Access to Experts: Seven Steps to Leveraging the Expertise in Your Organization

A small foreign companywants to open a large cash account at a bank. The branch manager doesn’t getmany requests like this. Her typical commercial accounts are with well-knownlocal companies. She looks up account-applicant investigation guidelines on thebank portal and finds a lot of general information about the risks of fraud andmoney laundering. Not sure how to proceed, she accesses the bank’s expertnetwork. She searches on money laundering and finds dozens of experts withinthe bank. She narrows the list by selecting the potential customer’s industryand location. This yields a much shorter list containing three experts. The bioof one of these three states that he knows the relevant laws and regulations inthe region and has experience with several cases of money laundering. Shecontacts the expert and gets invaluable guidance on risks, warning signs, and howto proceed.

Could people in your organization get critical expert advicelike this with ease and confidence?

Who are the experts in your organization? Where are they? Everyorganization has experts. In fact, they are everywhere. Many of us have our ownpersonal network of experts. But there are times when we need to go outside ofour network. Think about all the times you would have liked to talk to anexpert for advice and information, but didn’t know whom to call.

Is your organization getting the most from its experts? Whatopportunities do experts have to help your organization achieve its strategicgoals? In many organizations, experts function within the scope of their ownjob role and team. Their expertise is mostly untapped by people who couldbenefit from it in other roles, departments, and regions. An organization’sability to leverage the expertise of its people gives it a competitiveadvantage while increasing employee satisfaction and productivity. That’s why accessto experts is so important.

If finding and using expertise is a challenge in yourorganization, here are seven steps to create or improve your expert network.

Step 1: Define strategic areas of expertise

First, it is important to align your initiative with thestrategic goals of your organization. How will your “access to experts”solution advance the strategic goals of the organization? How will you know itis successful?

Identify the key job roles that have the most direct impacton achieving the strategic goals you are targeting. Work with stakeholders tocompile a list of areas of expertise needed by each of those critical job roles.What areas of expertise do people in those roles need in order to besuccessful? In which areas do they need the most help?

After you have listed all relevant areas, rate each area(i.e., high, medium, low) in terms of (A) its potential impact on the strategicgoal, (B) the estimated frequency with which people might need to apply thisexpertise, and (C) the availability of the expertise within the groups thatneed it. The areas to focus on first and foremost are those rated high in (A)and (B) and low in (C).

Prioritizing by these parameters enables you to focus firston the areas of expertise that are most impactful.

Step 2: Identify and engage experts

After you have listed the areas of expertise most relevantto your organization’s strategic goals, you must identify the people in yourorganization who have expertise in those areas. There are three major ways toidentify experts. Experts can be appointed, nominated, or self-identified.

• Appointed:In this approach, you ask upper management to identify the experts who work forthem. Managers are in the best position to make strategic choices, and they usuallyknow who their high performers are. This method works well when leadership mustendorse the expert’s qualifications.
• Nominated:This approach is more of a 360-degreemethod where you ask people to nominate experts with whom they have worked. Expertsmay be nominated by their managers, peers, and subordinates. Driven by theviewpoints of the people with whom they work most closely, this approach can begood way to vet experts. Nominations can be approved by a committee thatrepresents the area of expertise, or by management—a combination of nominatedand appointed.
• Self-identified:This approach relies on people listing their own areas of expertise. It worksbest when you clearly describe the criteria for expertise in a given area,allowing people to compare their own expertise to the criteria you haveoutlined. Ideally, your criteria are observable and described in the context ofthe work.

Any of these three approaches can work. Decide whichapproach, or combination of approaches, is best considering your organization’sstrategic goals and culture.

Step 3: Define ways to authorize, recognize, and reward experts

So what’s in it for the experts? They already have jobs andresponsibilities. Why should they spend time helping others in theorganization? Will this take away time from their “real” jobs? Will they be reticentabout “giving away” their expert knowledge? These are some of the questions youmust answer.

I have found that, in general, experts are not afraid toshare their knowledge with others. Experts often appreciate the opportunity toshare what they know—what they are passionate about—with people who are trulyinterested. Expertise is earned through extensive experience, both positive andnegative. Its value and depth is enhanced by sharing it with others.

The biggest challenge you are likely to face in providingaccess to experts is time. It is true that experts have their own jobs,responsibilities, priorities, and goals. Spending valuable time helping others,if not built into their job responsibilities, may negatively impact their ownjob performance. It is important to work with management to authorize expertsto respond to inquiries by allowing them time and building it into their jobdescriptions.

We all like to be recognized for our expertise by ourleaders and colleagues. This is human nature. Find ways to highlight expertcontributions. Showcase each expert’s skill sets and accomplishments. Recognizetheir authorship in content they create. Provide opportunities for them tosocialize with leadership and other recognized experts in the organization. Givethem positive feedback, and find other ways to incent and reward theirexpertise sharing.

