Interview with Curt Mandell: Coaching, Consulting and the Challenge of Expertise

The following interview conducted by Dr. Kevin Weitz and Dr. William Bergquist with Curt Mandell (a noted organizational coach and consultant) concerns the challenges to be found in the 21st Century workplace regarding the role to be played by experts and the manner in which their expertise is received.

Here are several of the major themes introduced in this interview:

• Highly experienced, senior leaders can tend to develop hubris and narcissistic tendencies where they believe they are invincible and are experts in all things. This hubris can make them un-coachable, especially when major strategy changes are required.
• So-called experts are often wrong, especially when attempting to predict the future
• Leadership coaches can struggle to provide coaching to “expert” leaders that fit this profile
• Examples of large organizations undergoing major changes are discussed
• This interview is built on the topic described in the essay by Kevin Weitz entitled “A crisis in the rejection of expert knowledge, and the acceptance of “Google-fueled, Wikipedia based, Blog-sodden” information”

Curt Mandell

Curt is a certified Leadership and Career Coach with over 30 years of experience as an executive, leader, consultant, coach and educator.  An expert in change management, he has led change activities for projects impacting up to 100,000 employees, spanning 5 continents.  He has been a leader in a variety of functions including IT, Marketing, Strategy and Operations and has served as adjunct professor in the University of San Francisco’s Organizational Behavior program.  Curt has an M.A. in Management from John F. Kennedy University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his coaching certification) from the Co-Active Training Institute and is certified by the International Coaching Federation (PCC). He also attained the Project Management Professional (PMP) designation from the Project Management Institute.  He is a graduate of the Co-Active Leadership Program, a one-year experiential program.