The Downside of Experience

"Experience is the best teacher, but only for fools," That was the first negative criticism I ever heard about experience. Before that it was one of the measurements that I used to determine the intensity of my knowledge and the extensity of its practicability in any field.

I started wondering if experience was really necessary for one's employability. If experience made us better, it should imply that we naturally become  better simply by  living.  Those older than us should understand life better, and live better lives. However, this is not always the case. Most of those who've lived longer than us are observed to be merely products of their own habits. Some have repeatedly made the same mistakes, never learning from their "experiences." This can be true too if we look into our own selves.

Status Quo
Experience is an inertia that creates a status quo. Those well experienced in a certain field tend to stabilise with time into a state that makes them do a certain task with the least discomfort. Any change in the system is received with contempt; and anyone who effects such a change is abhored. New employees who want to better the system are normally faced by forces that eventually see them try to fit in. The established status quo becomes a liability for oneself and for the company, as it is as hard to change as it was to make. In the end, this inertia develops into a culture; what the experienced employees mean when they tell you "this is how we do things around here,"

Experience is Neither Growth nor Development

Nor can it be used to measure the above two most important aspects of ones employability. Someone with 15 years experience in a certain field may appear to be quite knowledgeable and acquainted with that particular field, while in reality it was just 1 year repeated 14 times. They practically did the same things year in year out.

So what does this tell us- new blood into the industry- about experience? Firstly, experience in itself has no worth. It is a default right of everything that exists; everything that lives. What matters is how we used our time during those years of experience to progress and continuously improve ourselves. It is not a matter of "being" there in such a noble position for all those years; it's about achievements, transformations and changes that you effected during that time. Ask yourself this question: does the company need me?

Secondly, it implies that being experienced is not synonymous to being knowledgeable. Neither is it the same as being qualified-although this is hard to distinguish from. This has an important practical application for us as it gives us the right to break the rules set forth by individuals in certain professions. Indeed, some individuals have already done this by becoming the youngest CEOs in many organisations. There's no longer an age limit for CEOs, what is required is to prove that you're up for the job.

Lastly, it means we can multiply our time. We can work for two years but worth 5 years of experience by being a time multiplier. This can be achieved through delegation of authority and tasks, prioritising and reprioritising and coming up with smarter ways to use our time. Simply put, you can finish a 5-year project in 2 years time.

The One Qualification That will Surely Get You a Job

"So...whom did you say know in this company?" My  colleague asked me immediately when I joined their company for an internship. It seemed as if he had taken his time thinking about this, wondering who would have connected me. He seemed unease, not knowing how to treat me. He had to make sure if I knew anyone in the company. and whom it was. "No one," I replied. To be honest, I was disappointed that I didn't know anyone. "It was just by bad luck that they chose me, I guess it was a mistake or something," He laughed.

Since then I have been asking myself: Whom do I know? I know most of my colleagues take this trend in hiring negatively, blaming it on nepotism and tribalism in the country. But I think we are just being unfair to our beloved country Kenya. This is a worldwide trend. In the so-called free world, children of American billionaires are 28,000 times more likely to hit the same financial marker as their parents. The sons of US governors have a 1 in 50 chance of following in their father’s footsteps (compared to the odds of 1 in 306,807 for the rest of ordinary Americans).

Therefore the trend is here to stay, at least for the next 60 years. that is why instead of complaining and tweeting about all the nepotism staff, we could look around and do what  we have been doing all along- learn. I look at our current president and see that he is the son of the first president, and the next area MP is the son of one of the  most dominant MP in the constituency. ( I hope you see the same). All this reminds me of one important lesson I learnt in my fourth year during a chemistry class: It is more important to know people than to know chemistry.
We need to know people- and most importantly, know people who know other people. Our networking should be specific and selective- hunting for those who are already and can increase our chances of getting employed.

Even when we wish to venture into entrepreneurship, we ought to be connected to people who can make calls. Ideas will remain ideas. The will and constant motivation is important, but so is the guy who will fund (or find a guy who will ) your project.  So instead of complaining that people are being employed because their influences and relationships, be part of the game by forging the relationships.

What Does it Mean, To Graduate?

As  I approached my last exams at the tertiary level, I became more concerned about why I had to go through the four years in the first place. And it was during this time when I heard my course mates talk of finishing the 8-4-4 syllabus, others thinking about their marriage proposals and the few who have entrepreneurial spirits in them talk about starting a new business. It really was the end of our undergraduate life in Kenyatta University.

But I still couldn't give a precise answer to what I think graduation is. So I decided to ask my fellow comrades on the matter. The answers I received varied significantly- some were spiritual, others intellectual, philosophical, chemical and of course, others full of sense of humour. " It means that the University too is a witness to the fact that we are officially unmarried, that is why they give us the Bachelors Degree," One of the proponents of immediate marriage after graduation replied. Others said that it means we have gained enough knowledge and skills in our areas of expertise (though there was nothing like enough knowledge or any area of specialization in our course). There are few who took time to answer me. And their final answer, as you have guessed right, was that they didn't know.

They made me accept that I didn't know too. That we were so engrained in the system; the short semesters, the cramming, the googling and all until these practices were all that mattered. We didn't experience the learning processes; we went through them.

So I decided to find out what it means- or at least give meaning to graduation. I first defamiliarised with the term, and then distilled what it isn't, fractionally distilled what it seems to be and the product was a simple redefinition. Graduation, in essence, is a way of life.

Our life is made up of discrete stages, and for us to grow and develop, we graduate. We graduate from one stage to another; from a foetus to a child, child to an adult; from a son to a father, and so on. From this personal view I came to understand that we do not need to qualify for the next stage of life for us to graduate. It is just a matter of time; when we reach a certain age, we jump into the next stage. It doesn't matter whether we have performed well or matured to deserve the next title.

therefore, some of us will graduate with honours, others with passes. Some of us will marry when fully equipped, others will only marry because its time to. Some of us graduate into adulthood, and others become grown up babies.

What do you think graduation is?