Having A Professional Monopoly Is A Good Thing

When every professional develops a differentiated ability in a skill, it is good for both individuals and society.

Kaduna Electric company provides Kaduna, Zamfara and Sokoto with electricity supply from the national grid. It does not matter if electricity consumers enjoy the service they receive from the company. There is no option to switch to a substitute. Kaduna Electric is an example of a natural monopoly.

A natural monopoly will exist where high infrastructural costs relative to the size of the market leads to only one firm being able to provide the service efficiently. In other words, an industry is a natural monopoly if the total cost of one firm producing the total output is lower than the total cost of two or more firms producing the same output. This unique circumstance gives the largest supplier in an industry, often the first entrant in a market, an unsurmountable advantage over potential competitors.

What is a professional monopoly?

Monopolies have a bad reputation, often with good reason - they limit consumer choice. On the other hand, when individuals develop a professional monopoly, it is good for both the individuals and society. 

An individual has a professional monopoly when she operates in a niche where they are the only ones doing what they do.

A professional monopoly comes from discovering a natural monopoly, a differentiated ability that makes it unsensible for others to compete. The barrier to entry for competitors is that person comes with a unique combination of traits that differentiates them.

“You win when you drop out of the race” (Bob Marley)

Having a differentiated ability to perform a skill enables a professional to escape competition. Competing with peers comes at a high cost for professionals. Firstly, they may be more gifted then, and you must work harder to keep up. And if they can do what you do for less, they make you more dispensable. A professional monopoly makes you both valuable and indispensable in the niche you operate.

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How can we develop a professional monopoly?

1. It starts with curiosity. 

“A great person is one who doesn’t lose their child’s mind”

By pursuing our curiosity down rabbit holes, we discover more about those things and ourselves. Many ideas that excited us fizzle out, and we stumble upon new things along the way that excites us. We discover that we both enjoy and are naturally good at some things. We can spend an inordinate time on them without any clear end in mind. Some ideas become side projects that soon distract us from our day job. Sometimes our curiosity appears to lead nowhere. But like Steve Job said, “we can only connect the dots looking backwards.” The best startups started as side projects, according to Sam Altman, former President of YCombinator.  

2. Go deeper

"Find a simple idea and take it seriously."

When we find the intersection of what we enjoy and what we are good at, it is often time to be deliberate about studying. I have read, if you want to start a restaurant, you are better off going to work in one than enrolling in a course on restaurants. For example, Innocent Chukwuma's career began as a teenage apprentice with a motorcycle spare parts dealer. Today, he has built the premier car manufacturer Innoson Motors in Nigeria. Interestingly, he had applied to study Engineering at the university but did not make the cut-off mark for admission. His curiosity and self-directed learning about trading in his apprenticeship role brought him advancement that structured classroom learning never did. His genius is borrowing an Albert Einstein quote is taking "something complex and making it look simple." 

3. Learn in public

Your differentiated ability is valuable only if you can communicate its value. Test it against reality. An easy way to do this is to present it to people more knowledgeable than you and solicit their criticism. For example, I write even though I am not sure I'm a good writer. Another way is to create a prototype for whatever system you are thinking about and let other people use it. Communicating your skill leads to conversation and feedback. Feedback provides ideas for improving your skill. You keep improving till you develop a differentiated ability.

Sharing your new skill or ideas with the public, you also learn what people (both employers and markets) value and are willing to pay. 

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An example of someone doing the above in public is Ndubuisi Ekekwe (see LinkedIn). He is a professor in engineering. However, he lets his curiosity drive conversations across the spectrum of politics, entertainment, and the economy. Through blogging and social media, he engages in conversation with his audience. His differentiated ability combines strategic thinking and contextualising his ideas (often referring to his origins somewhere in Imo.) By applying engineering systems thinking to analysing the startups in Nigeria and communicating his ideas from an original perspective, Ndubuisi has built a professional monopoly as a tech "strategic thinker". He now has sufficient credibility to leverage for his business education programme he calls MiniMBA. 

When every professional develops a differentiated ability in a skill, it is good for society. We go from “mechanics” who copy to “engineers” who try new things and improve. Given our differentiated abilities, everyone can bring something to the table. The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The productivity and quality of the practice of healthcare, food production, construction, policing, governance, etc. go up.