Can Subject Matter Experts Destroy Your Company?

People have an expert problem. When faced with an expert, they become dumb.

So when you place a subject matter expert in the middle of your company or group, does your group become smarter or dumber?

A bit of both, depending on the personality of the subject matter expert and the personality of the people in your group. How much of each could make the difference between a killer, high flying team tearing up a market, and a passive group of automatons parroting the status quo- people who broadcast rather then communicate.

Studies have shown that the critical thinking parts of the brain crater when faced with an expert. There is a host of supporting evidence and studies, often highlighted by the strange things people do when prompted by an expert. Like the nurse who famously put ear drops in the r.ear of a patient at the doctors written command.

Experts Not Always Trustworthy

To make matters worse, consider the recent Time article on experts, their studies, and their tendency to be wrong:

Experts and Studies: Not Always Trustworthy

The nutshell- we tend to follow experts who tend to be wrong due to the complexity of the world.

This raises an interesting question- we want to be market driven, and the key to that is market knowledge which we often get from subject matter experts.

The Challenge

Herein lies the challenge.

Now, in many cases we have a simple product, need, and market. A SME tightens things up, makes our prose a bit better, helps us know the customer better to create better relationships and empathy. Success!

Sadly, in my many years in the B2B enterprise software world I’ve never run into that. More often then not I’ve seen customers shaking their heads annoyed with our lack of a clue.

I remember one job at an apparel company where the vendor kept bringing in product development experts from an aerospace company. These were experts in experience, but not in mind. They could do nothing but try to apply airplane configuration management theories and practices to clothing development. It almost killed the seven figure deal.

And this is reality. You may end up with an aerospace expert, but apparel customers. The above scenario also played out in electronics, medical devices, and pharma. Early aerospace experts who were experts in experience, not mind, creating massive damage from what should have been a massive success.

It can be even more devious then that- simply taking an expert in the end user problems can drown out our understanding of the management problem- the clash between user personas and buyer personas. Take CRM- the user wants a faster, easier job and the manager wants business insight through operational dashboards.

You have the right industry, the right expert, the right solution, but the wrong understanding of the buyer and you have no clue that this is what’s killing lead generation and sales cycle progress.

In fact, early customers created a legion of ABC experts, and those experts can blunt both the voice of other industry experts but also the CREATION of those experts, because they weren’t certain of their instincts and didn’t pursue the signals they were seeing in their market contacts.

Now imagine promotion of the early experts with their industry wins, and you know have petrified your organizations learning and agility top to bottom.

The Solution

The solution? There are a few key steps to overcoming the expert problem.

First, if you get a real subject matter expert, make sure you get the best of the best- sharp, creative and able to think outside of the box. An expert in experience AND mind. This allows him to communicate his knowledge in a manner relevant to the team members and customers that knowledge is being shared with. Hire a master of “it depends”, who asks clarifying questions and creates the knowledge that the situation demands. Hire someone who never gives the same answer twice, and never answers which asking his own questions first.

This is critical to give actionable knowledge to your team (relevant and applicable to their needs), but also to teach them the thinking behind the knowledge. This helps mitigate the expert problem because they are getting knowledge + context, which enables them to apply their growing knowledge in a flexible, and hence relevant, manner to their activities.

This is also important because opening up new markets means become deeper experts in multiple aspects of the business, users, and buyers, across various industries.

The second key is having enough expert minds (as opposed to specific expert knowledge) across your organization. Market knowledge linchpins who understand the expert problem and work aggressively to overcome it, always learning and always becoming the expert themselves. Placing these throughout your organization you ensure the movement of actionable knowledge and ensure your company is always communicating, never broadcasting.

To make a soccer/football analogy, these are your Xavis, Schneiders and Iniesta’s- the creative midfielders who are always learning and creating knew knowledge and plans in an ever changing landscape.