Introduction to Employing Differences

[00:00:03] Karen: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals. 

[00:00:08] Paul: I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:00:10] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:00:11] Paul: Each episode we start with a question and see where it takes us. 

The Problem with Too Much Expertise

[00:00:15] Paul: This week's question is, can you have too much expertise?

[00:00:21] Karen: So we are of course, talking about being part of a team, working as a group where you've got a collection of people, probably more than two in this case, although if it was two, it would also show up. And the premise that we're starting with is that the group is together for a particular task, for a particular purpose, or at least on this day, has a particular task.

[00:00:41] Karen: Right. And that the skills or abilities that each individual brings that are most relevant to that task are not all the same. And there's sort of a spectrum and very often there's sort of a clumping of a lot of people who are, you know, reasonably good. They're basically competent, but they're not fabulously expert either because they don't have like supercharged intelligence about that thing, or they don't have a ton of background experience in that thing.

[00:01:11] Karen: However, that sort of skillset or ability arrives. But the thing we wanna talk about is when you get that one person who's like kind of outside the cluster of skillset. And they're way stronger at a relevant skill for the task at hand, whatever that might be, whether that's problem solving or working spreadsheets or doing a particular type of software design or building a thing or whatever it might be that their skills are like way far and above beyond what anybody else in the group is.

[00:01:44] Karen: And that seems like on the face of it, it would be a good thing. Oh, goodie we get to bring somebody who really knows their stuff about this that's gonna make our team so much stronger. 

Challenges of Bringing in an Expert

[00:01:54] Karen: And Paul and I have had experience that says that can be true, but relationally it's almost guaranteed to make it a lot harder. 

[00:02:02] Paul: The thing that I see, you know, very often, right, is, you know, in the software world that I come from. We've got teams that are working on something, team's not doing great. And so we need to fix that. And so we're gonna bring in an expert, we'll bring in a principal software engineer to shore them up to do this thing like that.

[00:02:17] Paul: And so someone who is super qualified to do this kind of work and it's amazing how often that not only doesn't fix the problem, but it causes other ones. And my theory around this, in a lot of cases here, I go to the work of Richard Hackman who researched teams and high performance for a long time.

[00:02:34] Paul: And one of the things that he found is that when you're putting a team together, you need to have the task relevant skills for whatever it is the team is doing, right? Building software, setting up a factory, intelligence analysts, right? He studied all these different things.

[00:02:49] Paul: He said they need those skills. 

Importance of Teamwork Skills

[00:02:50] Paul: But they also need what he called teamwork skills. As you and I might call them, collaboration skills or relationship skills. And my contention is that the greater the gap in expertise in those task relevant skills, the greater relational skills you need in order to take advantage, not only of the person who has the high level of expertise.

[00:03:17] Paul: But also of all of the other talents of the rest of the group.

[00:03:21] Karen: And it's tricky because we all have ego and we all can be a little fragile about that. And nobody wants to be less than, nobody wants to be put down. Nobody wants to be, told that they're not useful or not as good as, or whatever. It's also true that we are not as good at a particular thing as somebody else, and so I think the thing that is so essential and so rare here is that we figure out how to have honest conversations and acknowledgement of the difference in skill level that doesn't carry with it a difference in value of the person.

[00:04:06] Paul: When that skill suddenly connects to your moral worth, right? You're a better human being because you're better at this type of problem solving. It is very rare that that gets said out loud, but sometimes that messaging happens either in the community or the corporate culture that you're working in.

[00:04:24] Paul: Like I worked in an organization for a long time where there was this underlying assumption that nobody ever spoke. But it was, if it doesn't involve writing code, it's not hard. And so if you're in a role that isn't writing code, you are lower status than the engineers. And that evaded that organization.

[00:04:48] Paul: And so as a result, it was really hard for that type of collaboration to happen. Like you really needed when you had someone from marketing who was working with engineers to figure out how do we actually communicate to our customers what the value is in using our product. Turns out that's a different type of expertise that is also useful, but when that would happen, it just, it wouldn't go well because that was something that was a relational gap, right?

[00:05:14] Paul: That would show up. Now, there were actually some engineers who were really good at that because they didn't buy into that thinking. They didn't treat the people in marketing like that. There were others who did, and that's where it got in the way. And that's kind of what I mean about like when there is that difference in skill and task relevant still, and the sort of socially condoned and acceptable skill, you need to be more relationally savvy in order to be able to work well together.

[00:05:44] Karen: And I think it can be an ongoing thing. I mean, you can have a team that's gonna work together for six months or a year or two years, and every time they get together, it's going to be clear that one person knows a lot more about how to do that kind of work than everybody else. And it can happen in a shorter term, like in this moment, this particular task, for whatever reason.

[00:06:05] Karen: One person is in a position that they need to do whatever and they need to be primary in that thinking and I think hierarchy gets in our way that we are so accustomed to trying to place ourselves in a hierarchy that we lose track of the possibility that the hierarchy isn't helping us.

