Back to basics .. growing pains

I remember starting work all those years ago, bright eyed and bushy tailed, learning how to programme COBOL (yes I am that old!). As a social science graduate, I knew nothing about technology and had to learn it all from scratch. In fact, in my first job, I worked with a great team who patiently showed me the ropes and when I moved on after a year I got a leaving card with a poem that said something along the lines of "we taught her to code and then she hit the road". Even the most technical of graduates has a lot to learn, the theory is different to the reality of work. You don't know what you don't know?and you also don't know about the messiness of tech in a world with users, customers, budgets and all the other stuff that comes with real life. ?

Fast forward a few years and I had just enough knowledge for the first signs of arrogance to kick in. I remember another supervisor scolding me for trying to act like a manager when I was clearly not ready. Or so she thought, with the arrogance of youth, I thought I was ready.? But in hindsight, I was not ... and I realised, a few years later, that knowledge was no substitute for experience especially in things like team management.?

Recently, I've been thinking about the importance of that experience, especially in more senior roles and whether "years matter". One of the things I rely on in my work is just that ... even if it's not the exact same situation, often just the fact that I've had to navigate lots of similar things can help me stand back and look at a problem and see how it could be solved. I am incredibly fortunate because in the career I've had, I had opportunities to try lots of different things in different places and environments. However, I'm acutely aware that my good fortune is not something that is open to everyone. Maybe their path was different, maybe they never got offered opportunities or worse, they were excluded from them.?

So my question is this - how can we best to equip people with the tools to support them progressing into senior roles if they haven't had the requisite experience. Explaining things or formal training isn't always the answer? I know work shadowing is cited as helpful but often that's just a day or two so can that really substitute for experience? The thing that certainly helped me over the years was people pushing me towards opportunities that I might not otherwise have considered and that I was not necessarily fully qualified to do. But how do we ensure those folks who most deserve these pushes are getting them? And that still doesn't quite address the experience angle. I know often mentorship is cited as helpful - I'd love to hear from folks who've benefited from that and whether it's really made a difference. One other initiative I've heard about recently is "walk in my shoes" which is a variant of work shadowing which I understand does really help but takes effort to make it meaningful.

I'd be really interested to hear people's thoughts especially those who have benefited from some of these development opportunities - what worked? And what does not work? Are there other good ways to fast track experience?