Cross posting: Post No. 1,511 - the Relativities of Mastery vs. Mastery of Change

This originally appeared on my main blog at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2020/03/post-no-1511-relativities-of-mastery-vs.html.

I've been working on my autobiography, spurred into it following a recent radio interview, and one of the things that is clearly going to crop up is the issue of the relativities of mastery.

People in a particular region/area or group/social circle/organisation will often develop a level of mastery and innovation that is outstanding for that context, but when it is compared to others, it is not necessarily so.

As an example of that, my assessment of my sailing ability is that I am capable of finishing in the top 10% of state or regional level championships (I have won a few), the top 20% of national championships (not demonstrated except in a few races), and the top 30% of world championships and similar such events (which has been demonstrated).

It takes arrogance for someone to look at that sort of regional competence, or a particular innovation, and then assume it will be competitive or innovative on a worldwide basis - and yet that is what seems to be behind many companies moving from a local or national market to a broader market: an assumption that what is outstanding here is also going to be outstanding elsewhere.

This can result in shocks to the system (including the company "bottom line") when such arrogant people find out that they have been blinded by their arrogance.

Such shocks can also occur on a more personal level - for instance, when parents praise their children for a particular type of skill (e.g., a sporting ability - maybe running), and then, when the child interacts with others, they find others may be able to run faster.

That praise is normal, but it can be a problem for two reasons:

1. It makes the child vulnerable to unhealthy reactions to not being the best; and 
2. If the child is the best, it risks making them arrogant (and I include condescension and patronising attitudes as a form of arrogance).

This can be a particular issue in the world of ideas.

What very few people are prepared to admit, is that ideas can genuinely occur simultaneously to several people. The best example of this is probably Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, who both came up with the idea of evolution through natural selection, at around the same time.

In my personal life, I've seen others independently come up with ideas I've had - I'm thinking of form of semi-solid sail that I saw had been patented by someone else around three decades ago, but another example is the SWATH.

Now, that's from my life: what about others' lives? How many times have people been "beaten to the punch" - or found out that they were not as superlative as they thought?

More importantly, what can be done about it?

Well, I would suggest the following changes to how we raise children:

• NEVER base self esteem on being "the best" - on being competent, yes, but not on having to be better than others (as an example of this, one of the dinghy races I am most proud of is one where we came last. My crew at that time had the habit of wearing his slicker over the top of the life jacket, so we were at the start line and about to start a race when he said he had forgotten to put his life jacket on. Going back to the beach to get his life jacket [I always made a point of checking that in future] cost us more than 20 minutes - the fleet had almost a complete lap finished by the time we started - but we made up almost all that time. Our competence - except in the wearing of life jackets - was good, but the results wasn't. Because I hadn't been taught that I had to dominate, I could enjoy that); 
• Teach children that things always change, and one needs to be comfortable with that. If one develops an outstanding solution for an existing problem that is later made irrelevant by someone else's development in that area, it is the ability to develop a solution that is real and meaningful and lasting, and THAT should be focused on, not the outcome of that skill.
  I'm not convinced that one should focus on being able to cope with change as being good, as there will be variations in how well people can do so, and there are often other skills that are valid and important - more so than the notion of "coping with change"; and
• Teach children that there are variations in things, and they are generally all valid.
  The clearest area that this happens in is vocabulary. Every time I hear an argument over whether word A or word B should be used, I am tempted to yell at the arguers AND THEIR PARENTS/TEACHERS. that they are ALL WRONG. There is regional variation in word preference, and that does not give one word or the other greater validity (except in the arrogant minds of the small-minded/emotionally incompetent). As an example, does it matter if you're using the word immunised or vaccinated? (This comes up in my work, and, in the context being used, there is no difference.)

I'll probably think of other points after I post this ☺ , but I'll leave it there for now.