Don’t Be Blinded by Your Own Expertise

Expertise can impede performance.

Here are some warning signs that you might have fallen into an expertise trap:

- Market developments begin to take you by surprise.

- You’re unfamiliar with new technologies or approaches in your industry.

- Others seem uncomfortable challenging your assumptions and ideas.

- You tend to do things in a certain way because “Well, that’s how we’ve always done it.”

- When making decisions, you focus on risks rather than on opportunities.

- You discover that colleagues are working together in ways you haven’t.

- You keep proposing the same old strategies and tactics to address new challenges.

- You try to make old solutions ever more precise rather than pioneering entirely new ones.

- Millennials leave your team faster than they do other teams in your company.

The solution is clear: Rededicate yourself to learning and growth. Turn back the clock and rediscover just a bit of what the Buddhists call beginner’s mind.

To read the full HBR article, please click here.