Experience - a vice and a virtue

All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untraveled world whose margins fade forever and forever as we move.

- Lord Tennyson

For me as a coach, the audience always consists of a range of levels of their work experience as much as a mix of other attributes. Some with several decades of "experience" and some little to none. Their behaviours to follow in their teamwork as well as their leadership are, though not fully, substantially a reflection of their experience. Furthermore, the collective behaviour of the team is a reflection of the current and past experience - individual as well as collective. A team reduced to subservience having been dominated by an aggressive leader for long, fears to speak effectively though outwardly this may take time to be clearly seen. A team wherein leaders are not taken seriously due to the influence of a few members, unruly but more powerful than officially designed to be, becomes dysfunctional in producing results though they keep playing by the book in meetings. On the other hand, a graceful, selfless yet no-nonsense thoughtful action-leader's team that has evolved over years matures and keeps producing great results over a long period of time. It is not uncommon in such teams to see people lasting loyally and developing themselves not for years but for decades.

"Experience" is a sometimes deceptive and often a misleading term. Frequently, even associated with unwarranted levels of pride for some and, sometimes, unwarranted apprehension and fear in the minds of those who think they do not have much. Some plagued with imposter syndrome due to lack of experience, some at the opposite end of the spectrum with an armchair quarterback posture.

"Don't worry - I have so much experience in managing a project that others don't have to worry. Just leave it to me." Such a braggadocio is usually indicative more of a problem to follow than any assurance of success. "Wonder if our group really has the competency to deal with this completely. Why not we check with the other business units and also some other teams and then reconvene this meeting next week?" This type of a shade of nervousness and conscious attempt of rethinking is often a sign of leader's maturity and certainty of success to follow. The strength of real experience.

While a lot of research and measurement exists for analysing customer experience as measured by businesses, candidate experience as measured by recruitment firms, or employee experience (in the recruitment process) for the purpose of understanding their (i.e., customers', candidates' or employees') satisfaction levels, there isn't a lot of literature on analysis and measurement of the past work experience of employees or candidates for relevance and effectiveness in the potential job or portfolio.

The term "experience" is defined as "the knowledge and skill that one gains through doing something for a period of time." There are alternative definitions, but the differences are unimportant. The gist is important, and this definition captures it.

I often quote at the outset of any programme that the past experience of participants is an invaluable asset (often by doing the routine gimmicky calculation of summation of all the 'years of experience' in the audience). But I also prefer to flag that there are two ends of the experience spectrum - one at which an employee with 35 years of experience has enriched themselves 35 times by going through a new year every year and the other at which the employee enriched themselves during the first year and then repeated the routine 35 times with no further development!

It is best to bring the experience into the team but relinquish the undue pride of it and, instead, develop an experience-utilization rationale.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices-just recognize them.

- Edward R. Murrow

Group experience can be consciously harnessed with a few aspects clearly acknowledged and agreed upon by all.

1) Experience is not just what is reflected in number of years

Length of time is just one of the many dimensions associated with work experience. The granularity of experience, and the intensity of experience which enrich the person as a performer are linked to the variety of tasks handled, the problem-solving requirements faced from time to time, the improvements made and the ability to reuse these aspects in future. If the belief system in using the experience is fundamentally different, the same experience can lead to different lessons to different people. Therefore, the question, "How did you manage the situation in that case?" is a different question in a job interview from, "What would be your approach if you are faced with XYZ problem?". Both serve a different purpose. One requires memory. The other imagination. Same with teamwork. "How would you like to prevent this error in future?", would evoke different answers from a maintenance engineer and a production engineer. As a leader or coach, it is imperative that both the answers are sought. It is a good idea to collect all the pertinent views - not even inadvertently discourage them.

2) The value of experience is often contextual

Genchi Genbutsu is one of the key principles in lean thinking. It directs the teams to go to the place of work and observe the process and experience it before forming opinions and judgments. I recall several instances in which the operator actually working on the process for years quickly gave a simple solution on an intricate technical aspect. This is common and everyone experiences it at some stage. This sometimes happens in spite of the problem being a chronic problem. The experience of the operator in that context of the process is the most valuable asset in such situations. Furthermore, it is not uncommon to see that operators are more effective in developing solutions than those who have designed the process originally. The reason is simple - the knowledge by virtue of actually using the process repetitively is tacit. It simply cannot be explicitly stated or documented in words. (Quite in line with the famous Mehrabian study.) Often designers also lack it.

3) Lack of contextual experience is valuable too

To complement the contextual experience however, a fresh eye is of immense value too. One reason the experienced operators working on the processes for years do not think of the solutions which are quickly developed in presence of someone completely unfamiliar with the context or the situation is that the latter bring a fresh and creative perspective. The contribution of a fresh perspective introduced by those who do not have contextual experience is valuable because that perspective represents the interests of users or other stakeholders such as investors who do not necessarily participate into the generation process (e.g., design, development, coding, manufacturing etc.)

4) Experience is just that - not the skill for future

As mentioned earlier - experience is just that. A record from the past - a memory. Experience is not a prescription for the future - at least not necessarily. It is like a rear-view mirror in principle. The technology as well as environment are invariably different for the future and hence the management must be too. A statement such as "I have seen so many times - this method does not work. Don't worry about it!" needs to be subjected to as much skepticism and enquiry as the new method itself!

The experience of the team needs to be used for the strength of all its strands. A team that develops a healthy and comprehensive perspective to utilize the experience within the team, does not only prepare for the project on hand but develops itself for many more to come in the future.

After all - we learn from experience!

- Nilesh Pandit

March 23, 2023

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