A Shoutout to Expertise
We are living in a time when expertise is often under attack. We doubt it, don’t trust it, and worst of all, often ignore it at our peril. We see this happening in the fields of medicine, government, science, and education. Local government is an interesting case in point. Imagine spending your career managing a small city. You’ve had to deal with budgets, hiring issues, controversies over taxes, arguments over zoning and development and much more. You’ve supervised, police, fire and public works departments, dealing with management issues and settling scores of disagreements. You’ve learned to handle the delicate balance between running a city and acceding to the wishes of elected officials and residents. For a long time, your advice was carefully considered and usually accepted by those who were elected and do not have your expertise.
What’s happened since we crossed that bridge into the 21st Century has been difficult to say the least. The advent of social media has given nearly everyone a platform to speak their mind and in too many cases, reveal that they are misinformed. Twentieth century news media organizations held an advantage over those who now have the freedom to post at will. They had editors and fact checkers who vetted what was written or broadcast, improving the chances that what was published was in fact coherent and true.
As author Tom Nichols wrote in his book, The Death of Expertise, many elected officials and politically active residents have come to believe that all opinions are equal, regardless of one’s subject matter experience. In his book, Nichols wrote, “It is the new Declaration of Independence. No longer do we hold these truths to be self -evident, we hold all truths to be self-evident, even the ones that aren’t true. All things are knowable and every opinion on any subject is as good as any other.”
Such beliefs are making it much harder to run anything. This is true in all fields, cities included. Good city managers, department heads and individual contributors take pride in their work. They know how hard earned the wisdom they’ve gained was to achieve. When their advice is regularly ignored by elected officials and doubted by residents, it weighs on them. The staff working for these managers recognize that the situation is deteriorating. After all, if years of experience can be whisked away as a simple difference of opinion, what purpose do these experts really serve? Eventually, even the best ones may choose to give up. They walk away, they retire earlier than they planned. And when they depart, they leave a hard to fill hole in the community.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Most of us have earned some expertise along the way. It might be helpful to ask ourselves how we would feel if our hard-earned knowledge was ignored. It’s not that experts can’t be wrong. Even the savviest miss the mark sometimes. Scrutiny is critical to good decisions and preferred outcomes. But when we laymen, elected officials and appointees, examine an issue or an opportunity outside our field, it would be wise to do a good bit of homework before challenging the informed opinion of those we count on to keep things running.
Most elected officials, who are, after all, decision makers, also have an obligation to consider the potential impact when deciding to ignore the advice of seasoned professionals who serve them. Publicly and privately, it’s well worth the time it takes to offer staff a solid rationale to justify the choices being made. A simple difference of opinion is often an insufficient explanation. Interested residents too have an obligation. While they are not decision makers, they are influencers and politicians are well aware of that. It behooves residents to gather pertinent facts so that they can offer informed opinions. A city’s residents who consistently demonstrate that their questions and opinions are well founded, can achieve well-earned influence.
Everyone, of course, is entitled to their opinion, informed or not. However, in the long run, thoughtful respect for the expertise of professionals is critical to our well-being. We don’t know as much as we think we do about every topic. Acknowledging that fact is a sign of strength.