Years of Experience, or is it one year's experience multiplied by many years?

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Salaam and Greetings,

While the whole family went off for a wedding in Pekan, Pahang yesterday, I was stuck at home nursing a leg due to an infected boil.

I decided to watch the movie “Legends of the Fall”. A 1994 movie played by Sir Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt. For those not familiar, it is about a father and his three sons during the turn of the 20th Century in Montana, USA. Their trials and tribulations.

I guess out of training by my former lecturer, Prof Kinoian, who taught me American Literature back in US, I made a mental note of how what I thought and felt whenever we read a book, and watching a movie is no different.

I first watched the movie when it came out. I remembered watching the movie from the perspectives of the three sons. The idealist son searching for honor in the battlefield of WW1, the realist son who kept his feet firmly on the ground, and the “troubled” son who is always angry. All three reflected what I felt and thought at that time. Hey, I was young, in the Army and running 5km was just a warm up. It was easy to see it through their eyes.

When I watched the movie yesterday, somehow, the three sons were no longer my focus. It is now the father. His pain and struggle of raising his sons, preventing them from joining the Army to go fight the First World War, and simply keeping the family together. My kids are getting older, one is graduating soon, the thought of them leaving is real not hypothetical.

What has the movie and different perspectives got to do with us as leaders and managers?

As managers and leaders, you need to know and ensure your team is growing and changing. If your team went through a similar situation years apart and their perspective have not changed, I would be worried. It means they have not grown and changed. You wouldn’t want that. I have personally seen people work in that company for many years, yet only know their job function, and nothing much of the company they work in.

If their perspective have change, then they have grown, developed and seeing things differently. We need people to grow with us. As our people grow, so will opportunities. And my experience in the Army, it also means loyalty and camaraderie.

Hence it is important for us to ask ourselves if our people have, “Years of Experience, or is it one year's experience multiplied by many years?”

Comments

  1. Ben GrantMarch 21, 2011 at 9:08 PM

    Dear Noor Iskandar
    Thank you for opening up my mind too
    Wassalam

    From Mr S.O.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ben GrantMarch 21, 2011 at 9:08 PM

    Dear Iskandar
    Excellent piece! I believe this is partly why competence in civil service is lacking. Promotion essentially based on length of service, less on capability and capacity.
    Regards

    Mr A.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ben GrantMarch 21, 2011 at 9:11 PM

    I agree with you, Mr Iskandar. That is why in appreciating everybody and in all walks of life, only then we be able to see at many different angle / perspective. Especially from the old folks.

    Relating to Jessica Watson's painting "Look up....", "Listen...." , "And you will see...."
    Initially, I only saw it as something in the nature setting, when Nady said, "Look up ibu......", when I couldn't see....Nady said. "Listen ibu......", Guess what? I saw.......

    Experience may not be just from doing but from observing & listening well.

    Hehehehe.......what do I know...........

    But nak comment jugak.
    Like your thoughts.

    Ms A

    ReplyDelete

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