The Expert Syndrome and the Problem of Transfer

There’s a problem in learning theory called transfer. How does a student learn something and then transfer that knowledge or set of skills to the appropriate context? In common sense terms, how does book learning become a real world skill? I’m still waiting for algebra transfer to happen. My 9^th grade algebra teacher, Mr Eastman, really knew his algebra, but didn’t know much about transfer. I learned enough algebra to pass his Friday quizzes, but I still don’t have the foggiest idea what algebra is or the real life problems it’s meant to solve.

There’s also something called negative transfer. Negative transfer occurs when previous knowledge is incorrectly applied to new areas. In language, when one’s mother tongue interferes with the speaking of a second language, that’s a case of negative transfer.

In my work as coach and trainers with leaders I see another version of negative transfer. The role of expert, and not just the knowledge, can be transferred too broadly. Entrepreneurs for instance are known for thinking, incorrectly, that their expertise as inventor or as founder makes them an expert in other areas of running the business. The “entrepreneur’s syndrome,” thinking no one can do it as well as you can, is not just for entrepreneurs. Anyone who rises to a level of prominence or authority in a given field can fall prey to the tendency to transfer their sense of expertise across every field.

In the coaching world, there is an expression, “what got you here won’t get you there.” That refers to the tricky paradox that the expertise that got you promoted into a senior leadership position is not the expertise you need to succeed in your new position. Buckingham, et al point this out in their book, First, Break All the Rules, that promotion is the reward of being removed from what you do well and placed in a position for which you have little or no skills.

It’s hard to go from expert to beginner again. It’s hard not to feel like it’s a failure. To go from a position of authority to feeling de-skilled requires a talent for learning itself. Learning something de novo, from scratch, back to 101, and not just expanding your skill set, or become a virtuoso gets harder over time. And it’s not just arrogance; there is actually a skill set for learning and being a beginner.

One reason has to do with our brains. Our brain has created neural pathways for the repetitive things we do and learn. Well developed neural pathways are like super highways, smooth, efficient, fast and reliable. New learning means creating new neural pathways where there haven’t been any. Think bushwhacking in dense jungle. That’s what it feels like to make new neural connections.

But there is another reason: loss of rank. It could be called ego. The older we get, or the more experienced we get, the less we like looking stupid. The sense of power we have gained is comfortable and fortifying; the energy we have invested in getting to this place of expertise is too much to just walk away. This rank and expertise is reinforced daily, by every person who relates to us in that role. Every encounter adds to the identity. And it becomes a self-reinforcing mechanism; the more comfortable we are in that role, the more we surround ourselves with people who relate to us in that role.

There has to be a pretty damn good reason to willingly step into a beginner role. Sometimes it takes a life challenge-  getting sick, losing a job, or losing a relationship. These types of life events dislocate us from the expert role as we realize life and mortality have more power than our social role. But we can also make a conscious decision to dislocate ourselves from the expert or authority role. In the coaching or learning relationship, this conscious commitment has to be made up front for learning to be successful. Change and growth is a real sacrifice. No one likes being at the bottom. We need resources to be a good learner, to go back to beginner’s mind.

And yet learning how to learn again is crucial, because innovation and creativity requires leaving the sense of expertise. It requires engaging with diverse and dissenting information, and the authority of other data and perspectives to complement and also confound what we already know. In medieval times, philosophers believed that to increase intelligence, people need to learn at least two languages. The incompatibility of worldviews and representational systems increased intelligence. It is not the mastery of our field that makes us intelligent; it is the juggling of multiple and competing thought systems that does so.

Creativity depends not just on expertise but on relationship: the success of any idea requires that it be related to and embraced by other ideas in the idea-world. Mihalyi Cziksentmihalyi, the psychologist who developed the theory of flow, interviewed dozens of geniuses, experts, and Nobel Prize winners in his search to define creativity. What he found was that expertise was just one slice of a bigger pie. Creativity requires relationship and interaction:

Creativity is not solely the product of an individual mind, but rather the result of a dynamic interaction among the creative individual, the domain in which he or she works, and the set of judges (or field) that assesses the quality of work(s) that have been executed (based on Cziksentmihaly, 2000).