“I can line up ten old and experienced fools in front of you this evening.”
My father always began his story with this line. As the professional CEO of a family-owned business, one of the challenges my father had to contend with was the different working styles of the younger generation. The speaker in this instance was one of the founder’s grandsons, who was being groomed to run the business.
The discussion was about the relative strengths and weaknesses of a potential new employee that they’d just interviewed. My father, a big believer in hiring the best person for the job, had expressed the thought that this particular candidate was not experienced enough.
My father’s contention was the young clearly had a big advantage, in both the energy they brought and in not being tied down to the way things were done. But for their business, a fast-growing company in a commodity market, experience mattered and could just not be replaced.
Thereupon a debate ensued on the relative merits of youth versus experience, before the young executive made this assertion about old fools. My father always laughed when he recounted the passion and vehemence with which his young protege made this statement. His response always was that no amount of education – whether football, swimming or sex education in a classroom was as practical as getting out in the real world (or in that field or pool) and experiencing it.
Many years later, when hiring in my first managerial job in California or my startup in India, I found this to be repeatedly true. The fresh college grads, almost were always smarter, had studied stuff that we had not even heard of and thought of absolutely new ways to accomplish things often getting things done just because they didn’t know it couldn’t be.
Yet like with good design (or a good meal) no amount of studying prepares us as having done it before – ideally more than once. Riding a bicycle or banking a car on the curve or setting up a website or negotiating with a Japanese customer all works much better once you’ve done it before.
My father hired more than a hundred folks, with absolutely no experience – often young men who were looking for their first break. Several of them are running their own businesses or in leadership roles today. Nevertheless, he taught me, that for many roles or jobs, experience trumps all. The trick is knowing when you can’t do without it!
My father would have turned 85 yesterday.
Photo by Aleksandar Popovski on Unsplash
Sri – Like always, an insightful article !
@rahul thanks for the attaboy!
Sri – Like always, an insightful article !
@rahul thanks for the attaboy!