Neuroplastician Coach at Connect Consulting supporting leaders in rewiring their mindset to increase their agility and extend their range.
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Do you show enough appreciation, respect and empathy for the experts in your life? And if you’re an expert yourself, try to make sure you feel some love, admiration and compassion for yourself and hopefully from others, too.
Experts include accountants, teachers, lawyers, health care professionals and anyone else who has subject matter expertise, often technical. Yes, we’re talking about those who have studied for long hours and have worked hard for their certifications, licenses and other educational achievements.
Experts are experiencing angst from everyday people, AI and bosses. So if you’re an expert who wants to be commended rather than disparaged or even kicked around, you’ve got to stand up for yourself. Consider taking some self-preservation actions that can advance your cause, as described later. First, though, let’s review why experts are now in this awkward predicament.
The Rise Of Peers And The Rejection Of Experts
The balance of power started shifting about two decades ago. Back in 2005, in its sixth annual trust and credibility survey, the Edelman Trust Barometer detected a significant swing in the U.S. from authority figures to peers as trusted sources. The survey noted the rise of “a person like yourself” as a credible source of information. Peers (56%) rivaled academics and doctors or healthcare specialists (60% for each category).
In the 2018 book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters, the author Tom Nichols presented his thesis about why society was rejecting experts and the deep knowledge they possessed. He explained how individuals had easy access to an increasing amount of information on their own thanks to the spread of technology and higher levels of education. But this “help yourself” approach to information had a dark side, with citizens openly spreading misinformation while denouncing the achievements of experts.
According to Nichols, ordinary citizens were becoming even more convinced that “people like me” knew as much as anyone else, which has become a danger to democracy, as he articulates in the second edition of his book, scheduled for publication in spring 2024. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer confirms this trend. Survey respondents viewed peers on par with scientists; 74% said they "trust scientists and peers, equally, for the truth about innovations."
The Need For A Wider Aperture
Inside organizations, subject-matter experts also face challenges, especially from AI, their bosses and colleagues.
On the fast-changing AI front—which is not my area of expertise, so I’ll share for what it’s worth—I regularly explore how to use AI in my work plus play “CHESS.” Not the game, but the acronym that stands for being “creative, humorous, empathetic, socially sensitive and storytelling.” These are the five key qualities in which humans still continue to excel, even over generative artificial intelligence, according to Geoff Colvin in his book Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will. Meanwhile, stay abreast of AI developments that can help you future-proof yourself while also spurring yourself to embrace your humanity in all your quirkiness.
Now let’s turn to organizational leaders. They often rely on experts’ technical knowledge and problem-solving skills yet simultaneously find faults with them. Experts are often viewed as “too tactical,” “too myopic in their thinking” and “always wanting to be right.” However, the objective of experts’ training is often to think deeply about complex subjects. In other words, experts “look down and in” while strategic and visionary leaders by contrast “look up and out.”
Experts can benefit from toggling between looking “down and in” and “up and out” these days. When you take time to scan the horizon and leading indicators in your environment, you’re more prepared to identify trends and anticipate possible changes coming your way. As a result, you’re better equipped to adjust to fast-changing conditions as well as deal with uncertainty, too.
Three Areas Of Focus
Experts need to stay relevant, credible and relatable, especially when key constituents are criticizing their essence. To do so, experts need to show that they can connect with themselves, others and the environment in which they’re operating.
If you’re an expert, this means taking time to open up your aperture—figuratively looking more broadly around—as well as intentionally focusing on these three skills around social and emotional intelligence:
1. Your self-awareness. To help you manage others’ perceptions of you, you first need to spend time and energy handling yourself. This starts with recognizing, understanding and managing your emotions, your energy level and your behavior. It also includes you reflecting on how you’re feeling and doing and making adjustments.
2. Your awareness of others. To work well with others, you need to actively manage your relationships with them. This involves being able to tune into others’ feelings, perspectives and values and adapt your style to complement, not replicate, theirs.
3. Your well-being. To ensure that your brain gets the energy it needs to govern your overall physical, mental and emotional states, you need to get enough sleep, eat well and exercise regularly. These actions can help your brain manage yourself as well as give you the strength to manage how you interact with others.
Learning and then applying these three skills are at the heart of what I believe it means to be a curious, caring and courageous human being. Keep in mind that we humans are complicated, unique beings. Learning these three emotional, social and physical skills and practicing them well can be hard—even harder than becoming an expert in an extremely technical topic.
Final Thoughts
As you work on developing these skills, whether on your own, with a coach or other professional, or with friends and family, note that it’s natural to feel tension within yourself and with others. Try to have compassion for yourself and others.
When you grow emotionally, socially and physically, you’ll be rewiring your mindset to expand beyond accumulating facts and figures as an expert. You’ll be building greater capacity and extending your range to become an even more accomplished human being.
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