You’ll have read several posts along these lines recently. Including the slightly hurt-sounding question: “And who exactly handles the difficult conversations? Or holds the team together when things get shaky? Who avoids serious mistakes in a refinancing, a reorganisation? Factory planning?”
So what’s true?
Our interviews, and management research too, show that experience alone isn’t enough. Expertise that simply grows through learning by doing reaches its limits. The Swiss organisational psychologist Heike Bruch talks about “ambidexterity”: exploitation and exploration.
In exploitation mode, leaders rely on experience and existing knowledge. Think of a CFO who works out a cash flow variance, a P&L consolidation or a funds flow statement for the umpteenth time, in different industries: well-practised routine.
Today, managers have to solve problems that never existed before. For that, according to Bruch, they need exploration: discovering new solutions, trying things out.
How is that supposed to work?
You don’t need Harvard or a data science background for a C-level role. But we see clear differences in our interviews:
- Baby boomer CFOs who bring a wealth of experience and still shape their company’s data architecture without a computer science degree. They sat down with the data teams, not as the boss but as a learner, with a “reverse mentor”. (I love that term.) Once a week, say, over several months. Their insight: “The young ones know the tools. But they don’t know which questions the business really needs answered. That’s our advantage.”
- In plastics processing, small variations in material or environment affect product quality. A COO, closer to my age, launches a project: AI continuously analyses process and quality data from production and automatically adjusts machine settings such as temperature, pressure or speed to environmental and material conditions. The AI stabilises quality in real time and cuts scrap.
- A CSO in medtech moves from the scattergun approach to automated personalisation. His key? A pilot. Small, three months, measurable results. The outcome: a significantly higher click-through rate for personalised customer communication.
Yes, younger people may have more energy. But energy without direction fizzles out.
Older leaders know when to accelerate and when to brake. They’ve been through enough crises to know which battles are worth fighting. That’s experience. But only if you combine it with new skills.
My advice: look for projects like these. They belong on your CV, not least with your next move in mind. And think about a reverse mentor!
Are you doing enough to switch from exploitation mode to exploration mode?
