You did your work for 10,000 hours, learned from mistakes and become an Expert. Now what? Somehow your area of expertise is not recognized by your boss and by your client. So lets discuss how do you convince them with your knowledge you have accumulated with years of experience. How to make your opinion to be taken seriously.
Humility.
While discussing the previous post one of blogger friend suggested very good point. If you are an expert, stop insisting that you are one. People who are real experts are last to know that they are an expert. I have seen few experts who go to lengths to point out the limitation of their knowledge and they will encourage others to not take their knowledge as last word. I am always suspicious of those people who claim to be an expert 😉 Dear expert let your knowledge speak for yourself, rather than insisting other people to pay attention what you are saying.
Context.
If you took out one of the modern art painting and hung it out in a school, I am pretty sure that it can be perceived that it was painted by one of children in the class. This is simply because the influence of context largely depends on how it is perceived and, same thing is with the expertise.
I worked in field on quality for sometime and I was amazed how my boss wouldn’t listen to my idea and if the same idea is given by the consultant or the head of quality he would agree. Then I came to a conclusion that consultants are paid more, and so their opinions are highly valued. I didn’t have had much room to change my rate :p nonetheless I tried to change my context so that my manager valued me highly.
So the painting will be recognized if it is in the right context. Giving opinions on the tea-stalls doesn’t change much but if someone is speaking in parliament people do listen to him. Also I am not saying that context is everything, what and how you say it matters to which leads us to Style and substance.
Style and substance.
I always thought for reasons why books, presentations, blogs and podcast stands more effective than random conversations. Answer to this question is that are more structured and more thoughtful than the casual conversations. How we articulate ourselves is really critical. Not everyone is smart as you are. While something might seem easy to you , it may not be same others. For example being dismissive and irritable is easy if client has asked you to design bigger logo to fill up the space which you have crafted very efficiently. Structure your response so that it is as convincing as possible. An expert should speak with confidence, with certain presence and authority. An expert shouldn’t get confuse or create confusion if someone disagrees with you.
An expert should know himself, be relaxed and must be filled with confidence.
Overcoming with prejudice.
It can be a problem with your boss or client if you are trying too hard to establish yourself as an expert when you are junior member of the staff. Opinion of clients cannot change overnight, fortunately few things can shift that perception.
Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to overcome the biases. It can be hard for the person who work with the same people. But I think over time, by consistently demonstrating your knowledge and expertise using the appropriate techniques can change their views.
PS: span>So I wrote this as an expert 😛
Opinions doesn't matter... 