Inspirational tip: Pretend you’re not a specialist

How would a carpenter handle a difficult client? What would a lawyer do if he or she were snowed under with deadlines? Look for approaches and best practices to adopt from other business arenas.

Chances are you know your job very well. You are the specialist, or at least one of the specialists. And even as a specialist – some times you encounter a challenge that you are not able to solve just like that. When that happens – what do you usually do?

Next time, consider what a specialist in a different field would do. Try to attack the challenge from the point of view of someone in a totally different industry from your own. Step outside of what you know. Look beyond what you see.

This step is easier said than done IMO. When I need to apply this trick, I tend to forget about it. Those times I do remember, I find fascinating results. Like when I where to make a training for information security for top level management, and I where stuck. After a while, I considered what my friend Terje would have done. He is a car mechanic, and his knowledge of computers are, well, he do not send e-mails to anyone. Thinking of him, I came up with a series of examples where I used cars as examples. Needless to say, the training went on as a dream.

What are your experiences with this approach? How do you apply this tip?