Don’t let experience blind you

Over my career, I would often cringe when executives or investors announced we were going to be working with a consultant.  A therapist at heart, I felt the need to explore why and what provoked such a negative energy. 

Memories flooded as I began to explore my experience.   The young recent MBA grads huddled into the cubes adjacent to ours, showing each other the answers and approaches in their textbooks.  The cookie cutter approach of telling us what to do with our business – cleverly described as best practices.

I was then reminded of a day long event I attended decades ago – hosted by the Pacific Institute.  We were blessed by the fact that it was actually Lou Tice that led us through 6 hours of guidance on Continuous Improvement.  He told the story of a 64 year old farmer who showed up to run a 100 kilometer race.  He was in his boots and overalls.  As you would imagine, the press made a joke of this farmer.  Much to everyone’s surprise, not only did he win the race against world class runners, he beat all world records for races of this kind.  When asked how trained, how he know the techniques, the methodologies of pacing ones self, of what to eat, when to eat, etc.   He laughed as he explained.   I have been herding my cattle on foot for 50 years – every day of my life.   I ran.   I got tired, I rested.   I got hungry, I ate.   He challenged the conventional wisdom.  He didn’t have the scatomas formed from best practices.   The beauty of this story is that in the following year – those world class runners beat his new record.  He led, he did not follow. 

My career has included a series of contextually designing solutions.  In each case, the focus was on what was in front of us and how we could define the best system to create the repeatable predictable results we desired.   Sometimes it was products, sometimes companies, sometime processes.  But it was always with a blank sheet of paper and a new start.