EXPERIENCE ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH
In this third piece on What I Have Learnt In 30 Years of Paid Employment I intend to discuss why experience alone is not enough. I will emphasise that, beyond on-the-job experience, we need strategic personal development to ensure a better future for ourselves both professionally and otherwise.
Similarly, Strive Masiyiwa, the Zimbabwean billionaire, founder and Executive Chairman of Econet Global lends his weighty voice to this when he argues in his piece that although experience is important, it is not enough because we live in an age of constant change. Therefore, we must change the way we do our jobs every five years, or the job will change or may disappear.
So, what is experience in this case?
Work experience is the knowledge or skill in a particular job or activity, which you have gained because you have done that job or activity for a long time. For professionals like you and me, the process of getting experience is learning on the job, or on-the-job training. That is…
On-the-job experience is to keep you on the job.
Thus, experience is job specific. It is largely non-transferable. And there lies the problem as the image below shows.
And with the workplace in a constant state of flux, one is in an extremely dangerous and limiting place if all he has is a set of skills that is tied to a particular type of job.
It is dangerous for the employer as well. If all that your employees bring to the table is on the job experience, then your organization is at risk in these changing times. Why? They do not adapt, they resist change, they strive to maintain the status quo: “as it was in the beginning, is now, and will forever remain”.
Hear one of them: ““I don’t read any books,” the veteran began proudly. “Really, I could write most of those books myself because I know it all. I have been doing this job for 30 years.” This guy needs to retire quickly because he will destroy the organization!”
This group still believes that the post-COVID-19 world will be the same as it was before the pandemic. They say, “let this thing be over so that life can return to normal.” Yes, life may indeed return to ‘normal’ but it will be a new and different normal.
Thus, organizations and employees looking to return to normal – same world, same workplace and same way of doing things – are in for a big shock: there will be no such normal!
Recently, I asked my wife “why it is that some aircraft pilots fly and retire after 40 years and still do not become CEO?” Is it because they don’t like the big severance package that goes with it? We concluded that it must be because all they have is flying experience. A few days later we listened to an interview on television where a former pilot who had become CEO of an airline discussed his transition: he went back to school to learn how to do business. He did MBA.
Let us be clear: experience is very good and necessary. But it is not sufficient. Strategic personal development is required. Personal development will take you where experience alone cannot.
I will discuss that next week.
So, what are you going to do now?
