Years ago, I worked on a complex machine project. I was responsible for electrical systems, controls, and mechanical assembly. Another engineer handled the mechanical design and coordinated with machine shops. And then there was Mike, an engineering consultant with decades of senior design and project experience.
Mike seemed like a wizard. He asked brutally efficient questions that cut straight to the root of whatever issue we were facing. And there were a lot of issues.
Drawings from the design team made parts nearly impossible to assemble correctly. I'd find the problems during assembly and mark up drawings for rework. Control system limitations meant certain calculations couldn't happen onboard, they had to be precalculated in lookup tables. Lead times kept colliding with project timelines.
Mike didn't have more technical knowledge than the rest of us. What made him effective was his refusal to accept the first explanation. He kept asking questions until the real issue surfaced, even when it made people uncomfortable.
Here's what I learned watching him work: as an outsider coming into an organization, your initial context is shaped entirely by whoever contacts you first. That person has their version of the problem. If you're not careful, you solve their problem instead of the organization's problem.
Those aren't always the same thing.
Mike understood this. He didn't stop at the first explanation. He asked questions across departments, challenged assumptions, and gathered context beyond his initial contacts before committing to a solution.
That's what makes outside perspective valuable. Not that you see everything immediately, but that you're not locked into any one person's version of reality. You can ask the questions that people inside the organization have stopped asking because they already "know" the answer.
The discipline isn't in having perfect insight from day one. It's in staying curious long enough to make sure you're solving the right problem for the whole organization, not just the person who hired you.