Why are we so reluctant to let the experts do their job?

I had two completely separate conversations last week that left me thinking about the same thing. 

Why are we so reluctant to let people who are really good at something and love doing it just get on and do it? 

I don’t mean blindly handing over responsibility for your business, writing a cheque and hoping for the best. I mean that slightly random unexplainable thing we do when we know we need help, know there are people out there who have spent years becoming very good at exactly the thing we need help with… and yet we still think: 

‘I might just have another go at it myself.’

I know this one well because I’ve done it myself. Too many years ago, a senior manager watched me clinging onto a piece of work that I really didn’t need to be doing. I had perfectly capable people in my team whose job it actually was, but I was still hanging on.

He described it as me gripping onto the edge of the table by my fingernails and breaking all my nails in the process!.

He was so right, I wasn’t doing myself or anyone else any favours. I was spending my time doing something that other people could do perfectly well, while the things that genuinely needed my experience and attention weren’t getting enough of either and the things I was actually being measured on were falling short.

My time was more valuable elsewhere. Not because the work was beneath me, but because it wasn’t where I added the most value and that’s the bit that’s stayed with me.

Sometimes letting go feels uncomfortable because doing it yourself feels like being responsible. But hanging on to the wrong things isn’t taking responsibility. Surely the responsible thing is to let the right person do their job so you can get on with doing yours.

Technology has made this both better and worse. It is brilliant that we can now do so much ourselves. We can build our own websites, create our own marketing, set up systems, manage data, automate things and teach ourselves anything we fancy. But just because we ‘can do' something doesn’t mean we ‘should do.’ 

I’ve seen people spend hours, days even watching webinars, reading articles, trying different platforms and wrestling with something that an experienced person could probably have sorted out in a couple of hours. 

There’s a wonderful irony in spending an entire afternoon watching a free webinar made by an expert to teach yourself how to do the thing you should have simply paid that expert to do. 

I understand why we do it, because I don’t think this is only about money. Sometimes it is of course particularly when you’re building something and every pound matters. 

I think there are often other fears at work too ....handing something over means accepting that someone else knows more about this bit than you do. If you don’t fully understand it yourself, how do you know they’re doing it properly? How do you know what it should cost? How do you know they’ve understood what you want? Perhaps even how do you know you’re still in control? 

So we hang on or we find a halfway house. We bring in an intern or somebody very junior because it feels less expensive and somehow less risky. Except they understandably need direction, training and managing. Now we find ourselves trying to teach somebody how to do something we weren’t entirely sure how to do in the first place. 

You haven’t really bought yourself help. 

You’ve accidentally bought yourself yet another job.

This is where I think we sometimes misunderstand what we’re actually paying for when we pay for expertise. If someone experienced charges you for two hours, you’re not really buying two hours. You’re buying all the years that came before them, and all the times they’ve already done the very thing you’re asking them to do. They’ve invested in learning it, practised it, got things wrong, worked out what works and what doesn’t, and learned what to look out for. You’re paying for the fact that they don’t have to work it all out from scratch because they’ve already done that bit.

Sometimes the most valuable thing an expert can say is simply: ‘Don’t do that. Do this.’

By investing in that experience suddenly something that has been sitting on your desk for three weeks is moving. 

That doesn’t mean giving up control and I think that’s the bit we get muddled up. Being in control of something and having to personally do every part of it are not the same thing. 

You should know what you’re trying to achieve. You should ask questions. You should understand the decisions that matter and what good looks like. And ultimately, it’s your business, your idea and your decision. 

You don’t need to know every nut and bolt of how everything gets done. 

I’m beginning to think the question we ask ourselves far too often is: ‘Could I do this myself?’ and usually the answer is yes given enough time, YouTube videos, webinars, swearing and cups of tea. 

Perhaps the better question is: 

‘Is this really the thing I should be spending my time doing?’ 

If the answer is no, maybe keeping that vice like grip on the edge of the table isn’t keeping you in control at all. Maybe it’s just slowing everything down. 

There will always be things worth learning and things you should keep control of and close. 

Doing something yourself can sometimes be exactly the right answer. But there are other times when the smartest move is to loosen your grip, find someone brilliant at the bit you’re not brilliant at, and let them get on with it. 

You don’t have to know how to do everything.

Get clear on what needs doing. Find the right person. And let them get on with it.