The Trap of Experience - And How to Escape It
By Suzie Thoraval
What seasoned leaders can do to stay open, aware, and adaptable
“Every man can see things far off but is blind to what is near.”
In 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter broke apart as it entered Mars’ atmosphere. One engineering team used imperial units, another used metric. The mismatch went unnoticed. A $125-million spacecraft was lost because of the unquestioned certainty that the measurement alignment had already happened.
The systems were technically sound, but the checking process had not picked it up. People stopped testing their assumptions. That certainty — the sense that the essentials are already covered — is what psychologists call a blindspot. It sits between what we believe we know and what’s actually true.
Experience can make us complacent
Experience shapes these moments. With time, leaders develop strong instincts for what usually works. Those instincts reduce noise and speed decisions, but they also focus attention on what feels familiar. Subtle shifts can pass without notice: a change in tone, timing, or context that doesn’t fit past experience. Over years, that pattern-recognition strength becomes a filter that hides weak signals of change.
But adaptive stability reminds us that the future cannot be fully known. Uncertainty persists, regardless of how much information and experience we collect. When we rest on our experience and don’t consider the unknowable, we stop looking for indicators of what might be different about a scenario.
The task for modern leaders is to stay curious even when things feel settled and to keep scanning for signs that the environment is changing.
How Blindspots form
When I worked in risk management, I often asked teams to map every possible risk connected to their goals — a full universe of uncertainty. Once we had listed the obvious ones, I’d pause and ask: “What hasn’t been mentioned that could still affect us?”
That question changed the conversation. People began to raise weak signals they’d noticed — small changes or early warning signs that could grow into real problems. They also mentioned rare but high-impact risks that had been easy to overlook.
Those were often the blindspots: issues hiding in plain sight because they didn’t fit the usual categories.
Strategic thinker, Michael Watkins notes that one of the keys to strategic thinking is to develop pattern recognition — the ability to spot signals and make sense of complexity. He also warns that experience can narrow what we notice, so preparing for uncertainty means looking beyond familiar patterns and assumptions.
As Donald Rumsfeld famously observed:
“There are known knowns — the things we know we know. There are known unknowns — the things we know we don’t know. And there are unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Later thinkers added a fourth category — the unknown knowns: the things we could see but choose to ignore.
Blindspots live in those middle zones — the areas we underestimate or avoid because they challenge our comfort. Culture, habit, and fear all help them grow.
Research shows how this happens:
Emily Pronin found that people see bias in others more easily than in themselves.
Daniel Kahneman showed that time pressure drives quick, intuitive thinking.
Donald Schön observed that professionals rarely question the frameworks that once guided their success.
Together, these insights show how skill and confidence can narrow perspective — until curiosity fades.
Developing adaptive clarity
Developing what I call adaptive clarity helps leaders tune in to early signs that conditions are changing — the small shifts in data, behaviour, or mood that signal something needs attention. It turns faint clues into usable awareness before they build into a crisis.
In the adaptive stability framework, leaders use adaptive clarity to keep awareness open when conditions shift. The idea is simple: notice when attention has narrowed and create space to look again.
Three habits build this discipline:
Mindset: pause when things feel settled and known; explore what might have changed underneath.
Flexibility: check whether current data supports long-standing assumptions.
Resilience: hold space for reflection even when uncertainty feels uncomfortable.
The goal is steady attention to uncertainty rather than trying to predict the future. Leaders with adaptive clarity stay alert without becoming anxious.
Like a driver checking the mirror before changing lanes: you can’t remove blindspots, but you can train yourself — and your team — to look sideways before accelerating.
Awareness becomes a reflex rather than an afterthought.
Ways to Strengthen Awareness
Invite structured challenge: Many teams want to offer different views but need a clear method. Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats gives a simple structure: explore facts, emotions, risks, creative ideas, benefits, and process in turn. Rotating through these lenses encourages fresh perspectives and prevents debate from becoming personal.
Keep an assumption list: Write down the key conditions that must remain true for your strategy to work. Revisit them regularly. When circumstances shift, this list highlights which parts of the plan need attention.
Strengthen decision hygiene: Before confirming a decision, separate what is known from what is inferred. Ask, Which parts are evidence, and which are interpretations? The distinction keeps conversations grounded and reduces confusion later.
Read the emotional tone: Moments of tension or relief can indicate unseen pressure points. Staying curious about those signals often surfaces issues earlier than formal reports.
Creating conditions for openness
Awareness depends on both behaviour and environment. Individual courage matters, but the system has to reward it. Leaders set the tone when they treat questions as useful, not inconvenient, and make reflection part of normal workflow rather than an optional exercise.
A quick self-check
Think about your last few big decisions:
Who contributed a different perspective?
What information changed your view?
Which assumption has since needed revision?
These traces show whether awareness is active or fading into habit.
Closing thoughts
Blindspots move as fast as the environment around them. Leaders who build habits of open inquiry — mapping decisions, using structured dialogue, and checking assumptions — give themselves and their teams the space to adjust early. Awareness becomes less about reacting to surprises and more about staying in step with change.
Where in your current work could routine be shaping what you see — and who might help you spot movement that’s easy to miss?
