Or. . .how to know that the advice you’re getting is genuine expertise? One of the more important issues in my life and certainly in most of my clients over the years has been the issue of expertise. Does this guy know what he’s talking about? Can I trust his conclusion? The issue of trust is central for important matters. When I’m asking for insight, I want to know that the person I’m talking to has information of value. That if I were to follow up on his recommendation, I’d get what I want: the desired service or product.
“You can’t beat brains,” said President John Kennedy of the intellectuals and technicians he assembled in his cabinet. Kennedy was probably the greatest political champion for the virtues of expertise. But the champions of expertise have been on a serious downhill slope ever since. It’s pretty clear that all over America since the 1960s diverse groups have rejected expertise, especially that of social scientists, policy specialisms, climatologists and plenty of other disciplines. This is true of movements on both the political left and right. Although individuals and groups speak a different language, they’re often making the same point: human mastery over the world is profoundly limited. Just so, many believe that rational planning too should be limited. The anti-vaxx machinery is just one of today’s many rejections of expertise. There’s always been an anti-intellectual orientation in our country, but right now that anti-intellectual orientation is on steroids from both lefties and righties.
But let’s set that aside and just suppose you’re in a place where you want some expertise. Not necessarily life or death, but more ordinary job and relational expertise? How can you know the person you’re talking to is a real expert and can be trusted?
In a very helpful analysis of that subject, Kim Smith, a PhD student at the University of South Wales (UK) set out to actually define the core characteristics of the expert in most any field. Characteristics available to most any thoughtful layperson.
Research
In a fine piece of qualitative research, Smith first took into consideration the national, cultural and specialisms that would affect the definition of that issue. Included as well were various governments. He also recognized that the perspectives and definitions of an expert would vary from government to government and department to department. He also took chartered organizations into his purvey. Chartered organizations are institutions that require members with a pedigree of high professionalism, guaranteed by meeting specific membership criteria.
Uniquely (I would never have thought of this), he researched the general definitions of expertise required for legal experts, such as that provided in the Academy of Experts (2019): “An Expert Witness can be anyone with knowledge or experience of a particular field or discipline beyond that to be expected of a layman. The Expert Witness’s duty is to give to the Court or tribunal an impartial opinion on particular aspects of matters within his expertise which are in dispute.” This type of definition provides assurance of the integrity of the “expert” and his/her expertise in courts of law..
Smith used grounded theory throughout his research, a theory which supports qualitative research, a method that enabling you to study a particular phenomenon or process and propose new theory, based on the collection and analysis of real-world data. Very familiar with the methodology, having used it for years for background diagnostic interviewing for executive coaching, I view his research to be exceptionally thorough--with solid conclusions. After completing his diagnostic process, he surfaced 21 terms (keywords) which the base revealed as the “descriptive words of an expert.” The keywords were grouped together to identify three basic characteristics. The result was a natural split into three key characteristics: competent, qualified and principled. Of course, the interpretations of these three characteristics vary from industry to industry and organization to organization—and even down to the discipline level in organizations. Which is to say, for example, that the competencies and qualifications in manufacturing are quite different than the competencies and qualifications in sales expertise in the same organization. In contrast, principled has a fundamental similarity in any context.
Key characteristics explained
“Competency” is especially important to organizations. They rely on competency for organizational success. Competency is typically viewed as a fundamental skill necessary for a person to fulfill their job. Generally, people maintain competency with continuous professional development activities. Identifying competency may be through experiences in which the individual proves himself to the organization and others. Although professionals may identity themselves as competent in a skill, validation of competency comes from the organization and other respected people. Even physicians and lawyers rarely toot their horn about their expertise. So, when searching for expertise, it’s usually found through networks—which also can add unknown compromise and difficulty. It takes the form of questioning the basis on which the person(s) making a recommendation of an expert has the knowledge to actually identify expertise. For example, many people recommend a physician they have had a good experience with. The recommendation is often based on the personality of the doctor which usually has little to do with their expertise. Few laypeople have the expertise to actually identify medical expertise in physicians. They may rave about the physician’s success, but still, success is often built on client selection. Some physicians may be highly expert, but fail to have much success because of the client base they’re willing to work with. Others, lacking expertise, may have a good record because they only choose to work with patients whose issue can be readily cured or managed. Competence is very important, but sometimes very difficult for the layperson to assess with intelligent networking.
“Qualified” for an expert also needs a supporting organization or institution to provide authenticity for the qualification. It may be in written form. Smith refers to the Cambridge Dictionary definition of qualified as “an official record showing that you have finished a training course or have the necessary skills or an ability, characteristic, or experience that makes you suitable for a particular job or activity.”
