The Value of Relational Experience

I’ve often heard the phrase, “Experience is the best teacher.” While I believe that can be correct, I’ve learned that far too many people refuse to evaluate their experiences, completely missing out on some of life’s most crucial lessons. In all the years we’ve studied John Maxwell, I’ve often heard him joke that “maturity usually comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.” Where experience is concerned, I’ve met some folks who have twenty years of experience and some who have experienced the same year twenty times; picture the work version of Ground Hog Day… Even then, though, the people most determined to pull any possible lesson from everything they experience are limited by time and exposure. One of the most valuable assets I’ve had access to in my career, something that’s allowed me to become exponentially more qualified to deliver results around any certification I’ve ever earned, has come directly through the value of relational experience.

In the piece he provided for me to use in the “What People Are Saying” segment at the beginning of Leading With A Clear Purpose, Terry Ward shared this:

Dove draws from his diverse and hands-on experience—as a second shift press operator, local safety team leader, national corporate safety manager, HR manager, and small business owner—to offer real-world insights. Through just these few pages, Dove masterfully distills the wisdom of renowned leadership experts into a concise, straightforward, and highly practical handbook. His talent for translating complex concepts into clear, actionable guidance makes this book an invaluable resource for anyone eager to sharpen their leadership skills.

In complete transparency, Terry has shared a similar message with me directly for more than twenty years and I’m just now beginning to embrace it. Knowing our worth and uncovering our hidden strengths can be incredibly challenging. Praise God for mentors who are willing to point them out with specificity and help us understand just how much our unique voice can resonate with an audience, all while providing the ongoing alliance feedback we need to keep improving. Today, I have a clear perspective for how much my personal and professional experience allows me to connect with, relate to, and provide meaningful examples for nearly any audience we speak with or provide training for. But without Terry emphasizing that for more than two decades, I’m not sure I’d have that clarity. And without having ongoing opportunities to learn from his and so many other mentors’ experiences, I can assure you that I’d be far less qualified to drive results behind any certification.

In more than 25 years of marriage, over a decade of which being as business partners, Cindy and I have worked incredibly hard to advance in our professional lives and we’ve invested heavily into developing our skill sets. While some of that investment has indeed yielded fancy certificates and a few credentials, the hands-on experience we’ve compiled along the way has always provided us with the most practical value. That said, the relationships we’ve built with so many amazing mentors has provided us with the ability to transform that experience into the leadership qualities we initially needed to earn buy-in with the teams we served, and now serves as a primary qualification for how we help organizations achieve measurable results today.

However, even the best relational experience won’t keep us from making mistakes along the way. We’ll take a look at how a willingness to learn from every failure can become a critical part of enhancing any qualification next. Before that, though, I’ll challenge you to seek feedback from a mentor on a practical skill you currently have that makes you uniquely qualified for something you’re not fully embracing. We can rarely see our own full picture while we’re standing in the frame.