My kids started school yesterday.
As with every new school year, there are new teachers, new classrooms, new expectations, and probably a few new challenges along the way.
Even though they walked out of school only a few months ago, they walk back in seeing things a little differently.
It made me think about how rarely we give ourselves that same opportunity in business.
In the AEC industry, experience matters. There is tremendous value in having people who have seen the problems before, know what works, and understand how to get a project across the finish line.
But experience can have a downside, too.
Sometimes knowing how we’ve always done something keeps us from asking whether there might be a better way to do it.
We carry the same assumptions from one project to the next. The same processes from one year to the next. The same answers to problems that may have changed.
One thing I appreciate about a new school year is that it creates a natural point to look at things again.
What worked last year? What didn’t? What have we learned? And what should we do differently this time?
We don’t get a first day of school in business.
Maybe every once in a while, we should act as we do.