The Expert Trap

When we are not speaking with each other, we are not connecting with each other

Have you ever landed in the expert trap? I was really stuck a couple years ago: I started talking and talking and talking, not leaving any room for anyone else.

Expert does not equal community

Some friends and I were sitting at an outside patio on a warm August afternoon, talking about how ironic it was to have a bigwig speaker in town to tell us about community connection. The irony: the audience, in one of the city’s big theatres, would be in passive listening mode and not leave having made any new community connections.

So even though the plenary bigwig would be talking about community, we would not be creating community because we don’t get to know each other when we sit like this:

Deeply embedded in this shape is the idea of expertise, and the assumption that the person at the front of the room has “it” and we do not. It is an empty vessel approach, where we, as the audience, need to be filled with all the things we do not know. Moreover, even after we have listened for ages, we are given no opportunity to notice what we know and understand differently, to consolidate what we are learning. And we are not given this opportunity as an individual, or a small groups or large groups. We drink from the firehouse, then leave with a few drops of nourishment.

One of my friends, in her work at city hall, was helping organize the event with the bigwig. She was caught in the underlying belief that the best way to talk about connection was to disconnect ourselves from ourselves, and each other, and assume that the expert outsider has more information on the matter than we do. She exemplified stereotypical bureaucratic machinery, caught in the assumption that we need to be told what to do, that we are not capable of figuring out “connection” for ourselves. Embedded in this is a deeper assumption that if we are simply told, and we go out and do it, the problem will be fixed.

(Note: theatre-style gatherings are right under the right circumstances, when we know who we are listening to, and if the purpose of the meeting is for instructions or discernment.)

Here’s how I got caught: I lectured my friend about about how a theatre-style gathering could not possibly be about connection. I took on the expert role, and I was relentless. I said what I’ve written in the above paragraphs, only I did it over and over. It is so tempting be the expert, the voice that people want to listen to.

Here’s how I got caught: I took on the expert role, and I was relentless.

So I nailed my friend between the eyes, with the exact behaviour I was criticizing her of fostering in her work. We had to take a step back, process our behaviour together, and acknowledge the pull to be the expert is strong. And the pull to defer to the expert is as strong. I was being fed by a desire to be the expert; she was being fed by a desire to have an easy answer delivered to her. We both conspired to create an unhealthy dynamic between us. But all was not lost.

She pulled off something spectacular

My friend pulled off a remarkable feat. She acknowledged the desire, and in fact the need, to hear what the expert had to say (in theatre mode), then created a new shape that allowed people to meet each other, connect with each other, and figure out what this new information meant for them, for our lives and for our city. She created opportunities for people to gather in small groups.

Instead of leaving with a only a few drops from the firehouse (as is what happens with a lecture), people left having met and connected with people new to them. They met around topics of shared interest. They took some time to notice what the lecture meant to them in practical ways that will change their lives and the city around them; they began to integrate what they learned into their being as individuals and a loose collective. My friend delivered on “connection” not just by inviting an expert in, but by creating the conditions for the audience–citizens–to truly hear the expert by connecting with themselves and each other.

I almost wrecked everything

By inserting my expertise, I almost wrecked everything for my friend and the gathering because I didn’t let others speak. I spoke my perspective, then said it again and again.

Passion, impatience and my own insecurity got the better of me.

One of the reasons I most appreciate the circle as a shape for conversation is that it helps me find my place with others in a way that allows others to also have their place in the conversation. It does not diminish me: it focuses me. And most importantly, it allows us–me and the people I am with–to better see what we need to see. It does not diminish my passion, but allows it to show up more appropriately.

What I was most critical of out in the world was what I was doing myself.

And, of course, the irony is not lost on me. What I was most critical of out in the world was what I was doing myself.

Reflection

• What opportunities do you see in your city to shift from the one-way “expert lecture” to create the conditions for collective discernment?
• What role would you like to play in your city, to create the conditions for collective discernment?