Quick Thought – Willful Ignorance

When I trained people for a living, I was lucky enough to only run into this a handful of times, but anyone in the industry likely has a story like it. A student who was sent to training to learn a new technology or skill without any interest in doing so.

In the legal tech industry, someone usually came in with the attitude that they’d been doing the work their way for “x” years and didn’t need anyone to tell them how to do it. After all, it was also likely that they were the only ones who did that work because they had gatekept the process, and changing anything threatened their status in the workplace.

In short, this training was not welcome. New information was not welcome and made them uncomfortable. They were willfully ignoring new ideas.

I learned nothing I could say or do would change their minds in those situations. I also had an obligation to the customer and the other students to move on instead of trying to argue with the person who didn’t want to learn. Once their minds are closed off to new information, I’m wasting precious time I could use to educate people who want to be educated.

I think about that a lot these days when I see someone confidently proclaiming repeatedly inaccurate things. They don’t want to learn, so it’s not worth my time to teach them. I move on and work with the people who want to know what knowledge I have to share.

We only have so many effs to give. If you don’t want mine, so be it.

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