From a presentation given to the IBA Mediators' Section

6 October 2009, Madrid 

Specialisation is an inescapable fact of modern life. One shouldn't however, conclude from that that specialisation is either approved of, or desirable. One can make a case, for example, that the current financial crisis is a crisis of over-specialisation.

In the UK, disdain of the specialist is somehow a tradition. Some of it is caught up in a misty-eyed nostalgia for the era of the "gentleman amateur" - a long-gone figure, if he ever existed, who had the time and money to cultivate and indulge a tremendous range of interests. Some of it, let's be frank, is snobbery: part of the British mindset has never got to grips with the fact that some people work for a living.  

Something of that mentality led comedian Kenneth Williams to lament that 'these days, people are becoming more and more expert in less and less. Very soon,' he concluded, 'it'll be possible to be the world's leading expert in absolutely nothing.'

[CLICK TITLE TO READ MORE] 

[DOWNLOAD PDF OF SLIDES HERE]