Expertise and Attitude

I now sit and have sat on a number of boards.  By "board" I mean a group of folks who hold some measure of respect in a given community and who are charged with the oversight of some program, some fund, some process, some enterprise.  Many boards are elected, most are appointed.  I include in the notion of boards groups such as church committees, councils, elders, deacons and sessions.  I also include Little League, Boy Scouts, County Fairs, Red Cross, charitable foundations, beauty queen pageants, river authorities, art councils, and corporate boards. 

If you think about it, school boards, city councils, legislatures and congress are also boards.  These are elected boards, asked to oversee something in which they have no real measure of expertise, but are purported to have good hearts, wisdom, and a vision.  Sometimes these elected boards form sub-boards by appointment of the elected board.  Sub-boards, or sub-committees, or standing committees, or whatever title is assigned, begin to develop a feeling of self importance, perchance expertise, in the domain of the sub-whatever.  And they do gain additional insight and experience, but lack real expertise.  The Worship Committee members at church who have served over time begin to understand why the worship service is conducted the way it is, why the flow evolved, why the components are included.   But, they also understand that they simply have a historical view, they are not the experts.  That would be the pastor who has additional degrees, training and experience in the Order of Worship. But, I digress.

Historically, boards, councils, lay committees listened to and relied on professional expertise.  Not now.  Expertise appears to mean little.

We are in the middle of a communication revolution.  Not only can those who make decisions, or develop and create a message have a much wider audience, but the audience can respond.  In fact, the audience can talk to each other.  I watch CNN and at first was really irritated when they began their "Question of the Day" whereby they invite views to email, tweet, or Facebook responses to CNN on whatever issue is brewing out there.  They dutifully report many of the responses.  My first thought was, "Who cares what Jack in North Carolina thinks about this heavy topic?"  I was wrong.  What Jack thinks is important to Jack and to everyone else who listens or responds to Jack.  So, CNN produces and broadcasts and viewers interact.  That hasn't happened before.  The same thing is going on in so called reality TV where viewers cast votes.  Amazing.  So much for a panel of experts with long resumes and years of experience.  Joe Blow gets to decide which couple goes home.

I know it is happening, and I wonder how much impact it is having on public education?  I have ranted before about lay people intervening in the decision making process and overturning rules, processes and procedures that wisdom, training and experience dictate.  It appears we cannot maintain that position any longer.  How do we jump into a Facebook furor over dress code and say, "this is why we do what we do."  How can we say to our constituencies that competition for pay and programs is a bad thing when everyone seems to think it is good thing?  How can we argue against standardized testing when "everyone" thinks the scores matter?  How do we communicate that the implementation of new research regarding the teaching of math informs us that our methodology in the classroom is different than when our parents went to school?  Does expertise exist or is it merely based on the number of tweets, posts, and texts?

That seems to be the case with our legislature and Congress.  That seems to be the case with our local school board.  That seems to be the case with almost every issue I can think of.  I tweet.  I blog.  I text.  Am I guilty of the very crime I propose to end?  Has leadership and expertise become tweet counting?

Or, should we just punt and take the combined social attitude over our accumulated expertise?  Is it an either/or question?

Will Rogers defined leadership as the ability to get the herd moving roughly West.  I love that notion.  Is it obsolete?  Is leadership now figuring out which way the herd is going and then racing full speed to get ahed of the thundering hooves?  Am I the only one left who person-cotts reality TV in favor of reading a good book?

Help me.  I'll count the posts.