Why Ability is More Important than Experience.

Each author has his/her own voice, opinion, and agenda. Moreover, my writing has its own voice, opinion, and agenda. My agenda today is to dispel a nasty notion that continues to plague many companies, organizations, and individuals. That notion is that “experience” is the most important commodity in business. I’m here to convince you that it is ability and not experience that is the most valuable commodity. Please note that this is a blog post and not a research thesis.

Experience is extremely valuable; however, it is limited in that it is focusing on the past to extrapolate prior situations to determine what will work in the future. This assumption is faulty because the landscape of the future is very different from the landscape of the past. The knowledge half-life in different industries can vary dramatically. The knowledge half-life is the amount of time that it takes for exactly half of the knowledge that you currently possess to become obsolete. In high-tech, the knowledge half-life can be a year-and-a-half or less. In Government, the knowledge half-life could be fifty years. It really depends upon competition and the progress of technology. If you were in the audio equipment manufacturing industry, you could be the absolute best eight-track manufacturer in the world but your skill would be worthless because technology has taken your competitive advantage away from you. Thus, your experience does you no good in this situation. You must move with the times. You must follow trends and be on the leading edge of those trends.

If you have two similar people or companies or ideas, one that is a safer bet with more experience or one that is riskier with an ability to outperform, what would you choose? I have discovered that more people will choose the safer and more traditional approach than take a risk and go for higher performance. I am skeptical of companies or individual that choose experience over ability. Experience seems like the safer choice…right? The answer is unequivocally no. Let’s use an example. I ran the 100 meters in high school but wasn’t the best (in fact, it wasn’t even my best race). My 11.4 time was mediocre at best. Even if I dedicated my life to getting better at the 100 meters, I could never become an Olympic sprinter. Moreover, in 2008 the World Record for the 100 meters was smashed by Jamaica’s sprinter Usain Bolt with a time of 9.69 (he even stopped running with 20 meters left to race). You might think that he has been running the 100 meters for years. It was in fact his fifth race ever in the 100 meters! Comparatively, I have much more experience than him in running the 100 meters yet he has a much higher capacity to run the race. The sad fact is that businesses are in fact choosing experience over ability.

That may seem like a drastic comparison and it is but it is used to show how ridiculous this decision has become in business. Look at your organization and ask yourself these questions:

• Do you hire for experience or ability?
• Do you promote for experience or ability?
• Do you do business with others based upon experience or ability?
• What is the knowledge half-life in your industry?
• Is your leadership leading you by learning emerging trends?

Another example of experience and ability is the current head football coach of the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans Pete Carroll. Since Pete Carroll took over as head football coach, USC has won two national championships, two Heisman trophies, are 85-15, and won 6 of 7 BCS bowl games. You might think, wow, he must have an amazing prior coaching record to amass this impressive current resume. If you thought that, you would be incorrect. He was a career 33-31 head football coach in the NFL and was fired from two prior coaching jobs. How could this be, one of the most successful coaches of this decade, mediocre? The answer is all based upon identifying emerging trends in young male athletes.

The new trend was that players wanted to play immediately upon arriving at the program, were looking to get into the NFL as fast as possible, and were looking to have fun while doing it. Does this sound familiar? This profile sounds like the archetype of Generation Y. Pete Carroll took his knowledge of the NFL, his love for the game and enthusiasm to make it fun, and put everyone’s job up for grabs. It did not matter if you were a fifth year senior. If the freshman was better than the fifth year senior, then he was going to have the job and not the senior. This philosophy changed the game in college football. Since this decision, Pete Carroll has pulled in the top recruiting class in the nation several times over the past eight years. His roster resembles an NFL scout’s dream team. How can you follow Pete’s leadership example in your business? Do you start your fifth year senior or do you start the high performing freshman? Today, the sad fact is that there are many under performing experienced fifth year seniors starting in business today.

Tags: Ability vs Experience