“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
—Mark Twain
Leave it to Mark Twain, more than a century later, to lead the way through the halls of experts and expertise. At VIM Executive Coaching, we meet “experts” all the time, and never to disparage anyone, we have never had the rare pleasure of witnessing two experts wholly agree.
It leads us to another observation: most self-proclaimed experts in one area, tend to believe they are experts in all areas. Case in point, was our recently viewing a television program where the host has a segment offering to dole out advice on relationships and dating.
The host is a comedian by trade and the audience members give up all sense of grounding and privacy to openly ask personal questions, often about their spouses. OK, fair enough, if it doesn’t bother them or the “10-million or so,” people watching and listening to their marital and relationship issues, why should it bother us?
However, the other day, we saw a clip where an audience member asked a fairly pointed and complex question about a co-worker in the work environment. While the person standing up with the mic did not identify the organization, it was made clear the industry and the job.
In Case You Didn’t Know
We find our VIM business coaching clients, as a group, to be bright and engaging. We are honored to work with all of you, and we would never talk down to anyone. Nevertheless, let us explain that most of the “experts” we run across in our media, or in print, or guest speakers and podcasters and panel members on and on, are bought and paid for. As you might imagine, they do have credentials however, those credentials generally align with the objectives of the organization.
In addition, as with the example we gave above, many of those experts in one area, start to “drift” in terms of expertise. At first, it might seem subtle, but as the expert carefully cultivates their platform and personality, the expertise is stretched to rather dubious limits. “Audiences” like to hear them talk, audiences believe their expertise in one area, “are obviously” of great value in other areas. Is it?
Business writer Leigh Marlar, writing for Medium.com (April 29, 2025) summed up the opinion of many in executive management:
“This word (expert), once reserved for people with deep knowledge, substantial experience, and proven track records, now attaches itself to anyone with a strong opinion and basic familiarity with a topic.”
On May 12, 2026, UC Irvine psychology newsletter wrote a troubling summary of a major psychological study of nearly 1,800 subjects and found:
“The effect of whether the expert agreed with them politically was more than twice as large as the effect of credentials, such that agreement made up for the lack of credentials and disagreement wiped out the benefit of credentials…”
Those entrusted with advising organizations are often judged more by their politics, outspoken opinions, appearances and many other factors rather than their true expertise. When an expert gives employees, work groups, organizations “advice,” it is often the person who makes us nod our heads in agreement with their opinion over the person who has simply devoted an entire life to learning, study and commitment to knowledge.
The comic who might make audiences laugh during a two-minute, personality-driven diatribe is often more valued than truthful reflection, honest conversation and sharing knowledge. We cannot imagine how much damage is done when “experts” with no credentials spout facts as truth.
This happens millions of times over, in the work place most every day. “Experts,” often uncredentialed, spouting opinions about most any topic under the sun, influence organizations with a specified version of the truth.
Listening to Ourselves?
At last, we come to the cultivation of mindfulness in work groups and organizations. Mindfulness is the opposite of expertise without credentials. Mindfulness is achieved by response over expert “reaction,” by experiencing the situation rather than being force-fed as to what the reality of a situation might be.
We are decidedly not anti-expertise, so much as skeptical as to opinion without credentials. In reaching conclusions through mindfulness, workgroups learn a skill that is often hard to come by with “expert” rants: unfiltered reality. There is nothing so authentically powerful.