The Most Dangerous Words You Can Hear: I don’t need to develop
Picture your team member, leaning back in their chair, arms folded. Twenty years of experience worn like armor. Not only are they avoiding development conversations – they’re proudly, defiantly dismissing them. “I’ve been doing this job since before you were in management,” their posture says. “What could you possibly teach me?”
The calendar invites get declined. The conversations get deflected. The development gets delayed.
It’s like watching someone proudly polish their typewriter in a room full of computers.
They’re not just resistant to growth. They’re fortified against it. Each year of experience has become another brick in the wall between them and development. Their expertise in how things “used to be done” has become both their shield against change and their excuse to avoid discussing it.
If years of experience were enough, every veteran employee would be leading innovation.
Here’s what’s really happening: While they’re perfecting their typewriter skills and dodging development meetings, the world has moved to smartphones. Their experience, once valuable, is becoming as relevant as a steam engine repair certification.
They don’t see themselves as falling behind. They see themselves as maintaining standards. Holding the line. Keeping things “proper.” Each avoided development conversation is, in their minds, a badge of honour – proof they don’t need what others do.
Here’s how to break through both the experience barrier and the avoidance shield:
Instead of fighting their experience or calling out their avoidance, use their expertise as a bridge: “How has this industry changed since you started?” “What solutions work differently now than when you began?” “What problems do you solve differently today?”
Notice we’re not challenging their expertise or their busy schedule. We’re inviting them to examine change they’ve already witnessed and mastered.
Then shift to current reality: “What changes are you noticing now?” “How are newer team members approaching these challenges?” “What client requests are different from five years ago?”
Help them see that development isn’t a threat to their experience – it’s an evolution of it.
Finally, bridge to future value: “How could your experience help us navigate these changes?” “What wisdom could you bring to these new approaches?” “How could your knowledge make these new solutions even better?”
Because here’s the truth they need to hear: Their experience isn’t the problem. Their reluctance to apply it to new challenges is. Their busy schedule isn’t the issue. Their avoidance of growth is.
They’re not being asked to abandon their knowledge. They’re being invited to evolve it. They’re not being asked to deny their experience. They’re being invited to expand it.
Right now, they’re like a library full of valuable books, written in a language fewer people speak each year, with a librarian too proud to discuss translation and too busy reorganizing shelves to consider adaptation.
Your job isn’t to clear out the library or force them to attend development meetings. It’s to help translate those insights into a language the future can understand. It’s to make growth feel like an extension of their experience, not a rejection of it.
The conversation isn’t about making them obsolete. It’s about making their experience relevant again.
Before they become another cautionary tale of someone who was so busy defending their past and avoiding their future that they missed their present entirely.
[About the Author: Jimmy Burroughes transforms overwhelmed managers into strategic leaders. Through his Amplify Leadership program, he helps leaders reclaim their time and maximize their impact.]