'The Real Path To Breakthroughs - Expertise is often Overrated.'

Greetings and welcome to the twelfth edition of my new newsletter. In each issue I hope to share a brief article about a stranger, a place, an idea, or all three at the forefront of innovation. I will also share a book worth reading and a quote to get you thinking about the real keys to innovation and business success.

This newsletter is meant to be a short read – a quick burst of ideas and insights to get you and your colleagues to stretch your thinking and action.

12.? The Real Path to Breakthroughs

All of us have been taught to believe that having the right expertise is essential to our personal and business success. We see in-depth knowledge as the foundation of progress, and highly trained experts as rock stars capable of solving the world’s most pressing challenges and creating the world’s most compelling new products, services, business ventures, and ideas. We worry about looking stupid in school, at work, or in social settings, and dream of being the “smartest person in the room” as the golden ticket to career growth, popularity, and making remarkable things happen.

But what if having a high level of expertise is vastly overrated, or even detrimental to our success? What if being ignorant, or at least having very little knowledge about the topic at hand, is often a much more useful asset in our quest to create breakthroughs??

Examples abound. Think about Orville and Wilbur Wright, two now-famous brothers who knew very little about how to fly beyond paying close attention to birds and other flying creatures, reading science fiction, making paper airplanes, and wondering. Yet they were able to turn their curiosity, love of learning, hard work, ingenuity, and skill as bicycle mechanics into an aircraft that would launch the aviation industry.

Or the founders of Airbnb. They knew very little about the hotel industry beyond what they had learned from their own travels. Yet they were able to turn their difficulty in finding an affordable place to stay, the need for extra cash, a free sofa, a bit of technology, and the emergence of the sharing economy into the world’s largest “hospitality” company. It would quickly become a compelling alternative to hotels and one that none of the experts at Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, or any of the world’s other leading hotel companies every envisioned.

Or Martine Rothblatt, a renowned telecommunications entrepreneur and expert who changed fields in the middle of a remarkably successful career to find a cure for her daughter’s seemingly incurable respiratory disease. She knew very little about lungs, medicine, or drug development but combined the greatest sense of urgency with a special gift for building connections, solving problems, growing businesses, and making things happen. In the process she would create United Therapeutics, a leading biotech firm, bringing to market a abandoned compound that experts had discarded.

Was it great expertise or just the right amount of ignorance that drove each of their breakthroughs?

Think about the “state-of-the-art” in your field or industry. Then think about what it will take to move your work forward. Is it a high level of expertise or the ability to take a fresh look? The answer might surprise you.

There are, of course, situations when having the right expertise and experience are essential. But they are becoming less common every day. In a world changing super-fast, not knowing stuff and having an open mind is way more essential to making a difference in the things that matter most.

A Book Worth Reading…

I mentioned the Wright Brothers above, and David McCullough’s book “The Wright Brothers” is a great place to start in thinking about the power of ignorance. Credited with being the founders of flight, these bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, are a wonderful example of how people who didn’t know what they were doing created an amazing breakthrough. The history of flight is complicated. There is Abbas Ibn Firnas, the great Muslim inventor, who created a glider in the year 875. And Alberto Santos-Dumont, the renowned Brazilian aeronaut and inventor who flew over Paris two years before the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk. But the story of how they brought their disparate skills to bear to do something remarkable is still captivating.?

A Quote Worth Thinking About…

And here is a quote worth thinking about from Patrick Lencioni…

“The truth is that intelligence, knowledge, and domain expertise are vastly overrated

as the driving forces behind competitive advantage and sustainable success.”

Breakthroughs require us to take a fresh look. Not a look colored by the things we already know.