You've probably heard (of) the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Here's my version:
Charlie had already retired from the local chocolate factory, when the machine he had operated for over 30 years broke down. No one could figure out what the problem was, let alone fix it. So they called in Charlie, to come and have a look. He duly obliged, and spent about five minutes assessing the situation. He then produced a piece of chalk, and drew a cross on a panel at the side of the machine. "Get a hammer", he said, "and hit it here". So they did, and lo and behold, the machine started working again.
"Great!" the operations manager said, and he asked Charlie what he wanted in payment for his troubles. Charlie thought for all of 3 seconds and said: "that'll be €10,000"!
The manager managed to hide his surprise and asked whether Charlie could break that down somewhat. "Sure", said Charlie: "that's €1 for the chalk, and €9,999 for knowing where to put the cross."
If selling knowledge were only that simple!
The reality is that, today, no-one is selling knowledge.
In case you're wondering about that, just have a look at what it says on consultants', trainers', or doctors' invoices: you'll find what's being sold is TIME.
The laws and dynamics of our economies are based on the utility of scarce goods, and are as yet unable to deal with the boundless supply that is inherent to intangibles. Time is most often used as a proxy for knowledge, because time is (i) scarce and (ii) objectively measurable; two valuable characteristics that prevailing market dynamics just love.
But as the story of Charlie shows, time spent has actually no bearing on the value of the knowledge that was put to work.
