Trust me, I'm an Expert

So when organizations find themselves in trouble, facing an unexpected situation that they have no idea how to solve, what do they do? Bring in an expert, naturally. This could be in the form of a new employee, a consultant, or Lizzie the bulldog (depending on what you want an expert in). So, this begs the questions, how does one become an “expert” and why should we trust them?

Lets start off with a point of clarification, there is an expert and there is expertise. Lets think of expertise as a body of knowledge, a journey if you will. As such an expert would be the result of knowing that body of knowledge, more the destination. While obviously everyone is not an expert, everyone has some level of expertise. Clear as mud? Good, lets move on.

People began studying what we would recognize as ‘expertise’ in 1965 with chess players. There are still several schools of thought regarding expertise, but most of them overlap with the idea that experts have more experience and solve problems differently. Within their area of expertise, experts are thought to possess specific characteristics (p.231):

1. More knowledge (okay, that one was obvious)

2. Use the information they know differently

3. Have better memory recall of the information they know

4. Solve problems faster

5. See problems at different levels

6. Analyze problems qualitatively

7. Have a greater awareness of their ability to make mistakes

So, how many experts do you know? Are you an expert on anything?

For my analytical friends out there, a researcher named Morf (sad, but true) has attempted to operationalize this idea of expertise with individual performance. With the idea that competence is the product of “ the workers motivational dispositions and abilities that are relevant in the context of work”, Morf emphasizes the importance of expertise. His formula: Performance = Competence X Work Environment, demonstrates the importance that expertise has on organizational performance.