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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Title: Limits of Experience

Reference: Sengupta, Abdel-Hamid, Tarek, K. , and Van Wassenhove, Luk N.

“The Experience Trap”. Harvard Business Review. February 2008. pp. 94-101.

One of the oddities in business is the paradox of experience. Experience is perhaps the most over used term in business. It is misapplied whenever someone wants to limit opportunities, restrict applications, or prevent discussions from proceeding. Experience for a job has even become a central theme in the vetting of the candidates for the Presidency. Note that experience quickly gives way to capacity, facility, and potential when the discussion is about a compatriot, associate, or well liked individual.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Title: Limits of Experience

Reference: Sengupta, Abdel-Hamid, Tarek, K. , and Van Wassenhove, Luk N.

“The Experience Trap”. Harvard Business Review. February 2008. pp. 94-101.

One of the oddities in business is the paradox of experience. Experience is perhaps the most over used term in business. It is misapplied whenever someone wants to limit opportunities, restrict applications, or prevent discussions from proceeding. Experience for a job has even become a central theme in the vetting of the candidates for the Presidency. Note that experience quickly gives way to capacity, facility, and potential when the discussion is about a compatriot, associate, or well liked individual. It seems to me that the problem with experience is its many variations. Experience in one aspect of a problem, or a series of historical problems, does not necessarily equate to alacrity for resolving future problems. The reasons are many; current issues are complex, multifunctional, and require relationship building to resolve. People who default to a specific frame of reference, autocratic decision-making or lean only on familiar dogma are likely to struggle when confronted with new decision points or outcome scenarios. Without the commitment to get to the root cause of problems, to build consensus, and to redirect the focus to execution experience leaves a lot to be desired. In the referenced article the commentators provide some insight and guidance on experience within the context of a simulated project management experiment. “What we discovered in our experiments…was that managers with experience did not produce high-caliber outcomes…they didn’t change their approach when their actions produced poor results.” Apparently experienced people don’t make the necessary adjustments, have blind spots attributable to initial goal bias, time lags, existing mental models, and stumble over complications. “When complications are introduced they either ignore them or try to apply simple rules of thumb that work only in noncomplex situations.” To get out of this framework, the commentators recommend the use of disciplined feedback, model based tools, and setting goals for behavior, not targets for performance. “First they should decide on the behavior they wish to foster, and then they should set goals that encourage such behavior.” While these outcomes may not be entirely true outside the confines of an experiment, I do believe that they offer some insightful food for thought on why experience may not be either necessary or sufficient to deal with complex situations. I have instead championed intellectual curiosity, a willingness to challenge the assumptions (slaying of sacred cows), the disciplined prowess to find and address the root cause of the problem, and a strong work ethic as a much better proxy for results than experience. If we use that proxy for selecting a new employee, a project manager, or a President we will be much better off. Let me your thoughts on the paradox of experience.