
COL Michael Wyly, USMC (ret). As recounted in Robert Coram's book, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, it was as a major that Wyly was appointed by MAJ GEN Bernard Trainor to be in charge of tactics at the Marine Corps' Amphibious Warfare School. And he was directed to "fix" the tactics curriculum. He consulted an expert, Bill Lind, to find some new thinking about tactics. Lind recommended John Boyd. Wyly invited Boyd to brief his class, and he opened the class to all students. This incident turned out to be a significant link in the chain — or node in the web, really — of events that remade thinking about both tactics and strategy of the U.S. military, and, eventually, industry. Wyly's approach fits the pattern described here: find an expert to recommend an expert. Photo courtesy Norman Fulkerson via his blog, "Modern American Heroes."
Whether it's an application user interface, a piece of equipment, a redesigned process, a marketing strategy, or whatever, when the unexpected occurs, we ask experts to explain how to proceed, or to fix the problem. When they can fix it, that's great, but when they can't, our first thoughts are usually that the expert we called is perhaps not expert enough. That's the easy case, so let's set it aside.
The more difficult case is that the experts we called are skilled enough, and might even be the best there is, but they're expert in the wrong field. How can this happen? What are the consequences? How can we prevent it?
Three important mechanisms can lead to calling the wrong expert.
- Limited authority to choose
- We can't always choose the expert we need. Budget restrictions, signature authority, and expert availability sometimes dictate the choice.
- Control mechanisms and expert availability can both generate risk. Account for this risk in risk plans.
- Incorrect diagnosis
- Sometimes we diagnose the problem incorrectly, either by honest mistake, or by overestimating our own diagnostic expertise.
- Unless you have diagnostic expertise, let experts perform the diagnosis.
- Undue influence by experts
- Sometimes an expert employee, consultant, or contractor recommends an expert, not on the basis of suitability, but as a favor to the expert being recommended, or because of constraints imposed by the recommender's employer.
- Validate recommendations for their objectivity.
Calling in the wrong expert can have serious consequences:
- Wasting time and resources
- Experts (and all people) are vulnerable to what psychologists call a mental set. If the problem solution lies within the expert's domain of expertise, nobody can address it better. But if the problem solution lies elsewhere, we waste time and resources eliminating all possible solutions within the expert's domain.
- Damaging assets
- Before the wrong experts deduce that the problem solution lies outside their domains of expertise, damage to assets is possible. The experts might even be the agents of the damage.
- Learning
- The one benefit Sometimes we diagnose the problem
incorrectly, either by honest mistake,
or by overestimating our own
diagnostic expertiseof choosing the wrong expert is the potential to learn the importance of choosing the right expert. That learning can lead us to re-examine the expert-choosing process.
To prevent recurrences, consider two measures. First, avoid diagnosing problems. For example, if the computer can't communicate with the network, don't assume that the computer is defective, or that the network connection is defective. Simply report that the computer can't communicate with the network. Second, consider calling on an expert to tell you what kind of expert you need. In healthcare, this role has been called diagnostician, but the role is emerging in many fields. Before calling an expert, find a "diagnostician" for the relevant problem domain.
Most important, if you know that expert identification isn't working well in your organization, don't guess why. Consult an expert. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Problem Solving and Creativity:
Ten Tactics for Tough Times: II
- When you find yourself in a tough spot politically, what can you do? Most of us obsess about the situation
for a while, and then if we still have time to act, we do what seems best. Here's Part II of a set of
approaches that can organize your thinking and shorten the obsessing.
Teamwork Myths: Conflict
- For many teams, conflict is uncomfortable or threatening. It's so unpleasant so often that many believe
that all conflict is bad — that it must be avoided, stifled, or at least managed. This is a myth.
Conflict, in its constructive forms, is essential to high performance.
Decisions: How Looping Back Helps
- Group decision making often proceeds through a series of steps including forming a list of options,
researching them, ranking them, reducing them, and finally selecting one. Often, this linear approach
yields disappointing results. Why?
Cost Concerns: Scale
- When we consider the costs of problem solutions too early in the problem-solving process, the results
of comparing alternatives might be unreliable. Deferring cost concerns until we fully understand the
problem can yield more options and better decisions.
Cassandra at Work
- When a team makes a wrong choice, and only a tiny minority advocated for what turned out to have been
the right choice, trouble can arise when the error at last becomes evident. Maintaining team cohesion
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See also Problem Solving and Creativity and Critical Thinking at Work for more related articles.
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And on April 5: The Fallacy of Division
- Errors of reasoning are pervasive in everyday thought in most organizations. One of the more common errors is called the Fallacy of Division, in which we assume that attributes of a class apply to all members of that class. It leads to ridiculous results. Available here and by RSS on April 5.
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