Experience Should Inform, Not Imprison
Has your wealth of experience ever prevented you from recognizing when it was time to change your approach?
Experience is one of our greatest assets. It gives us knowledge, judgment, confidence, and a library of lessons we can draw upon when challenges arise. But there can also be a downside. The more success we’ve had applying what we know, the easier it becomes to rely on yesterday’s answers when tomorrow may require something different.
While experience can be a great teacher, it can also become a trap.
All of us have a tendency at times to get stuck in a rut. We become comfortable with our current approach and continue using it despite evidence that the environment or circumstances around us have changed.
Years ago, I was part of a major project team that was augmented by an outside consultant.
The purpose of the project was to fundamentally change the way our company operated. We needed to reduce costs and move away from outdated systems and procedures that no longer fit the realities of our business.
The entire project was about change.
Yet one area of the project fell significantly behind.
A group responsible for implementing a new billing system chose to follow a very formal and rigid process to arrive at its solution.
The process was disciplined.
It was structured.
And the team followed it diligently.
For more than three years.
Eventually, they arrived at their desired architecture.
There was just one problem.
The world had changed while they were designing it.
Technology had evolved. Business requirements had changed. The environment in which the new system would operate was no longer the environment that existed when the process began.
We were engaged in a project designed to help the company adapt, yet one of our teams became so committed to its methodology that it failed to adapt.
There is an important lesson in that irony.
When something has worked for us in the past, we naturally become comfortable with it.
We’ve all heard the old saying:
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
There is wisdom in that. We don’t need to abandon something that works simply because something newer comes along.
But there is also a danger.
“It isn’t broken” can easily become “therefore it doesn’t need to get better.”
And while we’re standing still, the world around us isn’t.
Today, change is occurring at an extraordinary pace.
Technology is changing.
People are changing.
Markets are changing.
The environment is shifting beneath our feet.
Artificial intelligence alone is challenging assumptions about how work gets done that seemed perfectly reasonable only a few years ago.
As leaders, we can’t afford to believe that what we already know will always be enough.
Nor can we become so committed to today’s processes, systems, or expertise that we fail to notice when the environment around them changes.
That’s the distinction Eric Hoffer captured so well.
Being learned is valuable.
Remaining a learner is essential.
Our experience should provide us with context, judgment, and wisdom. But it should never convince us that we have nothing left to learn.
Experience should inform our thinking, not imprison it.
Where might I be stuck in a rut today?
What assumption, process, or approach might I need to reconsider?
Where might past success be making it harder for me to recognize that circumstances have changed?
CHALLENGE
Identify something in your leadership or organization that is still working.
Not something that’s obviously broken.
Something that’s working.
Then ask:
Is this still the best approach for the environment we’re operating in today?
Don’t change it simply for the sake of change.
But don’t allow today’s success to convince you that you’ve already found tomorrow’s solution.
The moment we stop learning is the moment we begin falling behind.
