Expert vs. Advisor

David Maister is a native of Great Britain, holds degrees from the University of Birmingham, the London School of Economics and a doctorate in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School. In 2002, he was identified as one of the top 40 business thinkers in the world. He is also a frequent writer, and in the April edition of "Law Practice Today" he compares and contrasts being an "expert" vs an "advisor."

Expert

• Job is the right-to-solve clients problems through the application of technical and professional skill.
• Takes responsibility away from client and acts as if he/she is "in charge" until the project is done.

Advisor

• Rather than being "right," the advisor's job is to be helpful...providing guidance, input, and counseling to the client's own though and decision-making process.
• Client retains control and responsibility. Advisor is subordinate to client.

As Mr. Maister points out, neither role is inherently better. The only mistake is to pretend. An expert who wants to be an expert is going to be miserably poor at pretending to be an advisor, and is going to resent the client throughout the time that they work together.

What do clients want? Of course, each client is different. I tend to think that the majority of clients today are looking for a trusted advisor. Fewer are looking for experts. I also wonder if their isn't a generational dynamic here too. From my experience, members of the GI Generation, and older...are more willing to accept, and seek, the expert. However, I think that Baby Boomers want more control...and are less willing to cede responsibility to anyone.

Comments

[David Maister]

Thanks for sharing these ideas with your community. The article you link to is an abbreviation of the original, which contains more detail, and which can be found on my website at davidmaister.com/articles/

[The Prospecting Professor]

David...Thank you for your original thoughts, and your elaboration.

[Ralph Lauren Outlet]

I love to visit your web-blog, the themes are nice.