Expertise

It was March 2008. I was sitting in a meeting with the recruitment committee. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” They asked. “I would like to be an expert” I replied. It was an honest answer. I wanted to be an “expert”.

Expertise is one of the concepts whose meaning is taken for granted; when you are sick, you wish to find a doctor to diagnose your disease and help you get better as soon as possible. You rely on engineers to build your homes and immunize it from earthquakes. You want the best teacher for your kid. In fact, the society works based on the division of labor, expertise and trust. You trust your bread manufacturer if they are experts in creating bread and this happens because they produce bread and do not care about car manufacturing which is your job.

However, I believe the value of expertise is overestimated. Expertise is a natural product of the division of labor. Everyone’s expertise comes from the centralization of the tasks and the accumulation of the knowledge gained by various experiences. For the most people, it is an automatic learning process. You do not have to be special to become an expert.

When I was to be recruited, I was interested in becoming an expert. The idea of being a know-all and a person whom people refer to was intriguing. Later on, I realized that the world is full of experts and this expertise alone is unable to solve any problem. If I do not get the job, somebody else will and he/she is likely to succeed with an average passion, intelligence and grit. Your doctor learned from his/her experiences to cure you similar to your lawyer and plumber. Passionate and Intelligent people go further by exploring more and learning more in their jobs but this does not help as long as they have not changed anything.

I believe the real benefit to the society is created by change, not expertise. Our contribution to the world is how we can disrupt to improve the situations we are living in. Let it be a change in mindset, behavior or action whether in our personal lives or in our communities. This is why “Imagination is more important than knowledge” (by Einstein). We all go to school, go to work, learn and learn to see what is not seen and imagine a situation that never existed. To summarize, expertise is necessary. It is one of the pillars of any society but it should serve the greater purpose of making the world a better place.