"I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying my understanding of what you're saying doesn't match my prior experience. Can you help me reconcile those?"
Paul & Karen talk about working collaboratively instead of competitively.
Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.
Paul:I'm Paul Tevis.
Karen:And I'm Karen Gimnig.
Paul:Each episode, we'd start with a question and we see where it takes us.
This week's question is:What do we do with the experts?
Karen:So this comes up when we are in a teamwork situation, or a collaborative situation, and we have a member that is particularly expert at a thing that others aren't. So this isn't really talking about when you go hire an outside expert and you bring them in, that could be a different episode. But this is, "What do you do when you're in a teamwork situation?" where, 'theoretically', you want a fair bit of equality and a fairly egalitarian approach to decision making. You want to all be peers. You want to all be valued equally for your input. And some of you, or one of you, 'cause it's the easiest case, has a great deal of expertise in the thing that we're talking about today. So for example, someone who happens to be a lawyer on a project for which there's a legal element. So, they're not being hired as the lawyer, they're not the community's lawyer, but they know an awful lot about the legal implications of the thing being talked about. And others who have lots of ideas about that thing as well. What do you do with that?
Paul:I have a feeling we're going to end up on opposite poles for this because I've seen this fail in two different ways. One way that it fails, which is the one that I've seen more often, is actually because of my background, is, well, this person's an expert, so we just need to defer to them all the time on things about this. And that's, and that's not particularly collaborative. But, but that is one of the ways that that I tend to see, particularly in teams that have a lot of specialists. And that is an environment that I've worked in a lot, is that, ok, whenever something around the database that comes up, the person who is the database expert, everybody else just backs away from that particular thing. And they- even if they actually have thoughts about it, or opinions about it, they don't necessarily contribute them for a variety of reasons. I mean, that's one way that I've seen it fail. And then obviously there's the other way that it can fail, which is that that person's expertise is actually just regarded as one opinion among many, where we don't listen to them. And I haven't had as much experience in that space in professional settings, but I absolutely have had that up in community settings. And in, and in volunteer organizations, and things like that, where that expertise probably isn't given the weight that it should be. And so that's- it's the under weighting and overweighting of expertise, where I think we can go wrong in either direction. And depending on the group you're in, you're more prone to one than the other.
Karen:Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And one of the reasons that we tip over so often is because it's not all one way or all the other. What we're looking for is a middle ground. And because I work largely in non-hierarchical organizations, where everybody's a volunteer and, and generally most people are not working within their professional field. I do. You're exactly right. We're landing on opposite goals here. I see the thing where somebody has an expertise, and, and it's not given any additional weight. There's this idea that everybody should have equal voice. And it doesn't actually lead to good decisions if the people who know nothing about it are given the same weight as the people who know a lot about it. And I want to say that expertise could come in, in the example I gave initially, with some sort of professional training, or with that kind of background. It could also be just the expertise of they've been working on this project and they've been out doing the research and they've learned a lot and they've talked to people. And so it may not be a credential or a degree or some lengthy past experience. It may just be that they are the expert. They know a lot because of the work they've done on this project. Either way, if we don't give them more weight than others, then what we do is diminish the value of that expertise. And that goes wrong in a couple of ways. One is we don't tend to make very good decisions because we're waiting for uninformed opinions, the same as highly informed opinions, and that's not great. The other thing that happens is that the people with the expertise get tired of participating.
Paul:Mm hmm.
Karen:So you take somebody who really knows a thing and they say, "Okay, but this is the thing that I know." And somebody says, "But you could be wrong." "But is that really how it is? Are you sure?" And, you know, there's a certain amount of that that gets really old. You know, "Yes, I'm sure I've been doing this for 30 years. Why are you questioning me?" And so it's finding that balance point where people stay engaged. So, this is the problem you're looking at, is that people say, "Oh, is there a thing? I don't even have to look at it?" And then whatever input they would have, whatever knowledge they do have, gets left off. So, you want people to stay engaged in thinking about it, but you also want people to accept the expertise that's there. And give it a certain amount of respect and deference so that it gets used. So you don't overpower the better information.
Paul:And that, for me, is really the key. Are we actually doing a good job of using the expertise that it is present in any group? That's actually one of the things that highly effective groups do very well, is they actually use the knowledge and skills and expertise of all of their members in effective ways. Because the other the other side of the, the expert who, you know, who always has their their expertise respected and everybody else just kind of backs away is, they get sick of always having to be the person who does this thing particularly right. If it's, I mean, sometimes when it's a professional thing. But also it's like, "Okay, yes, I'm good at helping to organise the meetings for this group, but I don't want to always have to do it. I wish somebody else would do that too." "Oh, but Paul is so good. We need him to do the thing." And so, so it's really about- for me, it's two things. It's managing the, that we're using the expertise well, but we're also making sure that whatever expertise people have, that doesn't become either, you know, they're engaging with the group in a useful way. That both the, that they're neither frustrated by not being listened to, or sick and tired of always having to be the person who does the thing. So it's how can we manage that engagement as well. And this is, I mean, this is true of everybody, in any group, around any particular subject. It's just that given a particular group, there are going to be certain types of expertise where this becomes a focal point more often.
