‘’It takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery’’ – Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers)
Who is an Expert?
- A Thought Leader who has deep, differentiated skills and expertise, typically acquired over a time span of 5-10 years dedicated experience in a field.
- A person who brings additional experience and expertise to a project team at the point in time it is needed.
What do Experts do?
- Review proposals or solution approach
- Help a project get back on schedule
- Troubleshoot implementation problems
- Review high-level and detailed estimates
- Advise clients on best practices in a particular area
- Mitigate risk by bringing deep expertise
- Serve as primary subject matter expert to review content for training that is in development
- Host sessions to transfer knowledge to others in change management
- Coach/ mentor team members
- Contribute as an SME/sponsor role for asset development
- Lead / contribute to Community of Practice activities
Who is a Scholar-Practitioner?
- Someone who stands boldly in the gap between the academic and business communities
- Someone who believes that there is nothing so practical as a good theory
- Someone who believes that good theory and evidence-based research are absolutely vital for great leadership and building great companies
- Someone who believes that if ideas cannot hold up to the complexities of leading in the global economy, then they hold little value outside the pages of an academic journal
What do Scholar-Practitioners Do?
- Conduct rigorous applied research
- Publish for scholarly and practitioner audiences
- Present original ideas at academic and professional conferences
- Engage with top scholars, executives and students from different countries and cultures
- Read academic journals
- Has a doctorate (PhD or DBA)
Judging from the above, is there any difference between an Expert and a Scholar-Practitioner? Are they distinct or complementary? Who would you rather have leading a project?
