EXPOSE | The Future of Expert: It’s All In The Heart
When asked, “How do you prepare a person for the unknown world of tomorrow?” Minouche Shafik, Director of LSE (The London School of Economics and Political Science), answered: “Being able to synthesize information, analyze it, and be critical about it, will be very important. In the past jobs were about muscles, now they’re about brains, but in the future they’ll be about the heart. The caring and creative professions have high levels of emotional intelligence, the skills that robots can’t do will be required in the future.” (emphasis added)
EXPLORE | The Rise of the Machine
It is about this time of year we begin to think of “making some moves.” Our roles at work have made their way to the top of our list of “things that need to change in 2019.” But maybe it is less about changing jobs, and more about having a change of heart. Or, to Dame Minouche Shafik’s point–to be more focused on the heart. More on that in a moment.
As you assess our current roles and the future of your career, particularly as it relates to what you uniquely have to offer, have you started to wonder if you or your role are “robot proof”? How soon could it be that Alexa goes from being your assistant to being your boss? Or, at the very least, starts doing your job better than you? At what point could you be overtaken by artificial intelligence?
Not that what you worked so hard to know and be proficient at should be disregarded, but that it may not provide you the edge that you need. Indeed, it is not even a “who you know” world anymore. It has become “who knows you.” Which I think, is a good thing. In his article for HBR, Bill Fischer highlights the two remaining qualities that have not been over taken by AI (yet) in his article “The End of Expertise.”
From the perspective of being as valuable as an expert, Fischer refers to a “trust equation” developed by David W. Maister (and others). The equation looks like this:
Trustworthiness = credibility + reliability + intimacy / self-orientation.
Essentially, credibility and reliability are being commoditized, leaving intimacy (emotions) and self-orientation (motives) as the means of remaining valuable and influential–and employed. In other words, expertise is a matter of the heart.
“Being human is consciously to bring judgment, intuition, creativity, empathy and values into play. In business, it is the domain of entrepreneurial thinking and innovation, of weighing decisions, of collaboration and trust – qualities that are utterly different from the machine logic of networked sensors and processors.” – Richard Straub, President and founder of the Peter Drucker Society Europe
You win by truly being yourself: human. You maybe can’t outsmart them, but you can out human them.
EXECUTE | Becoming the New Expert
Demonstrating the two (remaining) characteristics of trustworthiness, intimacy and self-orientation, are not just a part of making us unique, it can be a way to “stay ahead of the machines.” Becoming the new expert is not so much about what you know, but what you show.
Intimacy.
When healthy, intimacy in the workplace provides the safety people need to share with you on an emotional level. According to the Psychology Today article, 5 Benefits of Corporate Intimacy, intimacy fuels the connectedness and influence we have as a leader and co-worker. It also addresses very practical things like: improving communication, “reduces counterproductive groupthink,” reduces stress, people look forward to work and working with you, and enhances creativity.
Self-orientation.
This has to do with motives. Demonstrating self-orientation leads to others trusting that you care about them, more than you care about yourself. While it refers to personal focus, the focus is on your thinking less of yourself.
Being better, at being better.
While our focus on being human is good career advice, we may be able to delay the inevitable by also doing our best to be our best. Eric Barker wrote “How to Become an Expert at Anything, According to the Experts” for Time magazine, and lays out a process for doing the work of being better, at being better. Here is how he outlines being an expert in anything:
Having a mindset of being in it [the career you’ve chosen] for the long haul significantly boosts results. “Those who made a long-term commitment did 400% better than the short-termers.”
Don’t just find a mentor, find one that truly cares about you.
Focus on what is most important to your getting better. “There are many components to any skill but practicing them all doesn’t produce the same results. David Epstein put it simply: “The hallmark of expertise is figuring out what information is important.””
Practice those important things as intensely as you would if you were playing in the World Cup.
It if doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t count. “”Desirable difficulty” means that the harder you work trying to retrieve something from memory, the better you learn.”
“Get fast, negative feedback.” And get it from someone who knows. “If they’re not experts, the result is much worse than when you screw up.”
It’s not just about studying, it’s about testing. Test yourself and it will go better when you’re tested. “Spend only one third of your time studying. The other two-thirds of your time you want to be doing the activity. Testing yourself.”
Take that nap. “If you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re not learning as well as you could be.”
Now being yourself makes even more sense than ever. Not just because you’re not supposed to be anyone else, and more than remaining relevant, it’s that the very thing that makes us human is what will also allows us to have a profound impact through what you have been called to do. It is right for us, and the rest of the other humans.
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Further reading:
How to become an expert at anything
The end of expertise
Minouche Shafik
How trustworthy are you
How to build a meaningful career
