In a season full of positive points, the list of experienced worker benefits is one of the easiest to put together. We might not see any negatives in these workers. Unfortunately, they are human and have flaws, much like the rest of us. Some of these issues are specific to veteran workers. Think about the idea of getting in a rut, phoning it in, or otherwise getting set in your ways. However, we will not focus on these issues and will stay on the positive side of things.
Been There, Done That
The most valuable of experienced worker benefits is the ability to lean on past actions. Whether these ended up in success or failure, they all work to help us get to a destination faster. The maze analogy probably works best for this factor. When you know some paths lead to a dead-end, then you can avoid them. Beginners may convince us to “take the scenic route” by heading down dead-end roads. While that has some value, we typically want to get a solution done sooner rather than later.
Understanding And Mitigating Risk
When we have a broader experience in any area, we also have a sense of where risks are. This sense becomes almost second nature. That is one of the often-overlooked experienced worker benefits. In the world of superheroes, this would be called their “spidey-sense.” It does not rise to the level of walking through a minefield with a map. Nevertheless, it is similar to knowing the rough outline of a mined area. These people are better at accessing risk than their newbie counterparts.
The Final 20 Percent
We have talked about the Pareto principle many times. Our focus has been on the “easy” eighty percent of the solution. However, there is that pesky final twenty percent that also has to be addressed. That is where experienced people work best. They have skills and past projects to build on. While they still may not easily tackle the problematic parts of the project, they do allow for others to cover the first eighty percent. That can be the difference between overall success and failure.
Episode Challenge: Are you the best at your role that you can be?
