How often have we approached a risky project or phase in our professional or personal life and done absolutely nothing about it? Yeah, we might feel a little uneasy, but we calm ourselves with the soothing adage that we’ve done this a thousand times and it was okay, therefore, it’s going to be okay. Anyway, we are natural optimists: it pays not to worry too much. We remind ourselves we’re experienced.
Experience is generally and justifiably regarded as a positive trait. It allows us to predict potential threats and improve our thought processes. It can allow us to see through a problem and come to an enlightening solution just as Mr Miyagi did for the Karate Kid (yes, I did just watch Cobra Kai on Netflix). However, as with many of the tossed coins of everyday risk there is another side to experience.
This ability of experienced professionals to rapidly see through complex decisions has been at the centre of research by psychologist Gary Klein. Klein’s extensive work in the field of naturalistic decision making by experts also reveals some potential pitfalls in experience. The cognitive patterns that experienced professionals or experts rely on to predict outcomes, can lead to misdiagnosis. They find a short-cut, it’s just the wrong short-cut; they make ‘expert type’ errors. Perhaps complacency starts to creep in or perhaps it’s something more inbuilt. There are other human attributes we might want to consider such as Risk Homeostasis Theory. The theory posits that our appetite for risk expands as we become more familiar or experienced with an activity. The idea was first proposed in 1982 by Gerald Wilde (what a great name for anyone in behavioural risk research!) and although challenged by some academics, raises some interesting observations. Wilde observed that after the move from driving on the left-hand side to the right-hand side of the road in Sweden, accident rates fell for the first eighteen months - that is until drivers became more experienced in the new risk environment and accident rates rose again.
When it comes to experience, it’s also worth considering that we don't necessarily get better with time served. Studies of medical doctors in the US showed many subjects’ professional abilities did not improve, in fact some subjects’ performance became worse over time. Yet this flies in the face of many professional structures. It also flies in the face of many assumptions we make about people’s levels of ability and suitability for certain roles. It can make us blind to some potential risks through a misguided link we naturally make between experience and competence. People can be our greatest asset, but to get the best from them and to allow them to reach their potential as leaders and managers, they need to understand the risks associated with human behaviour. Some of that understanding has to come from experience, but some has to come from quality and evidenced based training.
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