Experience should improve the questions
More than 25 years of working across countries, cultures and sectors has given me a broad base of experience. It has also made me more conscious of how quickly experience can become a limitation if it encourages a leader to assume that a familiar answer will fit a new situation.
The most useful effect of experience is not certainty. It is pattern recognition: knowing what to look for, where to probe and which assumptions deserve to be tested. Strong leaders draw on what they have learned without allowing yesterday's success to close down today's inquiry.
Context comes before conclusion
Every business has its own history, customers, capabilities and unwritten rules. The same is true of every market. A practice that works well in one environment may need to be adapted substantially in another, even when the objective is identical.
That is why I prefer to begin with observation and questions. What do customers genuinely value? Where does the organisation already perform exceptionally well? Which constraints are structural, and which can be changed? What does the available information tell us—and what might it be missing? Listening to the people closest to the work is not a ceremonial step. It is part of reaching a better decision.
Better questions widen the field of view
Curiosity becomes valuable when it is disciplined. The aim is not to delay action or endlessly reopen settled issues. It is to make sure that a decision reflects the whole system rather than the most visible part of it.
- What outcome are we actually trying to create?
- Which assumptions would change the decision if they proved wrong?
- Who sees a part of the situation that I cannot see from my position?
- What are the likely second-order effects on customers, people and performance?
- What evidence would tell us early that we need to adjust?
Curiosity and decisiveness belong together
Listening well does not weaken accountability. A leader can invite challenge, absorb different perspectives and still make a clear decision at the right time. In my experience, those decisions are usually stronger because the people involved understand both the reasoning and the outcome expected.
The challenge for experienced leaders is to remain confident enough to act and humble enough to keep learning. Curiosity is not the opposite of authority. Used well, it is one of the disciplines that makes authority more credible.