Intellectual agility

We sometimes avoid delegation out of distrust toward younger people on the grounds that they lack experience. But there may actually be a downside to experience.

In his book, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”, the coach Marshall Goldsmith observes that in our fast-changing world all your hard-won understanding of how to do what you do might become counter-productive if you’re dogmatic about its worth.

We’re the sum of our experiences, upbringing, mentors and parents, but all that’s in the past. These influences shape who we are but they can also trap us.

Goldsmith says sometimes we should stop and ask, “What do I have to unlearn?”

Your market is changing, your organisation is changing, your customers are changing. Are you changing?

One way of staying intellectually agile is to seek out new perspectives that challenge our ingrained ways of thinking and doing.

The bright, eager, inexperienced person you’re thinking of bringing on board for an important delegation could open the door to new perspectives.