The best kept corporate secret is that you will learn more by teaching somebody else how to do something well than by doing it yourself in an isolated way.
It is only when you need to organize your thoughts and ideas into a coherent whole presented to an audience, that new insights, links and patterns appear, giving birth to new ideas and innovation.
The act of clear explanation has in it the seeds of innovation because it inevitably leads to questions. These questions represent the edge of knowledge at that time and at the end of practical knowledge lies the opportunity of a new product, service, company or industry.
If you are working as a teacher looking for job stability or think that the main reward from teaching is the satisfaction from seeing students learn the material you present, the reality is not exactly like that.
The main reward from teaching for the teacher should be learning continuously, and so we come to the conclusion that teachers should learn continuously and that there should be a “teaching ladder” in the same way that there is a corporate ladder within companies.
Only when the so called invisible hand of Adam Smith, an American economist from the eighteenth century, who said that self interest guides society when that self interest is rooted in good work, will a teacher be on the verge of discovering the real nature of his satisfaction as a teacher.
The biggest secret is that teaching is actually beneficial to your job advancement. In my experience, the best teachers are those who work or do consulting for clients and they present their findings to an audience who request and benefit from their state of the art knowledge and experience. In so doing, the teachers clarify their own thinking, much like writing this book has clarified my own thinking on learning.
I have reached the conclusion that teaching is nothing but applied learning, whereby the act of preparing a class will give you new ideas to apply at work that you would never have had, had you just done your work.
In class, you will also learn a lot from the questions of students, either because they will expose a weakness in your logic, or because they will indicate a strength in your competitors or in your own material.
A class is a professional sounding board and the teacher benefits from that feedback as much as the students benefit from your teaching.
I have written this book primarily to put some order in my own ideas on the possibilities of accelerated learning, and in addition with the belief that the book could be useful to other people looking for a change in their careers or jobs.
I hope this book can help people who need it get out of a difficult professional situation and that it opens a new perspective on themselves, and their potentially strong capabilities for quick learning, or simply for learning, and enjoying it. Now you have all the information needed to become a craftsperson.
You can become a craftsperson whatever you do, and learn quickly using visual technology and by designing your own knowledge and insight maps. Almost without realizing it, you will have established the foundation of your own wealth and prosperity, because you will know exactly how your work is contributing to the economy, and most importantly why you are getting paid a certain amount to do a particular task.
There is an expression which says that money is coined liberty, well, craftsmanship is work freedom and satisfaction, and learning is the cornerstone of that satisfaction and craftsmanship.
Enjoy what you do, and have fun learning and teaching at work and at home.
The two diagrams the manuscript explains, are here below:
diagram 1: The Logic of the Operator Sum.
diagram 2: The Logic of Black Scholes.