This might sound a little obvious to you, but I’ve recently discovered the joys of hiring an expert. From personal stuff around the house, to professional stuff around building my own capability, or getting stuff done!
 
We live in the country, and recently built a deck on our home, and then had to have the outside of our house painted. I can’t tell you how many people asked if we were doing it ourselves. Whilst we are not necessarily “handy” we are certainly capable but when I counted up the potential cost of a do it yourself strategy, the time it would take, and our lack of knowledge about deck building and house painting, it seemed better to hire experts.
 
Painting our home, for example, would take us months! Hiring an expert had the job done in 10 days, AND I was watching them one day and noticed all the little things I would have not either noticed or been bothered doing.  Replacing nails that may have fallen out or moved with the usual movement of a house. Some of the timbers had warped slightly, and they fixed those, knowing that the gates we had installed when we put the deck on had not been primed and needed a bit of extra attention. 
 
So, if we had done it ourselves it would have taken a very long time and would have likely been a sub standard job.

 

I think organisations sometimes fall into this trap when trying to get stuff done. Visually, it looks a little like the cycle of insanity…

 

Deciding whether to do it yourself internally is often an economic one and ironically it frequently costs more in time, money and effort than if you had hired the expert in the first place. Simply put, it’s a false economy.

 

When have you had success (or failure) when working with experts?