When Experience Ceases To Help

Something I’ve experienced firsthand AND witnessed multiple other times within organizatoins is the “experienced” card. 

Sometimes its valid. Years of work can lead to a strong gut-intuition that senses what’s what. 

However, sometimes its invalid too. The mental barrier of “this is the way we’ve always done it” can end up being the wall the business will eventually run into (or the cliff the business eventually drives off of when it fails to turn before it’s too late). 

Marv Levy* says it well:

Experience should be aplus as long as it doesn’t become complacency. If you say, “We’re not going to change; we didn’t do it that way before,” then you’ve become to old. 

Levy had bars. 

Listen to experience. But be wary of complacency. 

*Not bad for a Bills guy!