The counter-intuitive benefits of a lack of experience

The expert fears the beginner because the beginner has not received the memo about what sensible people never try.

This is occasionally genius and frequently how sheds catch fire.

Experience compresses decisions. The veteran sees a familiar pattern, avoids twelve old mistakes and moves before the novice has found the instructions. That speed is valuable. It also makes old constraints feel like laws of physics. The weekly report survives the manager who requested it, the system it measured and possibly the government under which it began.

Beginners trip over these invisible relics. “Why?” sounds ignorant only because everyone with experience has stopped asking it.

One newly hired receptionist can discover in an afternoon that visitors cannot find the entrance. The architects have walked through it for six years and see no problem. Familiarity edits inconvenience out of view.

Do not fetishise innocence. Someone who knows nothing about surgery is not disrupting medicine by reaching for the kitchen knife. Pair the improper question with somebody who remembers where the bodies are buried. Let newcomers observe customers before teaching them the official explanation. Make veterans describe the constraint in present tense. If it cannot be described without “we’ve always”, put a small fence around it and start digging.

The veteran explains the map. The newcomer points through the window at the road. For a moment, both pieces of information are available; the useful team resists deciding that only one person is allowed to be right.