California Miramar University

Introduction

Experts are in … generalists are out!

I realize this statement may shock some of you, but it is my opinion that today companies look for people who have a specialized know-how, skill-set, knowledge-base, and proficiency that can help them run their businesses better. Just consider the continuation of companies’ outsourcing specific jobs to professional groups who have specialized knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Buying expertise (outsourcing) contrasted to building expertise (investing in the workforce) hasn’t always been common. There was a time when companies hired and trained their workforce to complete all job tasks, but something happened along the way to change all of that. And that change in attitude and action is now standard among most companies … it is widespread. And while the change has been slow in coming, it seems it will never return to the way it was. But what brought about this change?

It is my opinion that three main factors help usher expertise as ruler: Globalization, Technology, and Attitude.

Globalization

Almost every organization can boast of having a diverse workgroup. Some of the workers may be housed in the same facility and interact with each other face-to-face on a regular basis, while other workers may be half-way around the world and never see each other. Similarly, an organization’s customers, competitors, contract workers, regulators, and shareholders may be local and global. What this means is that each stakeholder (employee, customer, competitor, contract worker, regulator, and shareholder) has its own set of ethics, values, morals, beliefs, and assumptions as well as its own goals and expectations. Today, an organization must be aware of the similarities and differences among its stakeholders because each wants something a little different from the other. Therefore, an organization needs people who are specialists in many areas.

Technology

Steady and rapidly changing technology makes it easier to retrieve information more quickly and more fully than ever before. In fact, the Internet has made it easy for almost anyone to get information. While this is the good news because it helps us stay up-to-date, there is the bad news. First, the source of the information can be questionable since almost anyone can post almost anything on the Internet regardless of their expertise. This leads to suspecting the reliability of the information as well as the author. Secondly, as changes occur rapidly in the world, it is nearly impossible to be current at any one given time. This means information is almost a commodity. However, there is a bright spot … it matters how we use the information to become an expert; process is as important as content. So, again, someone dedicated to a particular field can be of great help.

Attitude

At one time, the attitude about careers was that you picked one and stayed with it. Career changes happened infrequently, and with some people in some careers never at all. Today, the attitude about careers is different. Changes in careers occur more often. Today changing careers is often seen as focusing on improving oneself through various experiences, on broadening and deepening one’s understanding and using knowledge. Today, if the career-changer has broadened and deepened his knowledge, skill, and ability he is considered to be the valued knowledgeable authority.

Attitude plays a big part in becoming an expert because it reflects’ one’s outlook on life in terms of how one thinks, feels, acts, believes, and deals with complexities and changing conditions. We often hear of flexibility as a key attitude trait. Yet, developing and maintaining the right attitude is easier said than done especially when one’s basic core ethics, values, morals, beliefs, and assumptions are challenged.

Plan for Expertise

Prioritize

Prioritizing is all about establishing what is important and what is not is important. While this includes setting specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, and time-driven goals, it increasingly is more apparent that learning-by-doing is taking on more importance. Getting your hands dirty and learning from successes and mistakes are vital. Volunteering for projects, interning with companies, and offering up your knowledge, skills, and abilities for free are more common now than ever before. Critically thinking, analyzing, and objectively arriving at a sound conclusion set apart those who succeed from those who do not. College degree seeking people should concentrate in an area.

Exposure

Learning to get noticed by others helps make a distinction between succeeding and falling short. In this context there are two fundamental principles. One, get acquainted with those people who know more about something that you want to know more about, i.e. experts. Two, while developing your expertise, identify the target audience who values what you have or will have. If others are unaware who you are and what you can do, then your expertise is less useful.

Close

In summary, this article proposed that becoming an expert is essential in being successful in today’s competitive marketplace.

In conclusion, the more you believe in yourself, the greater the chances of your career success. Stay hungry and stay focused. Lastly, do not worry about failing, you will at sometime in your life. Focus on succeeding.

Most people reading this probably know what encompasses an MBA and understand it is possible to pursue online MBA programs. While students are focused on developing themselves, their skillsets and their careers, they might also lose focus on the responsibilities that go along with being a business leader in the ‘real’ world. It’s essential to make ethical choices because globalization means increased cultural diversity and bad choices can turn into public relations nightmares in the present and down the road.

It is often said that stockholders hate a bad quarter more than public relations, but unethical choices affect everyone, including the parent company. The average person is the customer in many cases, and businesses do not prosper by insulting or harming the interests of those they serve. Remember, for most businesses it’s all about customer service; that’s what makes impressions and will set you apart from the competition. No matter what social or political affiliations you have, ethics transcends difference and is ultimately the tie that binds people together and drives B2C and B2B relationships.

In addition to losing customers and losing face, unethical choices might also be mechanically bad. After it was discovered that Enron Corporation had lied about its gains for many years, and its stock plummeted. This is essentially because investors lost faith that Enron could reliably pay dividends in the long-term and that it had fewer assets than the truth. The loss of credibility and the fall in stock made Enron undesirable to do business with and so what partial value it still had was also destroyed.

The pressures of delivering a good message make the temptation to lie overwhelming, and also to do very risky things to make gains. High risk maneuvers can succeed initially, but eventually the gambler falls against the odds. It is unethical to play roulette with other people’s money, and it is also financially disastrous.

Ethics include bad business choices, but also legitimate things that still attack the public interest. Remember that society is the whole, and that corporations and businesses are organs. The part must facilitate the whole for both to profit. Ethics is something stressed in our on-campus, hybrid and online MBA courses and we take pride in knowing that we are contributing to the world in a morally just way.

Globalization has really made the world a smaller place, and shapes the way we do business today. We talk about it everyday and it is continually woven into our social fabric. Popular TV shows like Outsourced, the large increase of college students studying abroad and companies going global all point to the fact that the world’s market is becoming more unified everyday.

Transcript of the video lecture:

Globalization is really about interdependency of transportation, distribution, communication, and economic networks that are globally defined. Global corporations are actually now beginning to replace multinational corporations as international competitors. They often offer standardized products to markets globally that have pretty much similar taste at reduced cost. It is really about mass customization.

When we are looking at global strategies and managing diverse workplaces, we are looking at having to have managers develop only ways from which they think and act in these managerial skills.