Karen:Yeah, and I think there's a skill that's useful in any collaborative environment that's particularly relevant here, which is the discernment about "Do I have something useful to add?" Is my idea, is my, like, "Is the thing that occurs to me, that I could say something, actually going to serve the group, the decision, the conversation at this time?" And so if we think about applying that here, the person who actually knows about the thing has said something that they've said, "This is what's going on. This is what I think we should do." And "I have an idea." And so I need to have some discernment about "Is my idea an aspect of this that they're not seeing? Maybe I know something about the roof that they don't know, even though they know the expert area better than I do." Or, "Maybe there's a question I can ask that will help them think through it more thoroughly", that kind of thing. Those are all probably really good things to say. But then there's a whole list of other things where, "Well, I'm just kind of nervous about it because even though you say it, it doesn't quite feel true to me." Or, "That's different than what I thought you were going to say. So now I'm worried." And I mean, there's any number of ways- or just that "I come up with an opinion because everybody expects me to." "I got called on. It's my turn. I must be supposed to have an opinion." And if we could get good at saying "I don't really have an opinion" or"My opinion isn't helpful", I- this is a time where it should be based on what's known. That discernible piece is so important. And if we can do that, I think we have a much better chance of using the expertise well.
Paul:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. One of the things that came to me as you were kind of talking about this is that, you know, if I've got an idea or I've got an opinion or I've got a question, even. What does- how can I raise that in a 'collaborative', rather than'competitive', manner? Because I think that's the thing in the, in the situation that you're- the 'we're not listening to the expert' situation. The problem is, when it's like, "I have an idea", but that probably comes- or this doesn't match my experience. It can actually be useful to say "That's interesting." Like, "What you're saying doesn't match my experience. Can I share with you the experience I had so that I can understand how what you're saying does apply?", right? There's a bit of the- how do I- that's the collaborative way of saying "I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying my understanding of what you're saying doesn't match my prior experience. Can you help me reconcile those?" We rarely do that in groups. Oftentimes, because group time is precious, right? There's a lot of time. And so we then just go to our conclusion, rather than saying, "Hey, can we walk this path collaboratively together?" But I think that's one of the keys, too. And then the other side of that, right, is that if we go, "Well, I can't figure out what my opinion should be, so I'm just not going to say anything", even though I have concerns, reservations, things like that. And so I think one of the keys to that is, is being able to recognise, are we actually putting stuff out there in a way that, that the rest of the group, including the expert, can actually work with, and that we can work with together? Rather than it just becoming either all of our ideas are competing, or there's only one idea out there.
Karen:Yeah. And this is a place where this is new territory. So the episodes that we've done some fairly recently, I think about feedback, are really important here. And I'm going to especially encourage us to check in with the expert. Because they're the one that's likely to be first aware of, either that they're being dismissed and not listened to, and being frustrated, or that they're being left with all of the work and being abandoned in a different way. But if they're happy with the interaction, there's a greater likelihood that there's a fit. We also need to check with the rest of the group because we know we can get out of sorts the other way as well. But I think we sometimes forget to check in with that expert that we're relying on and just say, "We know that you have an expertise here and you have more information and we're working in a collaborative way. Is that working for you?" "Are you getting what you need? Is it feeling like a match, or are we relying too heavily? Or are we listening not enough?" And if you can get that authentic exchange going, that's going to really help.
Paul:Yeah. And in some ways, that's actually easier to do when the expert is outside the group, than when they're part of the group. Because, I mean, this is the thing when I come into an organization I'm working with clients, things like that. You know, I tell them, "Look, I have some expertise in these particular areas, but also your experts in your environment and your situation." And so when they push back on, on the things that I'm suggesting, for me that's a prompt to get curious about what's going on in their environment. To actually ask about their expertise. I think that, that pattern can also be useful inside of a team, a group, an organization. But it's less obvious that we need to do it. Because we've always just "This is just this person who's on this team, who we work with all the time." Like, "We don't need to treat them any different than we would." And any other day, we're like, "Well, actually in certain situations, we probably need to recognize"- and I think that's an important part here, is just acknowledging what are the differences in expertise around the particular topic that we're trying to work with here today, and then adjust our interactions accordingly.
Karen:Yeah. So to wrap up where we've been, we're talking today about the case where we have within a collaborative group, a person who has greater expertise, either because of previous background, or because of the work that they've done in this particular project. But that, there's a real difference between the knowledge of one person, and the knowledge of the rest of the team. And that we're wanting to work in an environment where everyone's opinion is is equal, everyone's view is honored in an egalitarian kind of way. But in fact, some- that we have a member who knows a lot more, and should have their opinion valued more highly. Will serve the decision that will serve the group; to value that opinion more highly because it's a more informed decision, or more informed opinion. And so how do we avoid the two traps of this? One of which is, "Well, they know it, so we just leave it to them and we don't need to even engage in it or talk about it." And the problem there is, they get overworked, and we don't- where our knowledge the rest of the group has doesn't get included. So you don't make a good decision that way. Or the flip side, where we just treat them the same as everybody else. And their opinions don't get the weight that they genuinely should have, and then we don't make as good a decision. And likely, the person in question doesn't feel good, and doesn't feel supported. So, really thinking about how to engage in ways where we check ourselves, is the thing that I want to say actually useful, relevant and helpful at this time. And looking at that feedback, that we can get back and forth, with everybody in the group, and especially with the expert."Is this working for you? Is this relationship working for you?" "Is the connection working for you?" And giving that feedback or asking questions or giving the input in ways that are 'collaborative' rather than ways that are 'competitive'. And if we can do all of those things, we can make really good use, we think, of expertise, within our teams or groups.
Paul:That's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.
Karen:And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.