Expert advice, anyone?

Whatever their field of expertise, experts are such because they have special skills or knowledge derived from their experience. They have studied things, seen things, been places, and that’s what makes them expert in something in the first place. I’ve been there before and I know how to get there, the general thinking goes. Or, I’ve been there before and I know that your way is not how to get there. The peculiar thing about experience though is that it is always a thing of the past, by definition.

If what you are after is finding the shortest, cheapest, safest way from A to B, then yes, by all means you want advice form those who have been there before, plenty of expert advice. But if you are working on something truly new, an idea that will change the way we run our business, a product that will turn our world upside down, then do us and yourself a favor: don’t ask experts the way. They can’t show you the way because there’s no way, yet. Take it from me, I am not an expert.

Image: Walk to Paradise Garden (1946), by legendary photographer W. Eugene Smit. Image property of Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.