Majority of the first part of my career at a large financial institution was singularly focused in making myself indispensable. From the start of every new role, project, job, and interaction, I made it a point to make my mark and be noticed to be the ‘expert’ in the room.
It makes me cringe thinking of those days. I remember making an effort to sound sophisticated—using highly technical jargon—almost enjoying the fact that there may be others in the room who are not catching up and are totally lost.
Don’t be like ‘old Don.’ Come to think of it, don’t be like ‘current Don.’ There’s still so much room for improvements!
Lesson: Don’t be the useless, arrogant ‘expert.’ In his book, “The Effective Executive,” Peter F. Drucker labels this behavior as “barbarian arrogance.” I couldn’t agree more. Knowledgeable experts, who can’t (or worse won’t) ensure their ‘product’ (knowledge) can be understood and used by others, is an expert with the trajectory to uselessness and irrelevance.
Arrogance manifests itself in behaviors like these: They want to feel and sounds smart. They want people around them to think they’re much better than them. They want to take all the credit on an idea or project. They use ‘big’ words to sound sophisticated.
Greed is also a root-cause of such behavior: They want to feel (or be) important and indispensable. They want to be the only one who’ll succeed or get recognized. For greedy experts, it’s about ‘achieving,’ not ‘contributing.’
Jokingly, many justify these behaviors as ‘job security.’ Though many folks joke about this, I’d argue there’s an underlying truth in that justification. Perhaps the arrogance and greed stem from deep insecurity. The fear of being obsolete—an antiquated piece of talent.
To be effective, experts need to ensure that the product they’re offering (knowledge) can be used by anyone in the organization. Their product’s usability needs to contribute to the purpose—creating value to team members within the organization and to its customers.
Experts who share their knowledge, making it accessible to everyone, solidifies their worth in any organization. These experts understand that it’s their responsibility to make the effort to make sure that their product and knowledge is understood by all. Their high-level of knowledge in the subject enables them to articulate their product in an easily comprehendible format. These experts make it a point that their knowledge translates well, not only to their peers in their area of expertise, but to any ‘layperson’ in the organization.
Crowdsourcing FTW
Can you share a time you’ve struggled sharing your expertise with others? How did you overcome this and what realizations can you share? If it was your intent to be generous of your knowledge, but struggled to articulate it for the ‘layperson,’ what steps did you take to improve how you communicate your knowledge?
REPEAT AFTER ME: “Hi, I’m [INSERT NAME]. I will not be a useless, arrogant expert.”