. Some students do solve them because nobody ‘told’ them that they are not meant for an undergraduate semester assignment.