Does Experience Really Matter?
Two of the most high-profile executive appointments recently were Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft and Vishal Sikka as CEO of Infosys. What is similar about these appointments is that neither of them had prior experience as a CEO. Both organizations put their trust in first-time CEOs, which leads us to question: Does experience really matter in today’s business world?
Carol Dweck, Stanford psychologist and author of the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, provides a perspective on how the beliefs that we carry about ourselves matter in all aspects of life. In explaining the impact of our perception on our personality, Dweck mentions two mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.
A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can’t change in any meaningful way ... striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.
It can safely be said that people like Nadella and Sikka possess a growth mindset. Professionally, one of the greatest distinctions between people who possess a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset is that the latter tend to focus their effort on tasks where there's a high likelihood of success and avoid tasks where they may have had to struggle, which limits their learning.
People with a growth mindset embrace challenges and understand that tenacity and effort can change their learning outcomes. The growth mindset pushes people to choose roles for which they have no experience instead of choosing the comforts of the known.
In her book What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the Word, Tina Seelig provides a different perspective and shares the concept of a failure resume. A failure resume is a resume that summarizes all the biggest screw ups in all areas of life—personal, professional, and academic. It is a quick way to demonstrate that failure is an important part of our learning process—especially when you are stretching your abilities.
It is clear that unless you try new things, you will be limited in your experience. In today’s business world, which values years of work experience, the true meaning of experience remains a mystery to many. Doing the same thing over the years cannot be called an experience. On the contrary, that’s the case of experience becoming a rut.
The fact remains that experience does matter in today’s world, but it is the experience that results from a growth mindset—not a fixed mindset.
Do you agree?
