If You Are An Expert, Be The Expert

I am fed up with women downplaying, diminishing, and downgrading their expertise.

Let me explain. Last month I was involved with preparing one of the executives in our company for a prestigious panel discussion on the topic of water issues in Minnesota. One of the panelists was a director for water programs at the World Bank. When the group of panelists joined a conference call with the moderator to prepare for the event, the World Bank Director, let’s call her Victoria, proceeded to disqualify herself. She said, “I just don’t have enough expertise in Minnesota water issues to add value.”

Hearing this saddened me greatly.

How can someone with a PhD working for the World Bank as a director of water programs not be an expert on water issues? I could tell she was extremely uncomfortable on the call and wasn’t surprised when she bowed out and had a male colleague go in her place.

Fast forward to the event. The male colleague who joined the panel was an expert in economics. He also was not from Minnesota or the United States but had strong authority and good data to back up his points. And he did not have a detailed handle on the local issues but that didn’t matter. He was able to apply his deep expertise to enrich the conversation.

So What’s Happening Here?

Kristin Wong in a June 2019 NY Times article cites a confidence gap, “Men tend to overestimate their abilities, while women consistently underestimate theirs.”

As women, we are cultured to be more humble and less aggressive, which translates into some pretty crappy self-talk. I know I have caught myself starting sentences with…” Well, I may not be the expert but…” Women generally have an unreasonably high bar to consider themselves as an expert. I recently heard another woman in a meeting, who has a PhD, say something like, “Well but I don’t have a PhD in that topic so I am not the expert.” Boy are we hard on ourselves.

So What Is An Expert Anyway? Here’s A Definition

A person who has comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area.

That’s it. Nowhere in there does it say we need to know everything or have multiple PhDs, just comprehensive and authoritative knowledge.

So let’s go back to Victoria. When she was faced with the opportunity to speak on the panel, her self-talk probably went something like this:

This panel is focused on Minnesota water issues
Yes I know a lot about water but I am not deeply knowledgeable about the particulars of the head of the Mississippi watershed
What if I am asked a question I can’t answer?
This would be scary for me
I would rather just bow out and stick to what I know

And what do we guess the male partner’s self-talk might have been?

There will be some very high-level people at this event
It would be good networking for me
I might learn more about what’s happening locally in Minnesota
And I hear Minneapolis has a good food scene, I am going to check that out

Ok, I am playing around here a bit to prove a point but do you think I am that far off?

How NOT To Downplay Your Expertise

For all of us experts who downplay ourselves, here are some ideas. And truly I need to take my own advice here so please keep me honest on these too.

Remember you are an expert. You don’t have to know everything about a topic to be one. Refer to the definition if that helps.
This change in mindset will feel very uncomfortable. If you feel uncomfortable admitting, or even asserting yourself as an expert, this is a very good sign!
Don’t start sentences with, ‘Well I may not be the expert here…,” or “I may not know as much as my colleague Joe…”
If you don’t feel like the expert and you lack confidence, learn to fake it and realize everyone else believes you are an expert so you believe it too.
Help your female colleagues in this department. If you hear the apologetic tones from a badass, take her aside and give her the feedback that she can lean in and be confident in her abilities and knowledge.
Learn to bridge your expertise. In the case of the World Bank gentleman, I have no doubt he knew less about water than his female colleague. However, he could apply his deep expertise in economics to what was going on locally, which was interesting and brought a new perspective to the discussion

Wrapping Up

Just remember, you have some critical thinking and ideas to add to the conversation. And without your voice, the big problems we have to solve in this world will not get solved as well or as fast (or at all) if we cower into our comfort zone.