The Trap of Expertise

I shot myself in the foot today. Well, not literally -- though in some ways, that might have been less painful, but as my mother used to say, "At least I learned a little lesson."

I was working on a writing assigment -- a messaging kit for one of my projects -- and it was not coming together very well. At first, I didn't understand why and just spent more time on it. More research, more drafting, more interviewing. More of the same stuff I always do when I work on a messaging project.

But the time just kept piling up and the product was still terrible. There was not even one little flash of brilliance to salvage. Nothing.

When Starting Over Isn't Really Starting Over

So I chucked it all and started over. And then I realized that I was starting over in exactly the same way I'd begun before: asking the same questions, using the same way of thinking, putting everything through the same filters, which , if you think about it, isn't really starting over at all.

I was just doing the same work on a new piece of paper.

I needed to really start over. I needed to let my expertise in messaging be my guide, but not my master. That was the problem. I have done so many messaging projects that I have a standard frame I use to start to build things out -- and when my frame wasn't working for this project, I kept forcing it anyway. Instead of helping me, my expertise was trapping me in a way of working that, well, wasn't working.

I'm actually a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't even notice the frame wasn't working as early in the process as I should have. My expertise had led me into one of my seven deadly sins of writing -- the sin of rote.

The sin of rote in writing is akin to what actors and athletes do when they "phone in" a performance. I'm just going through the motions, locked into an automatic way of doing things. I am not really present in the work and when you're an expert at something, I think the sin of rote can be a really easy trap to fall into. (Well, it is for me.)

Escaping the Trap

Part of the problem was that I didn't approach the project with a "Beginner's Mind." (I've been reading up on that lately -- links at the end of this post). I approached it with a "Been There, Done That Mind." It wasn't confidence, it was a kind of thoughtless arrogance and my writing suffered for it.

Aside: I am not knocking confidence in writing. Sometimes the knowledge that I have finished other projects is the only thing that gets me through challenging assignments. I'm talking about confidence that slides into the kind of carelessness that turns good writers into medicore ones and in another realm, it's the carelessness bred by expertise that gets extreme athletes killed. The stakes are different, but the mindset is the same.

It's the danger that comes when you stop paying attention. Are you paying attention to your writing? Or are you just putting words on paper?

Beginner's Mind bonus links

I've been working very hard lately on cultivating the Beginner's Mind -- coming at something with a fresh perspective. Even if I've done a similar project hundreds of times. (Maybe most especially when I've done something similar hundreds of times before). What is the unique aspect of this project? What are the specific questions to ask? Not just the general, all-purpose questions that start any project, but the questions that open the door to the best details, the best way to tell the story, the best way to communicate this specific project.

Beginner's Mind (Be willing not to be an expert) 

Beginner's Mind from Michael Formica at Psychology Today

 

Beginner's Mind from a workshop at the Agile 2008 conference

Beginner's Mind article from FastCompany

Of course, the best source is famous book "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi. I haven't finished my copy yet (though so far it's very good.

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Do you ever catch yourself just phoning it in? I'd love to hear about other people's strategies and tips for escaping the mind trap of expertise.

Credit (and thanks) for the lock image go to my friend Jill. You can find her on flickr.

 

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