{"id":561213,"date":"2026-06-30T07:52:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T07:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/561213\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T07:52:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T07:52:20","slug":"no-we-have-not-had-enough-of-experts-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/561213\/","title":{"rendered":"No, we have not had enough of experts \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the run-up to last week\u2019s 10th anniversary of the Brexit<\/a> vote, a brief but telling news story appeared in the Daily Star newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cBritain is back in love with boffins\u201d said the report on a YouGov poll showing trust in an array of experts had risen since Michael Gove said we had all \u201chad enough of experts\u201d.<\/p>\n

Scientists, nutritionists and weather forecasters are all in better odour, and one group did even better: economists<\/a>. That\u2019s right. Trust in the experts who consistently and correctly said Brexit would damage the British economy has soared by 12 percentage points since 2017, when YouGov last studied the issue.<\/p>\n

Economists still lag well behind sports commentators, but I find this encouraging at a time when expertise remains a strangely troublesome concept, not least for employers. <\/p>\n

This year, consultants at McKinsey<\/a> have been celebrating the 100th anniversary of their famous firm. Throughout its long life, how many times do you think it has been led by people with no background or expertise in management consulting? The answer is none, the firm told me, unless you count its founder, James McKinsey, who is credited with inventing the modern version of the field.<\/p>\n

The story is much the same at other big consultancies, law firms and accounting groups that, like McKinsey, pick leaders from among their senior partners and typically promote insiders to big jobs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because they understand the value of expert leadership, says Amanda Goodall, a professor at London\u2019s Bayes Business School who has spent years studying the pros and cons of bosses with deep industry experience.<\/p>\n

Her research suggests such leaders are a boon in organisations from hospitals to universities to NBA basketball teams. <\/p>\n

One study found doctor-led hospitals were 25 per cent more likely to provide quality care than those run by administrators. Another showed that a university economics department\u2019s research tends to improve after the appointment of a chair who is an outstanding scholar. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0 Work Wild Geese \u2018The US still has a frontier mindset that you can go and make something of yourself\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Correlation, not causation, might explain some of this, but the effect can be evident over decades. One analysis of 62 years of Formula One races showed the most successful F1 leaders had disproportionately started their careers as drivers. <\/p>\n

These findings make Goodall dubious about employers who overuse consultants for outside generalist advice that consultants themselves would rarely dream of seeking.<\/p>\n

I agree. I do know executives who say they have had invaluable guidance from consultants, especially when their outfit was young or troubled. I also know outsider leaders with no industry experience can triumph.<\/p>\n

I was the FT\u2019s aerospace correspondent when Carolyn McCall stunned the sector \u2013 and me \u2013 by becoming chief executive of EasyJet after 24 years at the Guardian Media Group. She had never run an airline or a listed company, but as I later wrote, she left seven years later, having overseen record passenger numbers and a quadrupling of the airline\u2019s share price.<\/p>\n

But I feel lucky to have worked in an industry where insiders have typically risen to top jobs. Having a boss who understands what you do \u2013 and did it well themselves \u2013 breeds a level of trust and confidence that outsiders rarely replicate.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always had doubts about the extent to which managerial generalists succeed in bringing truly fresh thinking or effective shake-ups that stuffy insiders supposedly find impossible.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018I need to keep working\u2019: The people aiming to stay employed until at least 66Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Faith in such leaders is especially baffling when you consider how fast it vanishes when things go awry. Andy Hornby\u2019s lack of formal banking qualifications drew relatively little attention when the former retailer became chief executive of HBOS \u2013 until the bank collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis. And you don\u2019t always need a crisis.<\/p>\n

It has been astonishing to watch the chaos at CBS News since Bari Weiss, a former columnist-turned-media company entrepreneur with no television experience, became editor-in-chief in October.<\/p>\n

Staff say she has interfered with stories to placate the Trump administration, which she denies. But I was struck by what the veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley said after he was abruptly fired amid the turmoil this month.<\/p>\n

Political influence was not the biggest difficulty, he told The New York Times. \u201cInexperience is the larger part of the problem,\u201d he said, explaining that, incredibly, the venerable programme nearly failed to air one night after Weiss asked for changes to one of his stories hours after deadline.<\/p>\n

An expert boss might get away with a move like that. People understand extreme measures are sometimes needed. But rookies need a far more deft hand. I know which one I would always rather work for. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the run-up to last week\u2019s 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote, a brief but telling news story…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[6504,79,356,18,92270,2862,19,17,7766,27253,5282],"class_list":["post-561213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-brexit","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-eire","tag-formula-one","tag-guardian","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mckinsey","tag-nba","tag-new-york-times"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116837977064065036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}