Outside Expert Disorder

Have you ever been in a situation where you have told your leadership something 500 times and when an outside expert comes in and says the same thing, all of a sudden everyone is all ears? I call it Outside Expert Disorder. It happens in every company, in every industry. For some reason, people often don’t listen to or believe their own internal experts. Maybe they believe there is some hidden agenda or they don’t exactly understand the expertise they have on their own staff. Being taken for granted is a common occurrence when you are responsible for a business line that is generally not well understood in a company. I have heard many times, “we don’t really know how it works, but we like the business.” Leadership doesn’t know how to respond to something they don’t understand at a deep level, and they may feel they are being duped into supporting something they shouldn’t. But that’s why they have you, right? You are an expert in that field.

There are a couple of ways to help correct the disorder and increase your own credibility within your own company. I recommend that you work with other companies that are in other non-competing  markets or business lines to offer your expertise to come in and train or speak for them. When your own company sees that other companies are willing to bring  you in as an outside expert, it will validate your own credibility. Also, seize every opportunity to speak at industry forums or write articles regarding the topic. Then promote that you have done that within your own company. Another option is to hire an outside expert and work with them to validate what you have been telling your leadership all along. As long as you are in lock step with the outside expert and they verbally say “as you have been told from your internal expert…” you will have the validation that you may need to elevate you as the internal expert that you are.