Helping SMEs understand the next level up

Most experts super-invest in their technical skills, but they under-invest in enterprise skills.

As a consequence, they can miss things. They might not accurately price risk or reward when asking their leaders to invest in innovation. They might not think it’s their problem to sell their projects to leaders, boards and CEOs. They might struggle to influence co-workers and leaders of teams. They do have outstanding technical skills, but their enterprise skills are under-developed.

As a result, technical subject matter experts can often fail to tell a good, convincing story about how they can add more value. And, of course, they can’t really be expected to improve if their organizations won’t give them the tools and coaching they need.

This is what we call the “Expert Gap”. It demonstrates the growth needed to shift from a super-technical “specialist” to a more strategic “expert” to then become a “master expert”.

As the model above shows, there are three levels of expertise, and many experts are stuck at expert level, and need assistance to achieve Master Expert capability.

The Expert Gap challenges experts to become a better Expert.

Of course, experts need a roadmap for this journey of professional growth. Which is why we have developed The Expertship Model, which simultaneously provides a way for experts to assess where they are today, and describes the capabilities they need to acquire to become Master Experts.

The Expertship Model, and its associated development programs, helps experts jump the Expert Gap.

Check out our Mastering Expertship.

Read what experts have to say about developing their enterprise skills.