“How Has Your Work Ethic Changed Over the Years?” - Boyd Clarke

We live in a culture that tends to value youth, energy, and new ideas. There's not necessarily anything wrong with this, provided we don't forget the value of experience. Boyd points out that judgment—or wisdom, if you want to put it that way—is the product of years of experience, and is about more than just knowledge. The more experience you have, the stronger the platform you have to stand on.

Rather than looking at senior management as simply out of touch (if not out of date), shouldn't we value the perspective of someone who's been in their field for years? Also, does this change the ways in which we should approach our own careers, and the way we understand our work as contributing something unique to who and where we are?

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TRANSCRIPT: When I was very early in my career a lot of what I brought was a raw energy and enthusiasm. In sort of mid-career, less important was the energy and enthusiasm I brought and more important were the specific skills I had developed over the last ten or fifteen years. As I move into my latter career, it's not that I don't have energy or enthusiasm; it's not that I don't have specific skills . . . but much more what I'm paid for now, and most senior managers are paid for, is judgment. What are the various components that you need to consider if you're trying to make a decision? A lot of people complain about their lack of knowledge; not many people complain about their lack of judgment. I think that what happens increasingly—as you move later in your career—that the judgment you have that's been tempered and developed over long years, and in many different situations, becomes of real value.