Expertise has a problem.

I’ve written about it before, so I’ll just summarize it here:

Expertise is often considered a precursor to innovation. Shouldn’t the most innovative ideas come from the people with the most expertise in that field? After all, they have a deep and nuanced understanding of how their field works.

The problem with expertise is that the more expert you or I become in any given domain, the more we accumulate knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. This deep expertise deservedly leads to a high level of confidence. But at the same time, it leads to narrowing one's perspective and being less open to new and fresh (read: unproven and unconventional) approaches.

In other words, if you are holding a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.Excerpt from The Problem with Expertise

Black Friday.

Small Business Saturday.

Cyber Monday.

Giving Tuesday.

That’s a lot of made-up holidays.