Applying Expert Insights

Over the last twenty-five years, Cindy and I have been extremely focused on building a knowledge network that would help us compensate for our leadership limits. Recognizing who knew what we didn’t know was the first step. Being willing to invest whatever we could, even if that was only our time, into pursuing their expertise and asking the right questions to have a shot at moving forward followed. But those things alone would never have produced results. And sooner or later, our opportunities to continue asking even the best thought out questions would have dried up. Without applying expert insights, few of the people we worked so hard to get time with would have allowed us to get more of their time. 

I once heard John Maxwell share a story about how the mentorship he received from the late, great college basketball coach John Wooden got started. John explained that a mutual friend set up their first meeting. John arrived prepared with a list of questions. What was initially supposed to be an hour or so turned into an afternoon, and they still only worked through a few of the questions. As they wrapped up the conversation, Wooden suggested that Maxwell visit again to build on that interaction. As their second session began, before asking a single question, Maxwell started off by sharing what he learned previously, what he had taken action on since, and the results he had achieved. This was very late in John Wooden’s life. Seeing how deliberate John Maxwell, already extremely successful at that point, was in applying what he learned through their first meeting was all Wooden needed to know that any time they had together would bear fruit.

I’ve never had one-on-one time with legends like Wooden or Maxwell, but I have had opportunities to learn from leaders I would have never believed possible just a decade ago. But even early when the only mentorship I had access to was from the men I worked directly with, I worked as hard as I knew how to apply everything they taught me. I had seen so many folks get time with leaders, ask impressive questions, then show back up later on having changed nothing and ask the same questions yet again; or even worse, ask completely different questions while acting like they had never asked those mentors anything before. In a few cases, I saw those mentors ask them how they had taken action since the previous conversations and receive blank stares.

The leaders who have provided me with the most insight and the most direct mentorship in my career have also been the ones with the most stringent demands on their time. Had I not done everything in my power to apply their expert insights, could I have really blamed any one of them if their availability waned over time? At this stage in my career, I’m not excited about working with paying clients who don’t take action on what we discuss. But I rarely pass up an opportunity to invest my time and energy into providing mentorship to someone I see making the rubber meet the road.

Whether we achieve immediate results or not, applying expert wisdom strengthens our leadership capacity. That’s crucial in overcoming any of the knowledge gaps we each have so we’ll dig into that next. Until then, I’ll challenge you to be intentional about applying one expert tip to a task you’re working on currently - and do it right away!