...It may seem strange to be attacking the age-old shibboleth that "Experience is the best teacher." Or the assumption derived from that - that people "learn from experience."
But that's not my point. My point is that some people do and some people don't. And that some people do sometimes but not always...An old adage has it that there are a great many high-placed executives who, after 30 years, cannot claim to have had 30 years of experience. Rather, they may have had one-year's experience that was repeated over and over again during the 30-year period...
But what's at the basis of it all is the very simple fact that people don't learn from their experiences, but the might learn from their interpretations of their experiences.
The difference explains all of the differences...Whether or not people learn from their experiences depends on how they interpret those experiences.
...For example, oncologists have had the experience of witnessing the ravages of certain cancers caused by smoking (along with othe factors, of course). But oncologists and cardiologists are in general more inclined to smoke themselves than are other physicians in othe specialties. How rational is that?
...The "success paradigms" that get entrenched from the experience of success may be practiced until the person or the organization they are in fail. And, since many managers attribute their failures to causes beyond their control but their successes to themselves, they don't learn much from their failures...It is far more likely that a person will be struck by lightning than win the lottery. What would you say they are learning from their repeated "experiences" of not winning?...
All experiences have to be interpreted. It would seem obvious that most people are not capable of interpreting their experiences advantageously. That is, they don't learn from their experiences. Across the board, most people who experience what they take to be a bad marriage get remarried. The second marriage doesn't last as long as the first one. And the third one an even shorter time. What are they learning - about themselves or about how to do it better?...
People may have ready explanations that preclude them from learning anything from their experiences...People who can't learn, won't learn, from their experiences.
Perhaps a greater illusion is peoples desire to seek experiences which re-enforce the beliefs that already have.
Selective blindness to events and learning opportunities that don’t fit an existing paradigm are as difficult to overcome as an oblivious prejudice or clear resistance to change. In trying to maintain a position do we not trawl through our memory to find an event that shores up an argument rather than allowing the possibility of an alternative to generate real potential.
Try arguing with a child of an age where they are not burdened with experience, do they possess free thinking of the purest kind? Does the frustrated parent resort to “because I said so” in order to avoid conceding there is an alternative.
I would love to be the person that can live this talk, but I suspect I am some years from achieving it as a state of mind, its too easy to slip into the knowing mode which requires so much less effort than the learning one.
Posted by: Andrew Lane | September 23, 2008 at 07:22 AM