Real-World Examples and Hierarchy Issues

[00:06:24] Karen: Thinking of a time, I was the most junior person on the staff. But I did most of the clerical work and we had a huge budget project due and under a deadline. And I stayed really late one night and went home late enough that I said, I'm gonna get some sleep. I'm gonna come in late. But I left notes for everybody around me of when I get back, I need you to have done this and this and this.

[00:06:47] Karen: By the time I got back in the office in the morning, they'd done those things and said, okay, what else do you need? So here's my boss saying, can I bring you a cup of coffee? Do you want me to like proofread your work? Do you want me to like, whatever, like the hierarchy went away because it had to be my document 'cause I was the one working on it and I wasn't gonna get it done by myself.

[00:07:08] Karen: And it needed to be done. So we dropped the hierarchy and even to some extent, the skillset. 'Cause if he'd been working on it for three weeks, like I had, he could have done it, but he hadn't been working on it for three weeks like I had. So my expertise in that moment wasn't about even an overall skillset.

[00:07:23] Karen: But if he had held to, well, I'm the boss and I'm not getting coffee for the junior person, or I'm not gonna go grab a file for somebody that is usually the one who grabs the files. We wouldn't have gotten it done. 

[00:07:36] Paul: That's a key thing for me about working in groups is how do I see my contribution to the group success as being the important thing that's here, right?

[00:07:45] Paul: As opposed to what did, you know, if you look at what I actually did, you might go, eh, right. But if you look at how that made success possible. Then you, oh, okay. Actually, that really matters. 

The Value of Team Players

[00:07:58] Paul: And that's also one of those things that, oftentimes doesn't get rewarded or seen, like in, in groups I've worked with, I worked in an organization once where there was a software engineer, a solid software engineer.

[00:08:09] Paul: Right? Not the superstar, which is great actually, this was the whole point of him not being a superstar. Like you just give him the problem, he's gonna figure it out. He made every team that he was on better, right? He was that glue figure.

[00:08:20] Paul: This shows up in a bunch of team sports as well. It's actually really interesting to look at different sports. There's a bunch of analysis about what are the sports in which hiring a bunch of superstars actually leads to wins, and what are ones where you actually need team players. And it's usually more of the flow sports.

[00:08:37] Paul: So things like, basketball and soccer and hockey actually benefit from having team players because it's more about the passes and the connections and the things like that, as opposed to, say, baseball, where there isn't a whole lot of, it's not as much of a team sport. Well, this guy was a great team player.

[00:08:54] Paul: He made everybody around him better. The problem was that wasn't really recognized by the organization, by the reward system. And he ended up not getting a promotion that I thought he really deserved. I thought he really should have been a principal engineer. And he got passed over for it and eventually left the company.

[00:09:12] Paul: And I thought that was really a problem. Because you couldn't point to like, well this was the amazing thing in code that he did. But he was still a critical part of, if you looked at every team he'd been on and the things that they did and what they got done. He had enough technical skill to be in the mix, but he also had these great relational skills.

[00:09:32] Paul: He also had the ability to get the group to step back and say, where are we really trying to go? He had those teamwork skills that made the teams that he was on more effective. 

Balancing Expertise and Collaboration

[00:09:42] Karen: So I think the, where we're headed here is relying on hierarchy is dangerous, probably always, but really in these situations, hierarchy has its place, it has its value, but it's tricky in the relational space.

[00:09:54] Karen: And it's really tricky if you're applying hierarchy to this expertise dilemma, where you've got one person who's way more expert in a relevant task than anybody else. Having those team players, having that collaboration skill makes that better. And if even one person can bring that, that's really useful.

[00:10:14] Karen: And one of the things that person is likely to bring is an ability to set aside the hierarchy and to really value the work of each person. Even if the work is decidedly simpler than the work somebody else is doing, or decidedly easier, the person who goes around and picks up all the trash so that there is clean space to work in.

[00:10:35] Karen: Like, that's not a complicated task, but everybody else is more effective because they did it. And if we can honor and value. All of the parts. If we can value the teamwork skill parts and we can value the support skill parts, and we can value the expertise parts without it being a one up one down, then we end up with a team that actually works.

[00:10:59] Karen: And if we don't do that, there's a reasonable likelihood that that expert is gonna be more disruptive to the work of the team than actually contributing. 

[00:11:09] 

Practical Tips for Experts and Teams

[00:11:09] Paul: And I think it's really critical when you are that expert, to really think about, okay, yes, I have the relevant skills here. I'm bringing this thing in, right?

[00:11:19] Paul: And sometimes it can feel like, yep, I'm here to save the day, right? That is the situation in which things are most likely to go wrong. And if you as that expert are able to say like, look, I bring these particular skills. I am good at this stuff. I'm not gonna devalue, what it is that I'm bringing here, but also I'm not gonna devalue what everybody else is bringing here.

[00:11:39] Paul: I mean, the best, people that I've worked with professionally, they have been top notch, like super skilled. There is a degree of humility there, but there's also an interest in relating to you, right? That you feel like you are part of the team when you work with them, right? They aren't arrogant.

