Crispin Reed, MD of Brandhouse, examines how educated incapacity could be affecting the progression of staff in the wellness industry.

I had the pleasure of attending the Global Spa Summit in Istanbul recently. There were many highlights and great speakers. One in particular that stood out was a talk given by edie Weiner, the president of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., a leading futurist consulting group in the United States.

Of the many pearls of wisdom that she imparted was the concept of 'educated incapacity'. The term educated incapacity refers to an acquired or earned inability to understand or even perceive a problem, far less a solution. It's based on the phrase 'trained incapacity' coined by the economist Thorstein Veblen, who used it to refer to, among other things, the inability of those with engineering or sociology training to understand certain issues which they would have been able to understand if they had not had this training.

The training is essential to gain the skill, and there is a requirement for people to be qualified to perform certain roles, spa therapy being no exception. But the argument goes that the training comes at a cost by narrowing the perspectives of the individuals concerned.

Consequently, the more expertly or better trained a person is, the more difficult it can be for that person to see a solution if that solution falls outside the framework that they've required via their training. So when they're confronted by a problem and a solution presents itself that's outside an accepted framework, an expert is often less likely to see it than an amateur without the confining framework.

For example, if you're not feeling well you are highly likely to want to see a fully trained doctor rather than someone untrained. But if a new cure is developed that is at odds with accepted norms, the medical profession is often the last the accept it. Educated incapacity is very much alive and kicking in the corporate world.

Edie Weiner cited the example of Sony, who revolutionised portable music with the introduction of the Walkman but promptly sued Napster when they launched. Had they not suffered from educated incapacity, Sony would have seen the future and introduced downloadable music themselves.

For me, this raises a number of interesting points in relation to the recruitment and training of therapists. As a principle, a spa will want therapists who are well trained in a specific treatment or range of treatments. Increasingly though, they demand of therapists that they perform other roles, either formally or informally. educated incapacity would suggest that specific training could end up narrowing their vision and make them less capable of performing other tasks. Job descriptions should therefore be more open, more specific and more rigourous to reflect additional responsibilities. And on-the-job training should be designed to ensure that therapists remain open to new solutions and indeed are pre-disposed to seek them out. One thing is for sure. The future is going to come and we all need to be 'capacitated' to deal with it.