Does it really matter what you’re an expert in? Not really. But it does matter that you be an expert in something. Expertise starts with opportunism in most cases—think of it like our country’s Olympic Development Program. We don’t start out just trying to make everyone great at gymnastics (or even a particular subset of gymnastics). Rather, we wait until special children display that unique confluence of physical ability and passion for the sport.
It’s not always so special to just have the physical ability, or the passion. You have to have both to even be an Olympic possibility, and then you dedicate your time, energy, resources and efforts to becoming the best in the world.
It’s the same with developing expertise. No one wakes up and says, “I’m going to master X.” Instead, the foundations are laid early on, or we find ourselves in a job or particular situation where the next stage of advancement requires us to learn one thing or another.
Too many people never really become experts in their organizations just because they don’t know how to go about building up that acumen. And just so it’s clear, it does matter: organizations always need experts, people who take on the responsibility of understanding their square more deeply than everyone else, and even when an organization doesn’t have “space” for an expert, they’ll always make room for the individual that’s willing to add value by becoming more knowledgable.
Here are three easy steps to becoming an expert:
1. Identify the need: the one step everyone skips is the practical one: where is the immediate need for more knowledge in your area of opportunity? Acquiring more knowledge, skill and experience in the area most needed by your organization will have the benefit of management’s support, shorter term gain for both you and the organization, and clearer direction on your part. By assessing what’s needed, it becomes very clear what you need to learn to fill that need.
2. Read: Simple enough, right? But you’re in the minority of business professionals if you bother to do it. Everything you need to know to become the go-to expert in just about anything has already been written, and in some cases it’s been written about so much that there’s a ___ for Dummies version of it, ready for you to digest in less than a week. It’s being willing to invest just a little bit of time learning and growing in your field that will automatically put you in the top 10%. So read, ok?
3. Rehearse: Having and wielding knowledge are two separate things. Understanding how to apply your newfound expertise in the context of your organization’s broader need, culture and workflow is as essential as having the knowledge in the first place. There’s no way to develop this ability other than to just seek out opportunities to rehearse it on a daily or weekly basis. Get in on those planning and strategy meetings. Go after those special projects. Whatever it takes, even if you don’t feel like you have all the knowledge you need yet, you need to get active in your organization if you want to develop the application side of your expertise.
If it sounds simple, you’re onto something. We look at the experts we know and wonder how they got there, when chances are they just made a decision to learn more about something a long time ago and started taking whatever opportunities they could find to apply that knowledge. It’s not rocket science, but practical ambition and willingness to learn are rare characteristics in just about every organization. Most of the time, the life you want is just waiting for you to take it. So pick the thing you’ll become an expert in and get started!
Question: Where’s the hole in your organization, the place where someone could step up and take control of a situation if they just accepted the responsibility to learn about it?