[00:11:58] Paul: They aren't, you know, well, I can't be bothered to go do this. Like, you need to do that because it's beneath me, sort of thing. And so if you recognize, hey, I am the one who's coming in with the, you know, who's been sent from corporate to go fix things, right? To figure things out. To tread lightly in terms of throwing your expertise around until you've really established relationship and rapport with the rest of the group, recognizing that the presence of your higher level of expertise will be an obstacle to that. Because all of this stuff about status and hierarchy is going to show up.

[00:12:34] Paul: And so knowing how to work with that, knowing how to partner well with other people. Even when you are, you know, potentially the most savvy at, again, relevant skill in the room. I'm just gonna say that will take you a long way in your career if you're able to do that. 

[00:12:50] Karen: And I think a frame for that, I'm thinking about what does that look like?

[00:12:53] Karen: I think it looks like being able to walk into the room and say, okay, I've come in because I am really good at this thing. And I wanna help the team by doing this thing and maybe I'm teaching it, or maybe I'm just doing it. And we wanna make sure we're clear about those expectations. It helps a lot to know what the role is.

[00:13:11] Karen: But I'm here to do this thing. And the things that I'm going to need to do this thing well are these things and it's all of us working together. 'Cause I can't do the whole thing. I can do this part of this thing. And that sense of we're a whole team and then checking in. Does that feel right to you? Does it also seem to you that this part that feels like my, like I think this is my part.

[00:13:36] Karen: Do you all think this is my part? What am I missing about that? And the humility that says, you know, yes, I'm willing to claim the expertise that I have. I'm willing to jump in, and I probably know more about what I can do that others can't than they do at this point. So naming that, but having the conversation in a way that is hugely respectful, carries a little bit of humility and makes it pretty easy for other people to say, Nope, I'm not sure that is the thing that you need to be doing.

[00:14:02] Karen: Or, wait, I thought I was working on this part. How does that fit with what you're thinking we're doing? You know, that kind of pushback because there's gonna need to be some conversation where everybody figures out how they fit together. 

[00:14:16] Paul: You know, it is one of the things we've talked about before is that anytime there are differences in any way between members of the group, right?

[00:14:24] Paul: That those are great potential sources for wisdom because we have different viewpoints. Like there are things that as an expert, I will totally not notice because entrainment is a thing, right? And the newcomer who's never seen this before says, well, why does it work that way? And you go, oh, like that beginner's mind, that fresh set of eyes sort of thing can be really useful.

[00:14:44] Paul: And so if I'm marginalizing other people's perspectives because I'm the expert, we're never gonna get that out. But, that difference is a great potential source of wisdom and also of conflict. And so being able to go, like, given that, that this is here, how do we take advantage of it, without it being too disruptive.

[00:15:04] Paul: So that's, I think a place that I come to often around this is it's always gonna be the case that different people have different skill levels with regards to some work that you're doing. So how do we get good at working with that?

[00:15:15] Karen: We're saying if you're the person who comes in as the expert or you think you are either way, actually the same setup is probably smart. That you wanna come in with a certain amount of humility, a certain amount of curiosity, but also a willingness to say, Hey, I'm really good at this particular thing.

[00:15:31] Karen: This is what I'm working on. This is what I'm gonna need help with. And does that match what you are thinking? So some clarity about roles and really seriously good communication. And if you're not good at that collaborative stuff, maybe do some work on that. But if you're not that person, if you are setting up a team and you're considering whether to include that person. 

[00:15:52] Karen: We're saying if they don't have that collaborative skillset, make really sure that somebody else on the team does. And if there's hierarchy in play, make sure that that teamwork, collaboration skill has enough status in the hierarchy to come into play and be effective at making the teamwork. And if you find yourself on a team where you're with somebody who has this level of expertise.

[00:16:17] Karen: Be looking for opportunities to invite them to collaborative spaces. Be looking for opportunities to just check in and say, Hey, it seems like you're thinking your role is this. Am I getting you? Is that what you think your role is? Would you be interested in knowing how that works for me or not? Like, could I talk to you about that?

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:16:35] Karen: Wherever you are on this, whether you're forming the team, whether you're the expert brought in or happen to be an expert in a team that didn't plan necessarily to bring in an expert, or if you're as a member of the team, the key things are expect that more relational work is gonna be needed.

[00:16:52] Karen: Look for who can do it so that you're really attending to it. And wherever you can strip the hierarchy out of it so that you're really valuing all the work that it takes to get the thing done without extra valuing the hard tasks or the status tasks and minimizing the easier or lower status tasks. Because what we really need in the end is for all of the team to be valued and all of the team to feel like they can speak up if they have something useful to say, and all of the team to feel supported.

[00:17:24] Karen: You know, at whatever levels that they need. So it is a well-working machine that has all the parts covered. 

[00:17:32] Paul: Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time. I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:17:35] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this is been Employing Differences.