HBR’s 10 Must Reads on High Performance (with bonus article "The Right Way to Form New Habits” An interview with James Clear)

Don’t Be Blinded by Your Own Expertise

by Sydney Finkelstein

EXPERTISE SOUNDS LIKE an unqualified good in professional contexts. Companies associate it with high performance and leadership capability and seek it when hiring for key roles. But in studying top executives over the past decade, I’ve come to understand that expertise can also severely impede performance, in two important ways.

Consider the case of Matthew Broderick, who led the Homeland Security Operations Center when Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, in August 2005. A brigadier general with 30 years’ experience running emergency operations, including a stint at the helm of the U.S. Marine Corps National Command Center, he seemed like the perfect person to oversee the ...