When it comes to work, expertise is the far-off horizon we’re all striving to reach. You want to
become smarter and wiser. You want to know more and gather more experiences under your belt.
You may even strive to receive public acclaim or awards.
Yet even if you manage to reach some form of expertise, it can often be a poisoned chalice if you
don’t know how to wield it properly.
Instead of enabling its owner to make better choices and overcome challenges, expertise can
become a barrier to growth and can often keep you from continuing to learn and adapt.
There are three major traps that will make life more challenging when you start to feel like an
expert. They are the following:
Why is continuous learning the antidote to the expertise trap? For starters, continuous learning
recognizes that work isn’t something you train for just once. Degrees and courses cannot prepare
you for the way the world changes. Even the “school of life” will be useless if you treat it like a
one-and-done thing.
The benefits of continuous learning at work are increased agility, an increased capacity for
change, and the ability to unlock visionary thinking. Continuous learning practitioners are
experts, yes, but they also stay nimble and humble about their expertise. They continue to assess
new situations and challenges in the world around them in order to evolve, innovate, and make
future plans.
After all, what is business expertise without the ability to apply it to today’s market challenges?
The qualities gained from continuous learning form an ongoing defense against expertise traps,
allowing leaders to engage in and adapt to a world in flux. The question is: How to build a
continuous learning environment in the workplace when the workplace itself is changing so
much?
When it comes to work, expertise is the far-off horizon we’re all striving to reach. You want to
become smarter and wiser. You want to know more and gather more experiences under your belt.
You may even strive to receive public acclaim or awards.
Yet even if you manage to reach some form of expertise, it can often be a poisoned chalice if you
don’t know how to wield it properly.
Instead of enabling its owner to make better choices and overcome challenges, expertise can
become a barrier to growth and can often keep you from continuing to learn and adapt.
What Are the 3 Biggest Expertise Traps?
There are three major traps that will make life more challenging when you start to feel like an
expert. They are the following:
These expertise traps hinder both individuals and their organizations.
On an individual level, professionals experience decreased adaptability. They’re less able to shift
according to the climate around them, including to new technologies. They may even actively
resist change and cling stubbornly to their existing skills. This state of stagnation cannot last
because there will always be others willing to experiment and test the boundaries with creative
approaches.
On an organizational level, stagnation leads to an inability to adapt to changes in the market. An
organization full of its own expertise is less likely to pay close attention to emerging trends and
the shifting demands of consumers. A loss of engagement follows, with team members perhaps
feeling disconnected, behind the times, and lacking in purpose. Teams themselves can suffer if
stagnation leads to homogeneity rather than diversity.
The Benefits of Continuous Learning at Work
Why is continuous learning the antidote to the expertise trap? For starters, continuous learning
recognizes that work isn’t something you train for just once. Degrees and courses cannot prepare
you for the way the world changes. Even the “school of life” will be useless if you treat it like a
one-and-done thing.
The benefits of continuous learning at work are increased agility, an increased capacity for
change, and the ability to unlock visionary thinking. Continuous learning practitioners are
experts, yes, but they also stay nimble and humble about their expertise. They continue to assess
new situations and challenges in the world around them in order to evolve, innovate, and make
future plans.
After all, what is business expertise without the ability to apply it to today’s market challenges?
How to Build a Continuous Learning Environment in the Workplace
The qualities gained from continuous learning form an ongoing defense against expertise traps,
allowing leaders to engage in and adapt to a world in flux. The question is: How to build a
continuous learning environment in the workplace when the workplace itself is changing so
much?
Do you know the story of Ronald Wayne, Apple’s third co-founder?
He knew Steve Jobs from their time together at Atari. And when Jobs and Woz started Apple, Ronald became the third co-founder and owned 10% of the company.
He owned that stock for all of 12 days before he got cold feet. He thought that Jobs and Wozniak were just two crazy kids who might take on a lot of financial obligations that he would be responsible for. He had more assets than either of his co-founders and he let the fear take over.
Ronald sold his 10% interest in 1976 for $800. That stock would be worth over $100 Billion today 😮.
But this isn’t where the story ends. Ronald did it again in 1990! That year, he was cleaning out his filing cabinet and sold the original contract for the creation of Apple for $500. In 2011, that document sold at auction for $1.59 Million. 🤦🏻
Ok. So what’s going on here and how can we use some epic questions to help us avoid Ronald’s fate?
