Ask HN: Trapped by knowledge
I&#x27;m a tech lead for a small group of developers and sysadmins.  I often find that even though they are experts in their own domain, I am able to help them to resolve problems in specific areas for which I have little or no knowledge.  I find it surprising that they have not arrived upon the solution themselves.<p>I describe it as being trapped by knowledge.  Those that I am helping appear to have passed some magical threshold of knowledge, beyond which they stop asking &quot;stupid&quot; questions, and instead rely only upon what they know.  That&#x27;s where I step in.  I ask those stupid questions, or I do a quick Google search, and more often than not I find a solution very quickly.  Maybe my team experience the same thing with me, and I just don&#x27;t recognise it.  Or maybe I&#x27;m just the sort of person who doesn&#x27;t mind asking those stupid questions.<p>Is this a known phenomenon?  Has any research been done in this area?  I&#x27;d be interested to know if anyone else experiences the same thing.