Insight Tip
Accelerating the development of expertise

New research shows that the development of true expertise in any profession takes about 10 years. Whether an individual is working as an electrical tradesperson, a strategic analyst, or in the profession of leadership, it takes about a decade of exposure to a particular field before an individual can lay claim to being an "expert" in that field.

True experts are masters of their game. Compared to novices or even skilled professionals, experts make decisions swiftly and efficiently, without needing to review the basic facts. Experts are very intuitive and are able to take context into account when analysing problems and generating solutions. They know when rules don’t apply, drawing on enormous repertoires of experience to identify patterns, trends and root causes.

How can organisations cultivate, even accelerate, the development of staff expertise and experience?  How do we grow experts in 3 - 5 years, rather than 10 years?

What doesn’t seem to help very much is sending staff on training courses. Neither does decontextualising learning from the zone of application or circumstance. Coaching is helpful but doesn’t appear to be the full answer either.

What does help is finding ways to structure up experience to make it visible – making the process of gaining expertise known to you. Structuring experience can be achieved through the following actions:

• DELIBERATE PRACTICE - Engaging in deliberate practice as opposed to repetition or passive experiencing. Deliberate practice means setting clear goals to practice skills, repeatedly, in real-time on real issues that are carefully selected to avoid familiarity.
• EXPERIENCE EXPOSURE - Exposing oneself, or a team, to the full range of experiences for a target role or competency area (ie. to common events, rare events, and unusual events). Without exposure to such broad experiences, the development of expertise can take years.
• BEHAVIOURAL COACHING - Being coached to integrate skills, knowledge, and wisdom into personal habits and executing these through deliberate practice in real time.
• REFLECTION - Using reflection and mindfulness to understand how the skills were in fact used, the context where the skills were used, outcomes that resulted, and the assumptions about when to use, or not use, the skills in question. Such reflection is best undertaken individually and then collaboratively with others.
• META-AWARENESS - Taking time to review the process of skill execution and the way that insight and mastery emerge.

Facilitating Insight
Organisational Culture:
What is "effective leadership" anyway?

While leadership success and, indeed, organisational success may be in the eye of the beholder, failure is recognised by all. Take some time to work through a simple activity, which draws on a values-based organisational culture model, to identify how we can better define and understand success, and what implications this might have for the way we lead our organisations.

[for activity, click here]