We live in a world of ‘experts’. The sheer amount of freely available information out there, especially on the ‘interwebs’, mean we are all ‘experts’. In any field we want. All we need to do is read the Wikipedia article and a couple of forum posts and we know all we need to know. There is a whole debate to be had over whether this is truly empowering or not (just ask any doctor friends you have whether it makes giving people the right diagnosis any easier now all their patient has self-diagnosed before they arrive).
What I want us to have a think about is how this expert-culture effects how we get things done, and the speed at which we are best able to produce what we need to produce, to the standard that is to be expected.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. I work in Mergers & Acquisition – it is expected of me that I can pull together a list of who-bought-who in a particular sector. My colleague and I have two different approaches to this:
- My colleague reads every trade magazine there is, and all the industry websites every morning so that he spots and knows all the data.
- I haven’t close to that amount of patience, but I have invested the time in setting up a system which means the information is e-mailed to me daily and sits in a convenient folder ready for use.
Both applicable approaches. My colleague is able to pull the information together when required, very quickly from the top of his head. But then he spends an hour-a-day doing this rather than other work. And if he forgets something, then, well, it is forgot.
In this example I think the jury is still out on which way is the best. But the more information there is out there, then the harder it becomes to stay on top of it. And the culture we have is that we are all expected to be an expert – and you can bet your bottom dollar that the guy asking you the questions has the basic stuff covered-off himself.
There are a number of approaches you can take to this:
- Narrow down your field. As the information increases, then decrase the scope of your research. For example, everyone is an expert on animals, most on cats, some on siamese cats, but you could be an expert on a rare breed of siamese cat!
- Try and keep up. You need to be willing to invest the time, and have the mental capacity to retain all this information (which rules this out for me!).
- Openly be a generalist. Rather than narrow down your scope as the volume of data increases, instead restrict the depth to which you research it. I don’t know everything about British History – no one does; and I am not an expert in any particular period or theme; but I am a pretty good generalist in the subject, so am very useful in a pub quiz
. - Learn where to look. Now we come back to my approach at work. Without the ability to know everything, or the luxury to be able to make your field more narrow or shallow, then the best approach is to set up systems to capture the data ready for when you need it.
There are a wealth of tools out there to help you do this. Invest a good day or so purely into setting yourself up with the infrastructure you need:
- Make a list of all the websites that hold information on your different areas – order them by usefulness.
- Set-up RSS feeds from websites that provide news updates, and have them sent somewhere that allows you to search.
- Sign-up to e-mail newsletters that collate the news for you – why sieve through a daily news e-mail when someone will be doing that for you and putting it in a form you can search the content of later.
- Find out which colleagues, customers, and contacts know the most about what. Make sure you build up a relationship with the most useful so that you can call them when you need too. Often these people also have access to reports and opinions that are not in the public domain and will get you access to them.
- What are the topic standard texts? Make sure you have a copy of each in your bookshelf.
- Who runs that subject? The world is full of organisations. Every topic, industry and subject has at least one voluntary body that looks after it’s interests. Join them. Talk to them, and engage.
- Know when it is best to recommend someone else. Sometimes, it is just better for that colleague to do the piece of work rather than yourself – you’ll look a lot smarter saying “happy to do it, although I think Pete has his finger on the pulse more than me on that one. Shall I support him in getting that information?”, than producing second-rate work, or telling people what they have already learnt from Wikipedia.
Lesson:
You don’t need to learn everything – you just need to know where to look to find it when you need it.
Action points:
- Identify what topics do you need to be an ‘expert’ in
- Work out where the best information is kept
- Set-up your information infrastructure
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Do you mean “How to be an expert?” LOL!