Team Alpha 375

What good is experience if it's not applied properly? Lessons in Leadership

By Roger Fritz Experience is the best teacher, you say. But is it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It all depends on you. Too often what we call experience is nothing but repetition. To be more valuable we must not only learn from experience, but also apply it and improve. Experience can be good if: • It has prepared you for today. Looking backward is appropriate only for historians. • You are comfortable with change. Resistance to change is a career killer. • You welcome new ideas. If you don’t have new ideas then the other guy wins. • You scan the horizon for competitive advantages. No one else can make you more competitive. • You never stop exploring. Avoiding failure is not the same as success. • You change wrongs before they become habits. The adage “nothing ventured, nothing gained” is more accurate now than ever. • You learn to simplify, not complicate. Those who try to impress with complicated solutions often want to see others fail. • You can apply it to current problems. Knowledge alone is useless. To make a difference it must be applied. • You use it to reach new heights. There is no growth while you are protecting yourself from criticism. Good experiences are building blocks that enable you to create your own future. People who learn to define good experience have laid the foundation for becoming leaders. They are rarely victims. They set the pace. Gaining good experience requires initiative. You can’t wait for someone else to provide it. You must risk making mistakes. You must challenge old ways. You must not be afraid of criticism. Those who make steady, versus sensational, progress are disciplined. They don’t think in terms of miracles or even unexpected breakthroughs. They plug away, constantly alert for ways to use what they have learned. Experience can be bad if: • Your skills are out of date. Who is to blame when a low-skilled person is laid off or replaced: the individual or the employer? • You are locked into past habits. It is always dangerous to be more concerned about appearance than substance. • You resist change. Don’t let yourself be concerned by what hasn’t worked before. If you don’t believe change is inevitable, you’ve been in a deep coma. • You keep reliving “the good old days.” Those who are constantly alert for bad news usually find it. • You fear making mistakes. Remember, to avoid failure is to limit accomplishment. • You apply old solutions to new problems. Nothing surpasses the disillusionment of a person whose “tried-and-true, time-tested” method fails. • You waste energy on regrets. Doom and gloom are infectious. Don’t spread the disease. • You seek comfort in repetition. The same old ways simply are not good enough in a society where the pace is set by high tech. • You dwell too long on past accomplishments. Don’t talk about the labor pains; just show me the baby. • You have followed the wrong people. When you paddle your own canoe, you can do the steering. Sure, you can learn from bad experiences, but why create them? Why even allow them to happen if they are preventable? Bad experiences should not be glossed over. They must be faced and dealt with. If you choose to blame someone else for your bad experiences, you will be the ultimate loser. To check up on the quality of your current experiences, ask yourself these questions: • What are the long-term consequences of this? • If I continue on this path, will I be better off? • What am I learning that is new? Unless you are truly happy as a specialist, consider broadening your career options by adding new skills that will keep you in demand. Whether you are comfortable with it or not, the best advice which can be given to young people is: Never forget, it is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world. The keys to minimizing the impact of bad experiences and maximizing benefit from the good ones are awareness and initiative. Awareness of the above clues will put you on the right track. Initiative to practice the good and eliminate the bad will keep you moving ahead. Experience provides the building blocks on which we construct our lives. Each new experience serves as a base for another, and another, and another.