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And thanks for listening. Welcome to the HBR Idea Cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard. People work for years, decades to become experts in their fields.

There's a sense that once you reach

that level you're set. You're at the top of your game and can complete your tasks and

command most situations with ease. But our guest today says there are also big

downsides to expertise.

Sydney Finkelstein has studied many managers who are the best at what they do,

CEOs, generals, chefs, coaches, and he's found that some fall into what he calls the expertise trap.

Because they know everything or almost everything about their businesses or fields, they

become incurious about different perspectives on them, or overconfident in other areas.

Their knowledge and experience actually holds them back from continued professional success.

Luckily, there are ways to avoid this trap, and Sydney's here to discuss both the problem

and those solutions with us. He's a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

College and he's the author of the HPR article, Don't't be blinded by your own expertise.

Sydney, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Great to be with you, Allison. So when you talk about an expert what exactly do you mean? What level?

Well, you know, there are experts in many walks of life.

My focus is mostly around leaders in organizations of every type.

And so it's someone who has who has a track record who has mastered a

...