One company provided a way for people to rate the value ofthe assistance they received from an expert. Ratings were not visible toexperts or other users. Instead, the ratings were used to drive a recognitionand rewards program. Experts who received the highest aggregate ratings fromthe most people were invited to their choice of a private dinner with executiveleadership or to attend an all-expenses-paid industry event of their choosing.

Step 4: Put experts in the driver’s seat

Ultimately, each expert must balance time spent sharingexpertise with other job duties. Experts must be able to be in control of howand when they want to be approached. For example, one expert might be receptiveto being contacted with a phone call or meeting invitation, while anotherexpert wants people to submit a consultation request via email, text message,or online form describing the need.

Some experts may make themselves available at times that areopen on their schedule from week to week, while others establish regular “officehours” when they are available.

Provide options and let experts choose what works best forthem.

Step 5: Provide an online platform for accessing experts

You can use technology to connect the right people with theright experts. The technology that supports access to experts ranges from asimple directory for looking people up by their area of expertise, to expertlocation and management software that manages requests, consultationscheduling, content publishing, and user ratings and reviews. Someorganizations purchase commercial software applications for managing access toexperts, while others build their own.

Think about how you want access to experts to work in yourorganization, and define your requirements before you make any technologydecisions. If possible, involve your IT department. They may already havesomething in place or in the works. Communicate your requirements to them, andlet them help you with technology selection, implementation, and support.

Step 6: Establish a reputation model for quality assurance

Experts develop reputations over time. We decide to consultan expert, in part, because of what we’ve read about the expert and what we’veheard from other people. Similarly, your “access to experts” solution must buildits own reputation for connecting people with the right experts and providingvalue to the organization.

In an expert network, a reputation model is a collectionmechanism that tracks opinions and calculates a reputation score for eachexpert. Experts’ reputations reflect the level at which they are trusted andvalued by people who have consulted them.

There are many mechanisms for you to consider using in yourreputation model.

You can count things related to each expert, like the numberof inquiries received, the number of consultations provided, the number ofdocuments published, and the number of users who have retrieved those documents.You can provide a way for people to follow experts’ posts or publications andcount their followers. All of these counts can give you valuable insight intothe pulse of the organization: which areas of expertise are hot, and whichexperts are most popular.

You can collect feedback on expert engagements via ratingsand reviews, this-or-that voting, or vote-to-promote features. Ratings can beaggregated into an average rating for each expert. Reviews can offer anecdotalinformation about people’s experiences with experts. This-or-that votingpresents people with, for instance, a list of experts they’ve engaged in thelast year and asks them to choose the one who was most helpful. Vote-to-promoteoften uses the results of ratings and this-or-that voting to promote or demoteexperts in search results. You can use this feedback to determine which expertsare most highly valued by those who consult with them. These are your “starperformers.” You may want to ask these experts to coach and mentor others.

You can award points to experts and people who consult with experts.For example, experts can earn points for a consultation they perform, a ratingthey receive, and other actions. Points can be tallied to rank experts,position them in search results, and recognize and reward them.

You may want to share reputation-model data openly withusers, or you may use the data “behind the scenes” to provide private feedbackto experts and continually improve your solutions. Choose the approach that bestfits your organization’s culture and supports your strategic goals.

Step 7: Measure activity and impact

Create an online dashboard showing the metrics you aretracking in your reputation model. View them alongside the business andproductivity metrics you are trying to impact. By monitoring this dataregularly, you can gain new insights into what is working and what is not. Evenbetter, you can use the data to demonstrate the impact of your expert networkon business results.

For example: Your organization is trying to expand its salesinto a new market segment. Your metrics dashboard shows that sales figures inthat industry are sluggish. At the same time, you notice a significant increasein searches for expertise on a specific product line where there are fewparticipating experts. You talk with some of the product development andmarketing groups for the product line and learn that your primary competitorsin the new market segment offer inferior products in that particular line. Youengage a new set of experts from product development and marketing to respondto requests from sales for their expertise. You meet with executive leadershipto share what you’ve learned. Focusing on sales of this product line could be agood way to break into the new market segment.

By viewing the metrics in your dashboard and takingappropriate action, you are able to continually adapt the expert-networksolution in response to the changing needs of the business and demonstrate itsvalue to your sponsors.

Conclusion

An employee’s value appreciates overtime, so holding on to your best and brightest people is a winning strategy. Oneeffective way to retain talent is to recognize and reward experienced employeesfor their expertise—and how they share it—and provide opportunities for less experiencedpeople to interact with experts who can help them develop and grow.

Accessto experts is one component of the learning and performance ecosystem. By enabling access to experts and theirexpertise, you can increase the performer’s chances for success, especiallywhen success requires personalized guidance and direction to achieve a criticalgoal in a specific context.