Knowledge is not equal to understanding

Agile 02 Jul 2021
Sreeram Kolisetty

I am Sreeram Kolisetty, I am a seasoned transformation and Lean-Agile Coach with coveted SPCT qualification from Scaled Agile Institute and AKT from Kanban University. 

I train, coach, mentor budding Agile Coaches, and helps organize realize value as a part of my profession.  I often get the following questions.

  • What certifications will make me an Agile Coach?
  • How do I become Agile Coach?
  • Should I add more certifications to become a great coach?

There are hundreds of training courses and 10s of institutions offering various levels of certifications to the aspirants.  Each of them has their own brand name, and experts in the field mentoring and over seeing these certification programs.  All these certifications just impart the knowledge, language and vocabulary to attendees but does not guarantee career success.

I wanted to address the above questions by stating that Knowledge is not Understanding.  To be a great coach, understanding is important and it is essential that your understanding go to the extent of becoming a Wisdom to be an effective and efficient coach.  Then how do you build this understanding?

In today’s world one has access to knowledge in all the place, one can google and find the answers to any information they would like to know.  Turning knowledge into understanding needs the following steps.

Obtain the knowledge and use the knowledge to experiment.  Ensure that these experiments are small and you can fail faster, not a bigger experiment that will impact organization or your career.  Once you see the results of your experiment, repeat it in another environment, another environment, more and more experimentation gives you experience.  When you experience it again and again one gains understanding, when your understating is big enough, keep applying the understanding and try to improve upon the ideas.  Share your understanding with others in the industry in the meet-ups, listen and seek the feedback of others understanding.  Remember that one’s life is not sufficient to experiment and experience everything, it is important to attend, meet more and more people from industry and listen to the experts.  Learn from others mistakes to gain more of the understanding.  Be empathetic, be there, be present at your work place, be cognitive use your emotional intelligence, be aware of the culture and organizational environment.  When one does all these things, understanding grows and you can reach the level of wisdom.  This will make you the most efficient and effective coach, most importantly remove the words “I, me, my, myself” from your vocabulary and add words like “we, our, together”.  This is my (did I say my… oops) journey, this has been the journey of all the successful coaches who mentored me in my own journey to be a great coach / consultant.

We are happy to mentor you in your journey, please reach out to one of our great coaches for a rewarding journey for life. – Sreeram Kolisetty