Most people think experience gives us answers, but what happens when our experience fails to answer our questions? When it makes it impossible to continue believing what we know. That’s what happened to Dr Patterson Stark. Patterson was a successful physician in La Jolla, California. He had a waiting list,
Michael Henderson describes himself as atrocious with technology. So why has an anthropologist become surprisingly good at using AI? Michael traces the answer back to something his anthropology professor noticed about him decades ago. He was struggling in many of his university subjects, but consistently getting top marks in anthropology. The
During the last few years of Dad’s dementia, when Mum and I would visit him in the Aged Care centre, there was a consistent pattern to the conversations we had. Dad would tell a story and Mum would say, ‘Don’t be silly’. At first, I assumed that Mum was simply
Most people think experience is about knowing more. But what if its greatest gift is something else entirely? In this excerpt from On Experience, corporate anthropologist Michael Henderson explains why experts don’t necessarily see more than everyone else. If you’ve ever wondered why experienced people seem to spot opportunities, problems or
My Dad died a couple of years ago after living with dementia. He went from someone who was sharp, practical and reliable to someone who seemed to be living in a different world. What happened to my Dad’s experience? From spending time with my Dad over those last few years, I
We often expect our experience to predict what will happen. But, what if it doesn’t? I started practicing mindfulness to become calm and manage my stress. But in talking with Mindfulness Teacher Mark Molony (as part of On Experience), I realised this wasn’t what it is about at all. Mindfulness
We often think experience accumulates into value automatically. But Rambo shows it doesn’t work that way. I recently rewatched Rambo: First Blood. Like many action films from the 1980s, it’s filled with explosions, car chases and classic one-liners. I’ve probably seen Rambo four or five times. This time I started
When two people are standing side-by-side watching the same event, is our experience the same? My brother loves trainspotting. And to be honest, I never understood why. Unlike birdwatching, where you never know what species you’ll see, trains are predictable. They run on tracks and they run on timetables. This
Most people think experience is all about having seen something before. But what if it’s not? In the first conversation in my On Experience series, I sat down with corporate anthropologist Michael Henderson. I expected that our entire talk would be about organisational culture. Some of it was, but for most
Sometimes we see problems through the lens of age or skill, when the real issue is experience. Previously, I wrote about Tony Popovic’s dilemma: Do you back the experienced veteran, or the rookie who is in outstanding form? Just before the penalty shootout against Egypt, Popovic substituted Patrick Beach for