In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy the main characters spend a long time seeking the ruler of the universe. When they find him, he turns out to be an innocuous man living in a small shack on a world that can only be reached with a key to an unprobability field. He does not want to rule the universe and tries not to whenever possible - and therefore is by far the ideal candidate for the job.
What he also does is question everything taking nothing for granted. He lives alone with his cat, which he has named "The Lord", but he is not even certain of its existence. He rules everybody and doubts everything.
A questioning attitude is one of the essential assets of a professional. Finding out what lies behind the words, what is truly intended, is necessary and not always easy. Sometimes it means asking the dumb or stupid question and understanding say technical or financial fields beyond your normal competency. But until you understand something you cannot articulate or express it or advise properly on it.
It's about an attitude of drilling down and double checking every hypothesis until the intention and meaning is clear. Science and philosophy work on this basis and so should professional advisers. To take law as an example, it's very easy to Google a legal question on the Internet and find some surface answer in a blog or article. But the real law will reside not there but in cases and in statutes or regulations. The true position requires looking at the true sources.
And the irony is when you get there the answer may not be clear even then! Somebody once said that a true expert is one who understands how little he or she really knows. As Douglas Adams writes "The ruler of the Universe dozed lightly in his chair. After a while he played with the pencil and the paper again and was delighted when he discovered how to make a mark with the one on the other. Various noises continued outside, but he didn’t know whether they were real or not. He then talked to his table for a week to see how it would react."
What he also does is question everything taking nothing for granted. He lives alone with his cat, which he has named "The Lord", but he is not even certain of its existence. He rules everybody and doubts everything.
A questioning attitude is one of the essential assets of a professional. Finding out what lies behind the words, what is truly intended, is necessary and not always easy. Sometimes it means asking the dumb or stupid question and understanding say technical or financial fields beyond your normal competency. But until you understand something you cannot articulate or express it or advise properly on it.
It's about an attitude of drilling down and double checking every hypothesis until the intention and meaning is clear. Science and philosophy work on this basis and so should professional advisers. To take law as an example, it's very easy to Google a legal question on the Internet and find some surface answer in a blog or article. But the real law will reside not there but in cases and in statutes or regulations. The true position requires looking at the true sources.
And the irony is when you get there the answer may not be clear even then! Somebody once said that a true expert is one who understands how little he or she really knows. As Douglas Adams writes "The ruler of the Universe dozed lightly in his chair. After a while he played with the pencil and the paper again and was delighted when he discovered how to make a mark with the one on the other. Various noises continued outside, but he didn’t know whether they were real or not. He then talked to his table for a week to see how it would react."
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