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TEACHING FORCES EXPLANATION

Explaining it to a junior is the only time an expert has to slow down

Supervision notes, marked-up drafts, worked examples, feedback on a first attempt. Teaching is the one activity that forces tacit expertise into explicit language, because the learner cannot be assumed to already know.

Check your data Six questions, roughly two minutes.
Tacit knowledge made explicitFeedback tied to specific work$100K to $2M paid to the firm

WHERE IT ACCUMULATES

Four kinds of teaching record a firm produces

Every firm that develops people generates this, usually informally, and rarely thinks of it as anything.

Marked-up work

A senior editing a junior's draft, with comments explaining each change rather than simply making it.

Supervision notes

Running commentary on how someone is developing, including what they consistently get wrong.

Worked examples

A problem solved deliberately slowly, with each step justified, for the benefit of someone learning.

Teaching material

Internal sessions and their notes, where the firm codifies what it wants everyone to know.

WHY TRAINING MATERIAL IS RICH

Four effects of having to explain yourself to a beginner

  1. Assumptions surface. An expert explaining to a junior has to state the things they would otherwise skip entirely.
  2. Errors are diagnosed. Feedback on a junior's work identifies exactly where reasoning went wrong and why.
  3. Method is sequenced. Teaching imposes an order on knowledge that practice never requires.
  4. It is corrected over time. Training material that produced confused juniors gets rewritten, and the rewrite records what was unclear.

SPEAK WITH A MANAGING PARTNER

The explaining you did for juniors has a value

Six questions and a short conversation. Nothing you tell us leaves Polyshares.

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