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 of it we ended up talking about something much bigger.
Early in our conversation, I asked Michael what was different when he started his career compared to now. He replied, “At the beginning of my career I had to go looking for it. Now the deeper layers present themselves as the obvious layer.”
Those two sentences had me rethink what experience is.
Naturally, the experienced person has more memories and we presume this means more knowledge and more examples to draw upon.
But I’m becoming less convinced that experience is all about remembering. Instead, experience is about what becomes visible.
To explain this, Michael told the story of time he spent in Africa.
He went on a safari to spot zebras, but at first, no one could see the zebras. Then the guide said something interesting, ‘Don’t look for an entire zebra. Look at the trees for a change in pattern. Look for a strange line, a different shape or a shadow that doesn’t look like it belongs. Then you’ll see zebras.’
And that’s exactly what happened. Suddenly, everyone on the safari was seeing zebras and lots of them. The animals were always there but what changed wasn’t the landscape, it was your perception.
Michael suggested when he first became an anthropologist he had to consciously search for cultural patterns, but today he doesn’t. Instead, his years of observation have changed what immediately stands out.
That struck me because I’ve been hearing the same thing from almost every guest on On Experience.
A designer notices relationships.
A mechanic hears engines.
A mindfulness teacher notices thoughts.
A farmer notices weather patterns.
An architect notices space.
An anthropologist notices culture.
What’s going on here? It’s not that these people are necessarily more intelligent than anyone else, they’ve simply learnt what’s important and what signs to look out for.
We often describe experience as something we accumulate. That’s why our resumes show years, projects, qualifications and achievements. But perhaps experience is less about what happened to us and more about how what happened changed our perception.
Experience isn’t simply stored in memory, like a TV replay, it’s what has become embodied in our attention. The safari guide doesn’t scan the trees. He’s already seen the shadow before he knows he’s looking.
While information tells us what happened, experience changes what we notice while it’s happening. And that may become one of the most valuable capabilities we have. The more conversations I have, the more I find myself returning to the same idea.
Perhaps experience isn’t really about knowing more, but rather, it’s about seeing differently. And once you learn to see differently, so does the value you create.
I’m curious, does this match what you’re experiencing in your own work?
This is Field Note #5. Field Notes are observations from my ongoing enquiry into experience. To learn more about how to make the most of your experience, read these posts next:
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