The Measure of an Expert

Experts are often measured by what they know, the difficult problems they solve, or how often others turn to them for answers. All of that matters. But for me, it is only the beginning.

The measure of an expert is not just what they can achieve themselves, but the direct and indirect impact their expertise has on the people, decisions and work around them.

Everything can be made better

I've been a hacker since childhood, in the original sense: take something apart, understand it, and improve it. One idea has followed me through electronics, software and security:

Everything that can be done, can be made even better.

That includes how an organization works. I might solve a difficult problem, improve an architecture, challenge a decision, or help prevent a mistake. Those are valuable contributions in their own right. But the real opportunity is to make the insight useful beyond the immediate situation.

Beyond the people in the room

One expert can influence a decision. A principle, method or better way of working can influence hundreds of decisions, including ones made when the expert isn't there.

That's the kind of scale I'm interested in. Expertise should find its way into the tools, practices, expectations and judgment of an organization; it shouldn't depend on someone remembering to invite me to the next meeting.

It doesn't mean turning everyone into an expert or reducing expertise to a checklist. It means helping others understand enough of the reasoning to apply it in their own context, adapt it, and pass it on. They will often see connections I miss, just as my own non-linear mind leads me to connections others may not see.

When knowledge starts multiplying

Teaching and mentoring are part of that, but not the whole job. I still need to do hard technical work, ask uncomfortable questions and keep learning myself. The point is that my work should leave something useful behind: stronger decisions, more capable colleagues, better practices, or systems that behave better because the expertise reached them.

Even in rudimentary training, one of my favorite moments is when a student or fellow expert asks the right question, one that tests an assumption or explores what happens when the conditions change.

That's when I can see they understand the context rather than simply remember the answer. They can extrapolate. And the knowledge can travel: into their next design, their next discussion, and perhaps through people I'll never meet.

That is what multiplying expertise means to me: not merely reaching more people, but improving what those people, and the organization as a whole, can achieve.

My practice of developing my "second best" is one way of making that happen. If specialists and experts around me adopt the same habit, the impact continues to spread without needing me at the center.

And if someone takes what I've contributed and makes it better?

Excellent. That means it worked.