Why Expertise Alone Isn’t Moving the Work
I facilitated a climate forum this week. 50 stakeholders from across the sector, many who had been working in the space for decades - well-respected, deeply expert, and committed to their work in ways that go beyond the job description they inhabit.
A leadership challenge surfaced that I'm noticing a lot in my work at the moment.
How do we hold all of our expertise, all of the perspectives and experience we bring, and stand in these with real conviction - and at the same time stay at the edge of our knowing, open enough to meet others where they are and see the challenge through their eyes? How do we be both fully in our expertise and agency, and fully open, at the same time?
It might sound easy, conceptually at least. But imagine being in conversation about something you care about deeply, that you've invested decades in, with a sense of commitment to a cause that goes beyond your role. And imagine being in that conversation with someone who sees a key aspect of the challenge very differently from you. It can be tempting to defend our position, tighten around what we know.
But the challenges we're facing won't be solved by each of us doubling down on what we know. The issues that matter most - in climate, in health, in public systems - sit across organisational and disciplinary boundaries. They need the whole. That means the quality of our relationships and our capacity to genuinely see each other's perspectives is a key strategic capability.
We're in a world that's more fragmented, more polarised, more disrupted. Last year in its Global Risks Report the World Economic Forum described a shift toward "greater instability, polarising narratives, eroding trust and insecurity." This is not just a global story – it’s showing up in our workplaces, our communities and the leadership challenges we’re grappling with everyday.
We need to find ways to strengthen the quality of our connections and relationships, to bridge the fragmentation and find new ways forward together.
Each part - each person's expertise and experience - is valued and needed. And so is our relationship to the whole. It's easy to dismiss a perspective that doesn't fit our own. Harder to stay with one that is radically different and let it build our understanding of where we might have blind spots.
That staying - that quality of presence and openness coupled with full expertise and conviction - is what systemic facilitation is designed to support. When a group can hold both, something becomes visible that no single part of the system could have seen alone. That's where new thinking, and new ways forward, actually come from.
Warmly, Claire
PS - if you are in the midst of a complex leadership challenge, where multiple perspectives need to come together to find a way forward, I’d love to explore this with you. Get in touch by emailing me - claire@clairemckendrick.com or check out my Strategy Lab.
