In response to the discussion I posted yesterday regarding exceptions, rules, and the nature of the word "proves," I received complaints that this kind of thing doesn't belong in an IT publication. Maybe it doesn't. I write about IT leadership and management issues, though. I've met and worked with many people in leadership positions, and I haven't yet met an effective leader who reads, speaks and thinks about n In response to the discussion I posted yesterday regarding exceptions, rules, and the nature of the word “proves,” I received complaints that this kind of thing doesn’t belong in an IT publication.Maybe it doesn’t. I write about IT leadership and management issues, though. I’ve met and worked with many people in leadership positions, and I haven’t yet met an effective leader who reads, speaks and thinks about nothing but Their Field.It has, in some circles, become fashionable to disparage liberal arts degrees, the reading of poetry (especially in that poetry’s native language if it doesn’t happen to be English), art history, and knowledge for its own sake in general. Too bad for those circles. In the case in question, I personally found the conclusion – that even the best “rules” have exceptions, and that those exceptions don’t invalidate the rule so much as establish the rule’s boundaries – to be quite useful. I plan to apply it often in my daily life, and in my day-to-day consulting work. Knowing it will, I think, make me more effective in what I do.But if it didn’t, it would still be worth knowing, because it adds to my fund of general knowledge, and you never know what bits and pieces will be valuable to you at any given time.To take just one example, provided to me by the author and consultant Larry Miller quite a few years ago: The ships in Lord Nelson’s fleet routinely beat enemy ships that were much more heavily armed. They achieved this feat because the British drilled their sailors constantly, to the point that they could reload and fire about twice as fast as their French and Spanish counterparts. This meant that in terms of effective delivery of firepower, the English ships were, in fact, armed just as heavily, while retaining the additional maneuverability that comes with smaller size and weight. Useless knowledge? I don’t think so – the parallels to employee training are obvious, once you know to look for them. Which you only do if you’re aware of the history and what it means.It’s an odd irony that the word used to describe people who know a narrow specialty deeply and little else is “shallow,” but there it is. ——– Technology Industry