Don’t teach me. I have over 20 years of experience!

A senior in my team was making a strong point to his subordinate, quite junior, with around 2 years of experience. He told him “This is the way it has to be done. Don’t teach me! I have over 20 years of experience!”

I noticed that the junior was in no mood to back down! He retorted back saying “obviously, you were born much before I was born and I guess if you were born in the 70’s you will have 20 plus years of experience. So what!!! “and he walked away. It took some time for the senior to understand what his subordinate said.

Watching this conversation from a distance I began to question myself "so what if you have 20 or 30 years of experience? Does such long experience really count in today’s world? Does it give one a competitive advantage or an edge over others? Are all the best performers the most experienced folks in the team? "

Prior to the liberalization era, markets were not dynamic, we were living in a stable world with a few changes happening occasionally, changes which were not significant and not at the pace at which changes are happening today. During such predictable times, Hierarchies worked, command and control and a lot of other traditional management models worked. Experience worked …..Are they all relevant today in a globalized economy?

The changing business models, changing business processes, the impact of technology on every function are making the earlier amassed knowledge obsolete and the need to start all over again. What took a lifetime to learn through experience for people of yesteryear's, this generation is learning in a few years. The advent of Internet and the knowledge explosion has further reduced the gap. Many companies are now asking the question while hiring back-fills or replacement positions “do I need to hire at the same level /experience or can somebody with a lesser experience do? And most of them are saying “Yes we can get the job done with lesser experience “

Internet has created a level playing field for even the tiny David’s to compete with Goliath's. Many such young companies in the new economy are challenging the much experienced players and wiping out many from Business and disrupting many traditional business models!

The Indian IT services Industry has created many professionals over the last twenty plus years. We now have many thousands of professionals with over 15 years of experience. More and more companies are now beginning to ask questions like, what percentage of the senior folks are billed to the customer and how are they adding more value? The answer is not many.

A resource management professional shares that he has been given clear instructions not to move any senior folks on bench to projects. The intent is to have these senior folks explore outside opportunities and leave voluntarily. Many companies are preferring younger folks to senior folks as they are more nimble, eager to learn and more focused. The other important factor is that the cost being very low. Our annual hike percentages have become a double edged sword. We have now created a huge pool that is much costlier than the lesser experienced folks but the differentiators being very few to justify the cost differential and that model is no longer sustainable. Unlike in the west where the annual increases cover inflation with around 2 % or little more, Indian companies riding on the offshoring wave offered massive hikes to its employees to hire and retain.

The senior folks in the late 30’s and early 40’s,managing teenage children,ageing parents, receding hairline and the middle age blues are finding the going very tough. Those who probably advocated more of campus hiring and entry level hiring in the past are now facing the brunt of age discrimination as they shift to the other side of the table.

In an interview I was conducting recently, a candidate shared that every other member in her team had over 15 years of experience and there was no scope to grow further as their higher ups were not leaving the organization and there were way too many candidates in the fray for one single promotion. One company had a different way to tackle the senior situation. They have designated every single senior member as an Associate Vice President, though none of them had any strategic responsibility or a subordinate reporting in to them. A king without a kingdom!

A research scholar was sharing with me that more and more senior folks are hitting the glass ceiling in their organizations and there seems to be no other career options and those losing jobs are unable to find jobs after months of search .There are a very few positions in the market that require such senior folks. A reasonable compensation gap between the experienced and lesser experienced folks could have helped the cause. While many senior folks are OK to compromise on the compensation, organizations having more and younger options to choose from are not preferring them.

A senior industry professional I knew used to always say “my hair did not become grey overnight. Listen to me, I have seen this before so many times in my career “The key difference now is that we live in a much more different and dynamic world where the future is uncertain and past experiences and grey hair may not really help in making the right business decisions.

Yes, experience helps human beings. Experience helps us to gain wisdom, to be more aware, respond better to situations and be better human beings. However, experience alone will not help any professional today.

“I do not need you if you do not add any value to me” is what my manager told me during my initial years. The same holds good even today. Your experience may not mean anything if it is not adding any value to your organization, customers and yourself. Relevant experience, value addition , continuous learning and staying relevant is the key!

In the last twenty years India has moved from being an agrarian economy to Industrial and services economy. The demographics of our country with over 65% of population being under 35 years, will be both our boon and bane. A boon as we become the global source of skilled workforce and increase the size of our workforce and economy. A bane when this workforce starts ageing, when automation makes many jobs redundant and the rising costs of employment lowers the growth rates; and together they all bring in many new challenges.

Like in a product life cycle , an individual has to keep Innovating, reinventing and continuously learning and this will help extend the career graph else one could be in for a rude shock!

A senior management professional told me he was attending baking classes. Looking at my raised eyebrows, he said “my alternative career option! You never know!”