Holding the term can mean many things including, of course, education, training and certification as well as reputable experience. In many areas when I’m searching for a qualified person, I’m looking for all of the above as well as a level of “street smarts.” By street smarts, I refer to a breadth of experiences that also enables the expert to work with people of a variety of backgrounds, including those with little formal education. I still remember walking away from a physician (qualified educationally), pissed off because he couldn’t provide a single rationale for his diagnosis. I exchanged a few hostile words about his failure. Because of my background, I was aware that the problem had been addressed recently (the late 1980s) by numerous medical schools, making communication skills a requirement. Obviously, unlike most laypeople I was not intimidated by his MD diploma. I realized he’d failed the course. But he was an exception to the rule.
“Principled” refers to a range of different elements, all based on an individual’s beliefs, morals and ethics. The International Baccalaureate Organization defines a principled person as someone who “…acts with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness, justice and respect for the dignity of the individual, groups and communities. They take responsibility for their own actions and the consequences that accompany them.” Although many people seem to be quite cynical, especially about business people and journalists, I find that cynicism usually unwarranted.
Years ago, while working with a multi-billion-dollar international product organization, the Chief Financial Officer invited me to work with him. He was widely respected throughout the organization, top to bottom, for both his broad organizational insight and his financial expertise. He was a quiet introvert, and one whom I found unwilling to comment on issues unless he was secure in his information. Occasionally, we had a brief conversation on issues unrelated to his coaching or the firm’s business. Recognizing his intellect and broad experience, I suspected that he might be able to answer a question that had bugged me for years. It was a belief many politicos had espoused as part of the many attempts to privatize government services. “Does government really waste more money than business,” I wanted to know. He laughed quietly and responded, “Of course not.” Then why, I wanted to know, does government always get accused of wasting a lot of money, while business is rarely accused of that failure? “Simple,” he responded. “Business can usually keep most of its losses secret, while government doesn’t have that privilege. It has to be open with its owners, the American public.” And then he went on, explaining further, “It’s utterly impossible for large corporations, public, private or governmental to avoid wasting some monies. There’s no way possible, software, artificial intelligence or whatever, to avoid such losses.” This was a clear opportunity for an expert to fudge, avoid or even deny the truth, but I recognized in his answer a competent, qualified and principled executive of great expertise. And quite willing to go against the grain.
In sum, given my own unusually rich experience with many academics, several hundred top business experts, and dozens of legal and architectural experts,. I find the core characteristics of real expertise dead center. Both accurate and highly useful for assessing expertise.
Using partial or limited expertise
On a personal basis, I usually limit my trust of the average, ordinary person’s so-called knowledge or “expertise,” even though that person poses as an expert because of some experience they’ve had. Still, I may respect and use some of that experience, even though it doesn’t address an entire issue or contains obvious bias. For example, I’ve been thinking about taking a trip to Southern Italy and perhaps another to Israel and Jordan. My wife and I travelled all over Europe with a great tour book and some input from our youngest daughter—who had lived in Europe, off and on, for a little over two years. We found her input and the Harvard Travel Guide (written by Harvard students) were excellent sources of expertise. But going to the Middle East alone (my wife died eleven years ago) and just using a tour book sounded a bit daunting for this octogenarian. One of my good friends and his wife (septuagenarians) travel all the time, Europe, Middle East, Africa, etc.
I commented to him in our weekly coffee, that I was thinking about going to Israel and Jordan (Jewish and Muslim culture, side-by-side). He was off, telling me about all the things to see in both countries. And then he suggested that I should add Egypt to that trip. He’s a highly verbal ethnic, but an ethnicity which I’ve loved since I was a kid--and am also very familiar. So, I took what he had to say with a grain of salt. But still, I’d never thought about adding Egypt to the trip and wondered whether that made sense. After doing some homework on various tours on the web, I found two things: the trip to all three nations made perfect sense, and they had tours for people over fifty years. Recently I ran both by him again. He had fascinating info of which I was unaware: he told me how to evade the Israel/Egypt problem which doesn’t exist for Israel/Jordan. And second, he strongly suggested that I ignore the “over 50 tours,” providing numerous reasons—all of which make perfect sense. Especially since my health and physicality are more like a fifty-year old. I’ll check out the 50+ data with some agents, but I suspect he’s correct.
The process which I’ve illustrated in the previous two paragraphs is a form of using questionable expertise, a format I manipulate regularly. An individual has significant knowledge and some expertise, but it’s very contextual—and not fully trustworthy for any number of reasons. I’ve applied it to finding and hiring landscapers, painters, roofers—and even making major purchases, like an auto, a lake place and even a home. It’s highly useful, but it’s “qualified expertise,” and should be treated as such. It requires better than average insight into the other as well as a bit of calculated skepticism. But it’s in my toolkit and immediately available for use.
Most of us appreciate expertise, but are skeptical--even cynical of experts. Kim Smith’s research reinforces the same model I’ve used for years, and also provides a great deal of language clarity for an issue in which I was not well-versed. Precise language, like that provided by Smith, enables us to think more clearly about the problem as well as make better and more useful decisions surrounding experts and expertise.