Ronald had legitimate fears. He wanted to protect himself. But he didn’t need to completely leave the opportunity in order to reduce his risk.
He could have asked:
1. Can I limit my financial exposure without selling ALL of the stock? Could he have sold back a portion of his stock in exchange for protection from any of the company’s liabilities?
2. What is an experiment I can run to see if this is a good decision? The moment he got spooked, Jobs had taken out a $15,000 loan to buy supplies to fulfill Apple’s first contract with a San Francisco computer store. Ronald was worried that this store was known for failing to pay its bills and Apple wouldn’t make money on the contract. Could this project have been an experiment Ronald could have afforded to take?
3. Who can I consult for a second opinion? Ronald could have sensed that he was having an emotional response to this situation, and thought, is there a handful of people I can speak with who might help me make a better decision or figure out how to reduce my liability?
Ronald Wayne's story is a powerful reminder to look beyond immediate fears and to recognize the potential of patience and vision.
Here's to making decisions that our future selves will thank us for! 🌟
No matter who you are, facing failure is hard. When we fail, our gut reaction is to turn around
and hide. Our survival instincts kick in to avoid embarrassment. Think about it. If you try ice
skating and have a bad fall, you can either decide that you aren’t good at ice skating and vow to
never try it again, or you can choose to return to the rink and improve gradually. By choosing to
keep going, we develop a growth mindset.
When people fail, they often rely on a sort of fight-or-flight response instead of asking, “How do
you learn from this?” People mistakenly think that failure is a direct reflection of their skill sets,
abilities, and talents. For instance, my biggest and most embarrassing failure was a startup I
started: Its growth skyrocketed quickly, and then it failed almost as dramatically.
Contrary to what many might believe, failure, like that of my startup, is not a one-step process.
We actually go through six different stages each time a setback occurs:
First, failure tends to produce early warning signs. Unfortunately, our cognitive biases will often
ignore these signals. Instead of accepting failure, we deny that it exists and focus on only
positive feedback. This deludes us into thinking that everything is going according to plan when,
in fact, it is not.
When we first recognize a potential failure, our gut instinct is to double down, or “escalate
commitment,” on decisions that aren’t going well. Instead of making a necessary pivot, we often
believe that we can turn things around if we just stay the course. In reality, we are only digging a
deeper hole.
Once our failure becomes undeniable, we quickly fall into the shame stage. This stage is rarely
visible to others, but it takes a significant toll on our self-esteem. The shame we feel from
failure worsens anxiety and hampers our engagement at work.
Even though we quietly punish ourselves for our failures, we articulate to others numerous
reasons why it wasn’t our fault. We will blame individuals, systemic issues, or forces of nature
beyond our control for what happened. When in defensive mode, we may also tell ourselves that
there was nothing we could do differently, further shielding ourselves from learning from our
failures and preventing a growth mindset.
After we’ve exhausted our defensive excuses with anyone who will listen, we usually attempt to
put the failure behind us and never speak of it again. We move forward; we find our next project.
There’s a sixth stage that most people never take advantage of, but it’s the one that holds all the
opportunity.
During this stage, you sift through the rubble left by your failure and uncover all the potential
assets you’ve gained through your efforts — and those assets should exist, because nothing is
ever a 100% failure. This audit of the failed project involves identifying systems and processes
that you developed, relationships, insights, intellectual property, tools, and other lessons to
consider how your experience transforms your work. We take what worked, learn from what
didn’t, and create something new (and better).
That failed startup I started was my lowest point as a professional. And as soon as I figured out
where we had gone wrong, I started keeping a journal about the experience. I had to document
what went wrong and what I wished I could have done differently.
That journal eventually became my first book — a New York Times best-seller that has been
used in over 100 universities to teach entrepreneurship and innovation and helped me launch a
whole new career as a keynote speaker. My biggest success came as a result of my biggest
failure. But only because I decided to look for the assets rather than hiding from the shame.
To learn how to “fail better” each time, we must avoid getting stuck in any one stage of failure
and try to get to Stage 6 as quickly as we can. When you are inevitably faced with failure in the
future, remember these six stages and focus on that final leap toward new opportunity and
growth.