Stop Hiding In the Comfort of Your Expertise

Your Expertise Usually Isn't the Bottleneck

When I give presentations or workshops, most of the questions I get aren't:

"I have no idea about the problems we're facing, and hence, I don’t know what we should be doing."

No, they're more often questions like:

"I know we're a Feature Factory. How do I convince management this is a problem?"

“We’re creating a feature-level roadmap for a whole year. How do I get the C-level to see that this sets us up for failure from the beginning?”

“We’re doing QA after each Sprint, and our developers refuse to help with testing. What can I do to make them see this is a suboptimal way of working?

We focus so much on expertise as if that's where all the answers should come from. We obsess over getting all those credentials and certifications to showcase how much we know, but is how much we know really the biggest problem we face?

Is the bottleneck how much we know or how good we’re at reaching other people so they may potentially see the world differently?

In my experience, it’s usually not our expertise that’s the problem. It’s our ability and expertise to convince and influence others that’s the main obstacle.

There are a few problems with primarily focusing on your expertise and why your opinion is right:

1. We're not as rational as you may think. Purely logical arguments aren’t good enough, and we must consider people's feelings, too. If people are high in emotions, the arguments stop mattering until they cool down.

2. Every person has their own lens which affects how they view the world. Their worldview affects how they will interpret what you say. The same message might interpreted wholly differently depending on the person.

3. Group dynamics come into play when addressing groups of people. This potentially makes it even more difficult for any individual to receive the message how you want them to.

This list isn’t exhaustive, by the way. The biggest problem isn't your expertise or what you know but how well you craft a story that resonates with the people you want to influence. This ability to influence is usually the biggest bottleneck in organizations' efforts to change their ways of doing things.

I've not always succeeded in influencing people, as it's incredibly tough, but here are six things that have worked well for me in the past:

1. Build a relationship before you need it. If you have to build a relationship while you need something from them, you’re starting on the wrong foot, as they know you have other intentions looming over their head.

2. What do the people you’re talking to care about? It’s easy to fall back on talking about the problems you care about and the things you’d like to fix, but the person you’re talking to might care about very different things. Focus on what’s in it for them instead of what’s in it for you.

3. Whatever you do, try to preserve the relationship. Being right and destroying the relationship means you lose. You may feel good in that moment, but you've set yourselves up for failure in the future. You now have an adversary who will care much less about whatever you have to say. Don’t burn bridges unless you are 100% sure you’ll never need those bridges.

4. You don’t have to respond in the moment. If you’re blindsided by a question or swayed by emotions, which makes it likely that you’ll give an answer, that’s more frustration than communication. Instead of answering immediately, hold your breath and begin asking questions with intent curiosity. Get them to put all the cards on the table.

5. Don’t let your emotions do the talking - unless you want to. If, after asking questions and listening, you’re still unable to respond in a pleasant manner, then tell them you’ll get back to them and respond at a point in time when you’ve got your emotions in check. You can still decide to respond with emotions if you believe it makes sense, but at least then, it’s a conscious choice and not something inevitable because you can’t keep your emotions in check.

6. Be curious. If you act like you’ve got all the answers, other people are less likely to listen. Plus, you close the door to potentially learning something new yourself.

It’s easy to hide in the comfort of your expertise, but it’s crucial to get comfortable with people. Care about your expertise, but care even more about the people and what they care about. Because if you want to reach them, you should always try to start with what they care about.

You should care less about being right and more about taking your listeners on a journey so they may potentially have insight into something they care about.

And always keep the door open that you might be wrong yourself and that the person on the other side may know something you didn’t know yourself.