Land of the Blind: When Experience is a Liability

(from “The Age of Metapreneurship”)

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

Ever hear someone utter this phrase? The expression is almost timeless. Many cultures have a similar phrase.

It means: In a specific situation, even limited ability or knowledge can be a great advantage — particularly when surrounded by people of lesser ability.

Experience is valuable. It almost goes without saying. It’s why we practice. It’s why we study. It’s why we work hard. It’s why we expect a higher salary as we progress in our careers.

While experience should be an advantage, superior experience should be an unfair advantage — particularly when you’re in an environment with inexperienced people. At least this is what logic tells us.

50 Years Experience

During the contentious 2016 US Presidential election, Hillary Clinton was the more experienced candidate. With roughly 50 years working in government, politics, campaigns and in elected office, she may have had more experience than any candidate ever running for President.

Certainly she was more experienced in government and politics than her rival, businessman Donald Trump — who had exactly zero years experience working in government and politics. Not only did she have significant experience working as an elected Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was also a veteran of countless political campaigns for herself, her husband, and for candidates inside her party.

In addition to her own experience, Hillary Clinton was campaigning with seasoned advisors, the full-throttled support of the Democratic National Committee and their fundraising machine, along with her politically savvy husband — former president Bill Clinton.

Meanwhile the Trump campaign was staffed by people who never ran a national campaign before; prominent members of his own party actively campaigned against him; and his campaign was plagued by one media gaffe or disaster after another.

In the land of blind, the one eyed man is king.

If there ever was a set of conditions that gave an insurmountable advantage to a candidate, it was during the 2016 presidential campaign. In terms of experience and political credentials, a Clinton landslide should have been a ‘slam-dunk’.

But of course, the election turned out completely different — with Trump winning the election with 304 to 227 electoral votes. Experience, apparently, was not an advantage.

And this wasn’t the first time. We’ve seen a similar disparity in 2008: U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton ran against a significantly less-experienced challenger in the Democratic primaries, yet Barack Obama soundly beat the more experienced Hillary Clinton to win the nomination and then become the 44th President of the United States.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow. Experience can be a liability.

Experience as a Liability?

The concept prompts prolonged bouts of cognitive dissonance and confusion in the smartest people. It’s like proclaiming: in the 100 yard dash, speed can be a liability.

It happens to all of us. Have you ever applied for a job, or been through interviews where you were the most experienced and qualified candidate? Yet, when you did not get a job offer, invariably a level of disappointment, bewilderment and depression begins, rivaling the “5 stages of grief.”

How often in business do we see experienced executives — even CEOs from Fortune 500 companies, or veteran entrepreneurs — struggle, flounder or fail when trying to launch their second act.

Entering a business ecosystem filled with inexperienced and less accomplished entrepreneurs, seasoned operators should thrive. In many cases, their abilities and experience are so formidable it’s like Superman landing in Metropolis. At the very least, this disparity is enough to have them confidently approaching our proverbial land of the blind — ready to show the natives how it’s done, ready to be king.

The One-Eyed Man is King

In 1904, H.G. Wells wrote “Country of the Blind” — a story about sighted person who stumbles into a remote mountain valley, where everyone has been blind for generations. This new man, Nuñez, assumes he will soon be king.

He would teach them about the world and their surroundings. He would use his abilities as a sighted man to become their leader and help them do great things for their society.

He kept repeating: “In the land of blind, the one eyed man is king.”

When he arrives, in an attempt to communicate, he gestures at them. They do not respond, even though they can communicate with each other. In the village, the rooms were dark (because the blind do not need light) and Nuñez found himself stumbling and tripping, ineptly.

But Nuñez was confident, as he kept repeating to himself: “In the land of blind, the one eyed man is king.”

It was, he found, much more difficult to proclaim himself than he had supposed. In the meantime, while he contemplated his coup d’etat, he did what he was told and learned the manners and customs of the Land of the Blind.

Every now and then he laughed, sometimes with amusement and sometimes with indignation. He just kept reassuring himself: “My time will come.”

When he tried to describe to them, the landscape and the crests of the mountains he saw in the distance, they could not understand what he was talking about. They even mock his ‘sense of sight’ as imagined and useless. They don’t even have a word for sight, or vision.

But he kept repeating: “In the land of blind, the one eyed man is king.”

To the locals he seems incompetent. You see, they don’t know that they are blind. All their skills, knowledge and customs are based on ‘lack of sight’. They are experts at being blind. His extra ability is not only unappreciated and useless — it is a liability.

Nuñez became increasingly frustrated. How could these people not revere his extraordinary ability? Why couldn’t they recognize how much he could do for them, with his gift of sight?

And they were frustrated with him too, for not following their customs and norms; for fixating on this useless skill he claims to have; and for his arrogance.

Soon the relationship became contentious and they had frequent altercations. The natives know how to communicate with each other. They are adept at hearing subtle movements and echoes, and are more aware of their surroundings then he is. And they best him in every encounter — physically and mentally.

In one version of the story, Nuñez sees from a distance that there is about to be a rock slide. He attempts to warn the villagers, but again they scoff at his “imagined” sight.3 Eventually, the village doctor suggests that Nuñez’s eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are affecting his brain. In the end, he agrees. They cut his eyes out.

In the land of the blind, sometimes it is better to be blind like everyone else.

In the face of change, the competent are helpless.

Seth Godin once stated: “In the face of change, the competent are helpless.” Competent people have a predictable, reliable process for solving a particular set of problems. They solve a problem the same way, every time. That’s what makes them reliable. That’s what makes them competent.

In the land of the blind, it’s the blind that decide what “qualifications” are — not the sighted. It’s the blind that define what competence is — not the sighted.

Today, it’s the most experienced people who often are struggling to thrive as freelancers, consultants or as new entrepreneurs. More and more, the prevailing logic is:

• Past performance has no bearing on whether or not you will be successful in the future.
• Recent performance counts more than the number of years of experience.
• Job titles — particularly at larger organizations — are valuable if they explain your skills, but a detriment if all they do is indicate your hierarchy inside the organization.

In an entrepreneurial ecosystem, hierarchy means you have separated from the crowd, or community — and thus have disengaged.

In today’s modern age of entrepreneurship, the most valuable skillset is your ability to work within an network ecosystem and contribute to the network. Being highly accomplished and experienced can be intimidating, and sometimes met with skepticism and cynicism by those that do not possess such experience. This makes it hard for “the crowd” (the network) to actively engage with experienced operators.

Here’s the interesting dilemma: the more capable you seem, the less the crowd wants to help, and the less the crowd wants to engage.

In the land of the blind, experience can be an albatross.

Excerpted from the book: The Age of Metapreneurship — A Journey into the Future of Entrepreneurship, by CJ Cornell (May 2017, Venture Point Press)

For more on the The Land of the Blind, The Paradox of Experience, and other issues in modern entrepreneurship, read The Age of Metapreneurship by CJ Cornell

Author — The Age of Metapreneurship. Educator, Speaker, Advisor: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Digital Media.

Header Image Credit:

Photo “Eye of the Holder” By: SGT Pablo Piedra is licensed under CC BY 2.0