Barrier:
The Untrustworthy Expert: Why we should have a healthy skepticism of people identified as or proclaiming to be "experts."

By Aaron Anderson - Director of Strategic Organizational Initiatives at San Francisco State University, College of Business

January 18, 2011 at 3:29pm

Beware the Ph.D

Experts are not

skepticism

content

Applicability

Moonshots

Reinvent the means of control

Make direction setting bottom-up and outside-in

Expand the scope of employee autonomy

Summary

Have you ever taken a leap of faith, followed the advice of some Ph.D. or similarly papered - or un-papered, self proclaimed - expert's advice only to have your experiment explode across the rocky slopes of reality?

Perhaps, we should invert the paradigm by which society typically bestows trustworthiness upon those holding advanced diplomas (or otherwise proclaim to be expert in certain areas). Our insistence that people follow the advice of "experts" may be a hindrance to formulating real innovative solutions to concrete problems. That is, we might be better suited to have a stronger skeptical viewpoint of some one's advice the more strongly that person proclaims & asserts to be expert in a particular area.

Description

In October, this past year, I was introduced to, and in November I read the Brafman Bros. book entitled "Sway: The irresistible pull of irrational behavior." It wasn't written with overly academic prose, and I managed to plow through it in good time. As I finished the work, I wrote this on the back page, which led me to the identification of this barrier:

"Front loading the result? Why the Ph.D. is irrelevant when it comes to things that matter. Because the Ph.D. training narrowly defines a person's expertise, perhaps we are wrong to trust their opinions (particularly if they are asked to comment out side of that limited, research assumed scope of understanding). This is much like the conversation about "front loading the result" discussed on page 123. If we have to boast about our diplomas to support our opinions, perhaps there aught to be an inverse relationship to how much those opinions should be trusted."

My thinking since this note was made is that a healthy skepticism may be very much warranted, and we might want to exert and equal amount of wariness equivalent to the amount of boasting or front loading done by the said expert. There's an inverse proposition that may also be true here: That the more an idea or opinion about the best way forward is advanced by some one who looks the least likely to be an expert, perhaps the more likely we should pursue said solution with all due haste.

Illustration

Back when I started running cross country competitively, there was no spandex, no nylon, and the person with the ratty cotton shorts and shirt with holes in it was probably the most competitive athlete to fear. Those of us in the hunt for some hardware to return home with were always on the look out for the racer looking most like a dirtbag. The person with the snazzy newfangled track suit, was your least likely adversary and would probably get smoked by half the grandparents running the same race. Like this analogy, perhaps the person with the least amount of obvious credentials, is the one we should follow toward powerful and positive innovation.

Root Causes

Trustworthiness takes a lifetime to earn and a moment to break. However, as we seek out short cuts to affirm and apply trustworthiness, we sometimes take badges earned (like MBAs or Ph.D.s) or grandiose claims of expertise on faith before that trust is earned; all the more so if such badges are earned from the more touted universities of the land. The root cause is that when there is a perceived limited amount of time to get to a real solution, we sometimes are willing to pay extravagant sums for expert guidance to assist in the solution rendering, but as many consultancy failures can abide, success isn't always a guarantee.

Solution

If you haven't read "Sway," I commend it to you.

I've said this in other locations, but in today's knowledge driven, globally socially connected world, content rules. Trustworthiness and reputation are all you have that lend credence to advance your suggestions for solving what ails our society. However, applicability is the true measure of worth. If your content is broken or shoddy, you won't get any purchase on the ideas. If your solutions not applicable, there will be no follow up query.

The way around this barrier is to focus on building out good content in an inclusive and as large of pool of collaborators as possible, with a conscious disregard a person's credentials. Together, avoid grandiose claims of expertise, and work from a humble origin to build out applicable solutions that are powerfully positive.

Credits

My thinking on this was spun off after reading Sway, and like most of my ideas are pretty much contrarian . Doubtful that I'll get a lot of followers on this particular idea/barrier, but from this day forward, I'm going to be looking for solutions in my operation that come from those who look more like the dirt bags who regularly kicked my butt in races long since gone, rather than those who have been formally "trained" in the pristine ivory towers with same number of or even far fewer diplomas than I have.

Oh, and I'm well aware of the irony of my proposing this barrier. I may be wrong, even so, and I don't proclaim to be an expert in such barriers.

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January 23, 2011 at 10:53am

Ellen Weber

Aaron, while I have not read Sway, I'd heard about it. Great post -- as it makes us all stop to think. Still folks cast their resources and hopes with big traditions such as ivy leagues and other castles of naught. Sometimes they work - and I am wondering if it's not so much the badges as the leaders who wear or avoid them. In other words, "What's the evidence that leader rocked?"

You'll enjoy the definition of expert:-)

X = the unknown in algebra
SPURT = a drip under pressure

Thus XSPURT