Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2022 - 31

QUALITATIVE ANALYSES: Experts spend
a great deal of time analyzing a problem
qualitatively and can view a problem
very differently because of the domainspecific
and general knowledge they
have acquired over time.
SELF-MONITORING SKILLS:
Experts
detect errors more accurately, review
the status of their own comprehension
and have a more realistic view of their
own abilities.
USE
OF
APPROPRIATE
STRATEGY:
Whether it is the ability to work forward
from a given state to a goal state or
backward from the unknown to the given
state, the expert can choose the right
strategy based on the situation, unlike a
novice who will struggle to come up with
what is needed to be done.
OPPORTUNISTIC:
Experts
COGNITIVE
effectively
make use of available resources to solve
problems.
EFFORT: Experts can
retrieve relevant domain knowledge and
strategies with minimal cognitive effort.
They can also execute their skills with
greater automaticity and can exert greater
control over those aspects of performance
where control is desirable.
As can be seen
from
the above
characteristics, the difference
between the expert and the novice
is that the expert has a thorough
understanding of their domain and
the ability to encode this knowledge
into meaningful templates. These
templates or schemas are meaningful
relationships between various parts
of the knowledge area and how they
relate to the situation at hand.
One does not become an expert
overnight. In their book, " Mind over
Machine, " Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus
state that human beings acquire skills
through instruction and experience.
They do not appear to leap suddenly
from rule-guided " know-that " to
experience-based " know-how. "
Skill acquisition is a process. Hubert
and Stuart Dreyfus lay out a fivestage
process in which a person goes
through different perceptions of the
task at hand. Their ability to perform
improves as each stage is crossed.
The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition
has the following stages:
There are at least two ways an
organization can be impacted with
the loss of knowledge and/or experts,
according to Dorothy Leonard, Walter
Swap and Gavin Barton in their book,
" Critical Knowledge Transfer. "
NOVICE: One has minimal
knowledge, needs close supervision,
is unable to deal with complexity and
tends to view all actions related to the
job in isolation.
TRAINING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2022 I WWW.TRAININGINDUSTRY.COM/MAGAZINE
For an individual to become more
competent and move further up the
value chain, L&D needs to put in place
a system of coaching, mentoring, jobshadowing,
etc. Learners also need
| 31
* The loss of the capacity to innovate:
Innovation often comes from the
application of knowledge that has
been accumulated over time. Thus,
loss of proprietary knowledge can
severely dent the ability and speed to
create the next generation of products
and services.
The journey from novice to expert is a
long and arduous one. It is therefore
important for organizations to harness
the ability of the expert and put it to good
use. Organizations must do everything
they can to ensure that experts and
their expertise are not lost to retirement,
transfer or resignation.
* The invisible hit to the bottom line
of the organization: When an expert
leaves, there is loss of years of
experience, loss of professional
networks that were cultivated and
time taken to cover the gaps left by
the expert leaving.
BEGINNER: One has a working
knowledge of key concepts and
can perform straightforward
tasks without supervision but
still views actions as a series
of tasks.
COMPETENT: One can perform
most tasks using one's own
judgement because of good
background knowledge. One
also can cope with complex
situations and views actions as
long-term goals.
PROFICIENT: One has a deep
understanding of the discipline,
which results in an acceptable
level of performance. One also
can cope with complexity and can
make confident decisions.
EXPERT: A complex situation can
be sized up by both intuition
and analysis. The overall picture
can be visualized, along with the
ability to view things beyond just
the immediate future.
A cursory look at the stages show that
this
is a process that requires time
and the right kind of environment. An
L&D leader has the responsibility to
ensure that individuals can smoothly
transition from one stage to another.
Formal classroom instruction or
providing access to on-demand
eLearning assets can be utilized
in the initial stages of knowledge
acquisition. When this is undergirded
with support from supervisors who
provide timely feedback, the process is
strengthened further.
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Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2022

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