Knowledge vs. Skill

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I’m a nerd so I love to think about differences between two related concepts. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between knowledge and skill.

The difference between these two items is important to me within the context of my professional career with respect to hiring, particularly at the manager and above level. I’ve written about traits I look for when hiring before, but I’m always looking to get better here.

One of the biggest challenges I see with respect to hiring is the ability to discern skill in a candidate. Oftentimes many interviews are centered around behavioral or scenario based questions which primarily assess a candidate’s mindset or knowledge. While these traits are important I find it is the application of knowledge, aka skill, that is generally the differentiator between success and failure.

There are certainly ways to try and assess a candidate’s skill throughout the interview process (mock calls for a sales team, coding challenges for software engineers, etc.) but even these tests are often over orchestrated in sterile environments which don’t mirror the real world.

The more time I’ve spent trying to assess knowledge vs. skill in interviews the more I’ve tried to understand the difference between the two and how can they be developed and cultivated as a coach.

Knowledge

Intuitively I feel that most people have a grasp of what it means to be knowledgeable. You can think of teachers from your youth, bosses from early in your career, or authors, podcasters, and academics that you might follow in a specific domain which interests you. These people are generally knowledgeable because they either a) have studied a subject in depth, b) have long or intense firsthand experience in the domain, or c) both!

It’s this combination of study, experience, and intentional reflection which I think makes someone knowledgeable. The common trope of “doing vs. teaching” has some validity here and you should always be suspicious of someone with many credentials and little experience, but the most knowledgeable people I’ve come across in my life are practitioners in the arena who remain intentional and committed to disciplined study of their craft.

General James Mattis is a legendary figure in the Marine Corps and has one of my favorite quotes about disciplined study in the pursuit of knowledge:

The link between competence and knowledge is strong. To Gen. Mattis’s point the Knowledge equation then is:

Knowledge = Study + Experience

Skill

If knowledge comes from study and experience, skill is how you apply your knowledge to produce a positive outcome.

The important piece to grasp with respect to skill is that it comes from application which means it cannot be developed without being in the arena. You will fail often in the course of working to build or improve upon a skill, but you will never improve if you don’t start.

So start today and keep going.

The Knowledge / Skill Loop

I started the post talking about the importance of understanding the differences between the two characteristics, but ultimately I’m not sure they can be completely decoupled. I like to think of building knowledge and skill as part of a continuous loop with the following elements.

Examine, Refine, and Study are all related more closely to knowledge while application is more related to skill.

Whether working to improve your own competence or helping coach someone else to get better, understanding where that individual or you as a coach can focus most on the knowledge / skill loop is an important component of improving.

Conclusion

Whether you’re most focused on knowledge or skill with respect to hiring, coaching others, or making improvements yourself understanding the following components is useful at being more precise in evaluating how to focus your efforts in order to improve:

• Remember the knowledge equation: Knowledge = Study + Experience.

• Understand that knowledge alone is not enough and that the application of knowledge leads to skill.

• The Knowledge / Skill loop can be used in order to identify where you can apply focus to improve.

See y’all next week.