I received an email from Dribble the other day with the headline: “How experience can block innovation and how to fix it.”
It was written for designers, but the idea hit home for me as a Product Leader.
Over the years I have noticed there are really two kinds of experience.
Industry experience is the knowledge built by spending years in a field. It is knowing the rules, the players, and how things typically work. It is valuable, but it can also come with baggage.
Innovation experience is different. It is the practice of asking questions, cutting through bias, and staying curious enough to see a problem from a new angle. It is harder to build and harder to measure, but it is far more valuable.
The trap is that industry experience often comes with personal bias. We filter new problems through our own history. We have seen similar situations before, so we assume we already know the answer. We stop listening. Sometimes the real issue is right in front of us, but our own experience blinds us from seeing it.
This is where innovation experience matters. One simple way I try to fight bias is by using the 5 Whys. Asking “why” again and again forces me past surface level answers and helps me get to the root cause. It pushes me to hear what is really being said, not just what my experience tells me to expect.
I have seen this play out many times. A team with years of industry experience dismisses a problem because they think they already understand it. Then someone with fresh eyes asks one simple question and completely reframes the issue. Suddenly, the solution becomes clear.
Experience is valuable. But it can also become a filter that distorts reality. Innovation requires noticing when that filter is in the way and having the discipline to set it aside.
For me, innovation experience is more important than industry experience. It is also much harder to bottle.