The Hidden Cost of Experience

I've started wondering whether experience has a hidden cost.

Before you stop reading, I'm not suggesting experience isn't valuable.

It is.

I'd choose an experienced surgeon over an inexperienced one every day of the week. Experience gives us judgement. It helps us recognise patterns. It allows us to make decisions faster.

The question I've been wrestling with is whether it also edits what we're prepared to see.

Years ago, Koos Bekker challenged a room full of us from the broadcasting world. His view was simple. Our greatest strength had become our greatest weakness.

We knew broadcasting so well that we struggled to recognise what new media was becoming. We weren't short of intelligence. We were looking at the future through yesterday's successes. I've never forgotten that lesson.

Since then I've seen the same pattern in leadership.

The more successful we become, the easier it is to assume the next challenge will respond to the same thinking that solved the last one.

Sometimes it does. Sometimes our greatest asset quietly becomes our biggest blind spot.

These days I'm less interested in how quickly someone answers a question. I'm more interested in whether they're prepared to ask themselves,

"What if I'm looking at this through an old lens?"

Experience gives us confidence. Curiosity keeps us relevant.

The leaders I admire most never seem to lose either.