14. EXPERIENCE & ENTITLEMENT SYNDROME

Experience is the practical application of knowledge over time, through action, reflection, and adaptation. It includes lessons learned, skills sharpened, and judgment developed. Based on this definition, we can represent experience in the following equation:

Experience = Knowledge + Practice + Reflection (Outcome).

Therefore, knowledge without practice is often referred to as "Book Knowledge" rather than true experience. Similarly, practice without knowledge is referred to as "Flying Blind" or, as we say in Egypt "فهلوة" as slang.

Another related topic is Entitlement Syndrome in organizations, which occurs when employees believe they deserve special treatment, certain privileges, recognition, or rewards, regardless of their effort, performance, or merit. They may expect benefits just because they have been with the company for a long time (Claim of Expertise) or think they are more important than others. This attitude often comes from poor true evaluation, unclear rules, lack of criteria, or an organizational culture that does not reward hard work fairly. It can also develop if managers avoid giving honest feedback or if people are praised too much without real results. This behavior can hurt teamwork and lower motivation across the organization.

To mitigate entitlement syndrome in workplaces, especially in Egyptian culture — a widespread phenomenon that deserves to be studied there — the primary actions involve prioritizing real experience and truly effective evaluation with clear determined criteria over unearned claims and inflated self-assessments. This adjustment will allow recognition and reward systems in organizations to begin aligning success with actual work, rather than assumptions. These are not all actions, but the key actions, among others, to ensure fairness, boost teamwork, and maintain high motivation.

 Article by Amr H. Abayazeed - May 16, 2025.

13. THE SCIENCE BEHIND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Some people mistakenly assume that economics, marketing, human resources, management, etc., which are categorized as social science, are not real science because they seem vague, undefined, and not meticulous. There are many classifications of science, as mentioned in various papers and handbooks. The most common classifications are: 1) Natural Science, which study nature in the broadest sense, such as physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, etc; 2) Social Science, which study people and societies such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, history, political science, etc.; and 3) Formal Science, which study abstract concepts, such as mathematics, logic, computer science, etc. For simplicity, we can group these into two major pillars: Natural and Social Science.

As my recent studies have been in business and management (social science), I believe that social science is not vague when compared to natural science. Generally, natural science defines specific input(s), and when these input(s) interact inside a system(s), a defined output(s) is produced — as in chemical reactions (A+B → C+D) or in mathematics (1+1=2). Based on my engineering background, I contend that, social science operates similarly, as illustrated in the figure; inputs interact inside systems to generate outputs. The main difference is that social science involves many inputs or variables, diverse systems and dynamic contexts resulting in multiple complex outputs with high uncertainty.

This complexity makes it difficult to identify consistent outputs, unlike in the natural science. Consequently, social science theories are generalized to predict outcomes, which we commonly refer to as recognized and generally accepted good practices — or best practices — due to the inherent variability and complexity of systems, like human system, as an example. However, I argue that if the inputs and systems in the social science were fully defined (which is rarely applicable), then outputs could be predicted with greater certainty, similar to natural science.

Article By Amr H. Abayazeed - May 02, 2025.