Last when I heard about one of my past climbing partners, he’d proclaimed himself a motivational speaker. He hasn’t mastered technical mountaineering yet. He indulges in press releases and social media hype each time he ‘summits’ a mountain.
Mid-level professionals are being declared “Chief Marketing Officers” or given similar high ranks in startups or companies desperately needing manpower.
Recently I came across many enterprising outfits guiding adventure tours as leaders. I know they barely have 1-2 years of personal experience in adventures or sports or fitness themselves. Client safety? They may not be able to guide there.
Experts of ‘A’ field are shamelessly advising experts of ‘B’ field on Bs with irrelevant ‘How To” even without realizing that their speech doesn’t resonate, leave aside speak.
Barring exceptional ones, do you remember any debate / discussion that may have led to real conclusion on chosen topic? In most debates, I haven’t seen dots being connected by abandoning individual view-points if someone else in the debate pivots key point. Every participant in most debates tend to stick to its own point of view, without further correction, against interests of unified conclusion. Imagine such participants are invited as experts of chosen topics so that audience can learn!
There can be a classic case of ‘Bosses’. The label confines heady superiors from learning when they can’t make changes required. The label designates superiority of knowledge but when a boss is unaware of something, he tends to shy away from accepting and correcting himself.
Cases above and similar germinate sweet viruses. It spreads from one herd to another when one copies another infectiously. We fail to notice its epidemic absentmindedly.
Let’s throw some light on the other side of mirror.
We as ‘experts’:
We tend to have dreams, desires and ideas. Most of us do. We also tend to work hard to realize those dreams. That’s why we become experts in relevant field. We work hard, we LEARN something and we become experts. It’s possible that others may not have similar interests, desires or dreams in that field. Hence their learnings might be limited there.
It’s important to recognize why one is becoming an EXPERT and then it’s also important to USE EXPERTISE only when needed, to either help or teach others by giving specific lessons. Expertise given when not sought is not an expertise. It’s something else that wasn’t required to be given. Understand your audience’s real need / problem before giving advices in your speech.
Why do we give advices unsought for?
We humans like to be acknowledged, prided and valued for anything we do. We like it so much that we give rise to our strong EGOs, our strong identities invisible to us. Giving expert advices without solving real problems builds an ego i.e personal glory of a self-proclaimed motivational speaker instead of imparting climbing knowledge indulges in speeches that barely makes his audience take any climbing action! A newly appointed CMO garnering support of team just based on his designation (without solving real marketing problems) builds infectious egoistic environment.
Ask yourself before giving advices – is it going to help solve the problem of the person or just make me happy giving advice? Don’t opt in if it’s latter.
Best advice is your action. Let your ‘action’ speak louder to people who need it.
We as ‘audience’:
We tend to get carried away by others’ achievements. We do so because we’ve got imperfections that others have perfected. Some people can chart out innovative ideas and some can’t. Some able minded individuals can brave mountain heights and some differently abled can’t. Some have ordinary dreams (like daughter’s wedding or parents care) and some have extraordinary ones (like jumping from planes).
Desires and dreams are inherent to all human beings. It’s personal, individualistic and subjective. It can change as preferences and circumstances change over time. This means we all can take inspiration from each other whenever needed. We do not need to get carried away in some people’s celebrity hood or bravados as it’s subjective to them like how our achievements are subjective to us.
Outer look or appearances are misleading unless we subject it to learnings and causes. There’s a thin line between taking real pride and supporting egoistic initiatives.
Afterword:
We create great opportunities of learnings whenever an Expert-Audience interface is set up. Be it at seminars, speeches, guest lectures or at stage performances. However, such opportunities are often wasted in true sense. Leaving audience without significant learnings wastes the opportunity. Wasting such opportunities is equivalent to wasting time and money invested to bring it forth. Beneath grounds of every expertise, what remains buried is the chance to share expert codes of difficult problems waiting to be solved. Missing to share those learnings for audiences in need dilutes real motive and efforts of the talks.
Epilogue:
When we become leaders/experts, we’re supposed to solve problems. Problems may not be evident. They may need to be acknowledged and articulated. Our centuries old customs of ‘Gratitude’, ‘Namah’, ‘Greeting’, ‘Thanks’ etc are positive forms of ‘Listening’. It brings focus and attention to understanding issues. ‘Listen’ enough before speaking up.
When we listen to problems we can see reasons of imperfections. Imperfection is nothing but lack of perfection. It’s a lack of balance between good and not so good. Solution is a balance SOUGHT. If it’s not sought it can NOT be given.
