Experience vs expertise

When you want to hire someone, collaborate with someone, do business with someone, do you prefer them to have experience or expertise?

Which do you think is more important?

Experience is a matter of showing up and putting in the time. Does experience necessarily = expertise?

When you ask for experience, are you using it as a proxy measure when you can’t assess expertise?

What about you? How can you ‘harvest’ expertise from your experience?

Reflection? Growth mindset? Seeking continual improvements? Looking for the learning to be gained from the experience?

It seems like attitude is the key.

What is your attitude to what you experience?

Do you ask, “How can I get through this and put it behind me?” Or do you ask, “How can I learn from this so I can do better next time?”

Here are some useful questions to help you harvest expertise.

Here’s the power to carry your load

I had so many great comments back after my tip last week on load and power, I decided to share a few of the ideas.

People sent me things they considered loads, and where they get their power. What’s interesting is that for many people, the same things appeared on both sides of the register. For example, a colleague could be either a load or a power source depending on their mood.

And even more interesting, most things can be either a load or a power source depending on how we think about them at the time. Remember Hamlet’s immortal line “…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. What do you consider a load and others consider a power source? How do they think about it differently? Ask them!

Did you write down your list of the things that seem like a load and the things that give you power to handle that load?

Each entry on the list has a magnitude. So when you are predicting a large load, also reach for a large power source. And remember that one technique is to think about a load differently to lessen the magnitude or even turn it into a power source.

What are the ‘loads’ coming up for you this week?

What ‘power sources’ can you tap into to help carry those loads easily?

What do you need now? Need energy? Here’s a quick fix.

How much margin do you have today?

According to McClusky’s Theory of Margin: Load/Power = Margin where he talks about Margin as the ratio between the ‘Load’ you carry and the ‘Power’ you have to carry the load.

Load is made up of external factors: tasks of life such as family, career, socioeconomic status, and internal factors: such as self-concept, goals, personal expectations. The things that seem to ‘take’ energy.

Power is made up of factors such as health and energy, social support, ability to think and reason, money and influence, knowledge and skill. The things that seem to ‘give’ energy.

A surplus of power, beyond what is required to handle the load, results in margin. Having margin helps you handle the challenges of life and allows you to engage more effectively and easily in work, projects and experiences.

Clearly your margin will vary day to day. The good news is that you can ‘manage’ your margin by reducing your load and/or increasing your power.

Take a moment and write a list of each. What could be changed?

If someone on your team is struggling with their load, this is a way you could work with them to see what could be done about it.

Here are some tips on how to track your energisers and energy leeches.

Is someone stealing from you?

One of the most valuable things we have is our attention. We spend it when we pay attention.

What we get in life – what we do, what we have, and indeed, even who we are is a result of where we pay our attention.

What do you purposefully pay attention to?

What attracts your attention?

Who or what is stealing your attention from you?

What do you end up paying attention to that you didn’t mean to, or even want to?

Notice what you are paying attention to – and notice what you get back in exchange. Is it a good deal?

Consider managing how you spend your attention to get ‘more bangs for your buck’.

A meditative or mindfulness practice will help you build your attention management muscles, and that will help you stop people/things/circumstances stealing your valuable attention from you.

Here is a simple relaxation exercise to reclaim your attention from those who would steal it.