Enhancing and Accessing Expertise
There are also many ways in which to enhance the generation and use of legitimate and timely expertise. The essays in this issue offer several pathways to expertise:
Search for Patterns
The art of organizational coaching is based on identification and appreciation of patterns and pattern-variations in the life of a coaching client and her organization. We know from the scientists who study chaotic and complex systems that vibrant and sustainable systems incorporate both redundancy and diversity. Systems sustain certain patterns and replicate basic structures everywhere, while also ensuring that each subsystem is a bit different from other subsystems. Scientists suggest that viable systems are in dynamic equilibrium. Each viable system fits into a specific ecological niche and sustains a specific operational pattern that is compatible with (adapted to) this niche. The pattern is sustained and reinforced precisely because of this ongoing adaptive outcome.
Personal Action
We are ourselves a rich source of expertise regarding many matters. While we don’t always fully appreciate this expertise and often distort or make poor use of this personal expertise, it is there for our use – thanks to our capacity to process at multiples in our brain at the same time, and thanks to the recent expansion in the human brain of an advanced mental processing system (the prefrontal cortex). Put simply, we host a community of thoughts and feelings that resides in our own psyche. It is often not fully known or appreciated by us-yet it must be known and accessed if we are to be effective personally in addressing the challenges (and crises of expertise) that are to be found in mid-21st Century life. We must be discerning, thoughtful consumers of existing expertise and must find the expertise within our own base of knowledge.
Collective Action
How do we improve not just the quality of expertise being delivered in mid-21st century societies, but also access to and acceptance of high-quality expertise? We believe that quality is improved with diversity of input and both access and acceptance are improved with a broad-based collaboration among diverse communities. What is the nature of such a venture in collaboration among diverse communities and how does this collaboration ensure (or at least increase the probability) of expertise being created and shared that is credible and of high quality? These questions are addressed a variety of collaborative tools and strategies are described and reviewed.
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We hope that you have found and will find insights and guideposts in this three issue series on the Crisis of Expertise. This the first time that this much attention has been devoted to one topic in The Future of Coaching—suggesting that this is not only an important challenge in mid-21st Century life and work, but also is a challenge that can be met in part through the effective use of professional coaching.
Kevin Weitz
William Bergquist
Co-Editors
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