Starter Project to Career Expertise - Becoming an Expert is a Process

At a certain point, we reach a level of expertise in our fields and the work feels like second nature. But, it’s fascinating to look back and reflect on the journey.

A little over nine years ago, I started a new career in education leadership. As a part of my master's program, I was challenged to quickly identify a topic I wanted to dive deeper into or a problem I wanted to help fix, then to spend the next year researching and providing recommendations in a final capstone paper. 

One of the early challenges I observed was a need for stronger onboarding, especially for classified staff, in the charter management organization I had joined. At the time, classified staff were turning over at a relatively high rate and although there was a decent hiring process in place, once new team members were hired, they were sent directly to schools and expected to quickly be able to contribute. School Operations Managers and Principals had to train or arrange training for each new hire on their own. None of the support these new team members received was standardized and it wasn't always aligned to high level organizational expectations. I used this problem as an opportunity to practice organizational leadership principles like leveraging relationships, building consensus, co-creating solutions, and change management.  

And what happened? Six months later, 13 new staff had gone through the process. Then, using 30-day check-in surveys and follow-up conversations I learned how to iteratively improve the process. Soon…I could tell who had been properly onboarded and who had slipped through the cracks. The process worked. It was tailored to fit our organization and it produced the desired results (as identified by the key stakeholders). 

At my next organization, I saw a similar need and had the expertise and experience to lead the process again. Now, it’s much easier and I know the process to design onboarding that handles the boring HR requirements, makes new hires feel welcomed, and sets them up with the most critical knowledge to get started. 

As an Ops leader, it’s important to be able to design simple, repeatable processes that increase efficiency and limit frustration. This was the first challenge I tackled after career switching and I learned a lot from it. Now, designing organizational processes and systems is almost second nature.

What’s a starter project you’ve used to develop your content expertise?