You Are an Expert, and It’s Time to Own It is a blog post by guest author Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA
In the world of knowledge work, expertise is everything. Gone are the days of the master builder who knew every trade and could do it all. Employers look for people with more and more experience in smaller and smaller niches. Experts are linchpins in their organizations in every industry.
Needless to say, being able to lay claim to any kind of specialty is very valuable in one’s career. It’s something every engineer should be pursuing in one form or another.
Luckily, developing expertise isn’t anywhere near as difficult as most people think. In fact, when you stop and think about it, it can be very easy to develop real expertise quickly and to reap the benefits in your career, even if you’re just getting started. The only trick is to re-frame the way you think of expertise.
Don’t ask permission
The first mistake people make with respect to expertise is that they think they need others to validate them as an expert. That’s nonsense. If you know more about a given subject than 80% of people, you’re an expert. You don’t need to be in the top 1%. You don’t need a PhD. All you need is to know your stuff better than most people.
You’ve likely heard in the past that growing your network as an engineer is key to career success, and that getting ahead is as much about who you know and what you know.
I’ve worked with thousands of engineers throughout the world, and a common theme has emerged throughout that work: engineers want to see progress in their careers.
I recently presented a half-day leadership seminar to a group of engineers in Mississippi. The seminar covered the basics of the most important business skills engineers should have namely: communications, productivity, leadership, and professional development.
I was recently reminded of a parable I had heard many years ago. In the story, there are three bricklayers working on a wall for a church. Someone asks the first bricklayer what he’s doing. He says, “I’m building a wall.” The second bricklayer is asked the same question and replies, “I’m building a church.” Finally, the third bricklayer is asked what he’s doing, and he says, “I’m building the house of God.”
I was recently listening to an interview with Ben Brenton, the Chief Innovation Officer of Snap-on Tools on the 
When she was about one year old, my daughter, Charlotte, started mimicking what my wife and I did in a big way. If we did it, she wanted to do it. If I stirred my coffee, she wanted to stir her milk. If my wife went to play the piano, Charlotte wanted to play the piano. If I changed the channel on the TV, Charlotte wanted to try to do it, too. It was adorable, and I almost always got a chuckle out of it. Monkey see, monkey do.
