It is one of the advertising world’s most cherished phrases. Just two words: ‘experts agree…’. This all-powerful call to arms saves so much unnecessary elaboration. It’s like saying: “Look, the experts like this stuff, so you should too. Stop arguing – just get out and buy some.”
The expert is the shaman of our time. The expert offers a guiding arm, steering us through bustling and confusing crowds of information. The expert offers easy, quick answers to almost any question.
Experts help us understand complex issues. Where would we be without Antony Green and his laptop on election night? Or Tim Flannery’s interpretation of climate change science? Or Peter Roebuck’s insights during the upcoming Ashes series?
Experts teach us. It it weren’t for Jamie Oliver, my roast pork would be less than pukka and my souffles would sag. If it weren’t for Jamie Durie I my broccoli wouldn’t flourish nor my basil thrive.
Experts help us make choices. I don’t know how I would get on without Margaret and David helping me to choose which movies to see and which to avoid. And of course I need James Halliday’s advice on exactly which red wine to match with Jamie’s roast pork.
Perhaps most importantly, experts help us solve problems. Bookshelves sag under the weight of expert advice on how to overcome a dip in sales, manage that difficult person, streamline a business and cope with the global financial crisis.
Ah … the global financial crisis. Now this is where the expert thing becomes unstuck.
It was, after all, economics experts who lost their torches as we unknowingly rambled deeper and deeper into the GFC cave. (Explore this Wall Street Journal site to see just how bad some of the forecasts were). And it is those same economics experts who are now grappling for the matches while reassuring us that they can show us the way out.
Unfortunately it is in areas like economics – the larger, more complex areas of our lives, the areas in which we need most help – that expertise tends to be most vulnerable. There are many reasons for this, but the most notable is quite simple: experts are humans too.
Experts are subject to the same cognitive biases as the rest of us, perhaps even more: the saying “give a man a hammer and everything looks like a nail” holds a lot of truth. The more complex the picture, the more the expert can only see one part of it really well. And of course having established oneself as an expert, one is expected to come up with answers, whether they really exist or not.
There is no doubt that experts can make a valuable contribution to our complicated businesses and lives. But no expert is without flaw. We owe it to ourselves to remember that as we seek their advice.
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I've been work- ing in business, one way or another, for the last 20 years, and writing for the last ten. My main interest now is to get messages across - yours and mine - in a readable and approachable fashion. 
