Experience is part of the training
When I started the Teen Exec Podcast, I had never interviewed anyone for a podcast before.
I could prepare questions, research my guest, and think about what I wanted listeners to learn. But eventually I had to sit down, turn on the microphones, and try it. Afterward, I had an experience I could think about before the next interview.
I thought about this during my recent conversation with Melissa Russell and Chris Larabee of the Weston Observer. We were talking about the newspaper’s first anniversary and what they had learned during their first year.
When the Observer started, Melissa and Chris had a lot to figure out. They needed to get to know Weston, build relationships with people they might interview, understand the history behind the issues they were covering, and create some of the systems needed to produce a newspaper every week. Melissa described meeting with people around town before the first issue and asking them to tell her about Weston. Chris joined shortly before the launch and had to start building his own contacts and knowledge of the community.
A year later, they have something they couldn’t have had when they started: a year of experience.
They’ve been through town meetings, budgets, elections, deadlines, and stories that changed unexpectedly. They’ve learned which relationships matter and more of the history behind the stories they cover. Melissa talked about how producing the paper has also become more predictable. After doing it for a year, they have a better sense of how long things take and where to focus their attention.
As I listened to them, I started thinking about how many skills work this way, especially for students.
Someone can explain how to lead a meeting, and that can help. Then you lead one yourself and discover things you hadn’t thought to ask about. How do you move the conversation along without cutting someone off? What do you do when no one responds to a question? How do you make sure everyone leaves knowing what they agreed to do?
The experience gives you new information.
Melissa and Chris talked about this when they gave advice to students interested in journalism. Melissa emphasized curiosity and listening. Chris said not to be afraid to ask a basic question when you don’t understand something. They both talked about preparing for an interview while still being willing to follow the conversation somewhere you hadn’t expected.
I’ve noticed some of the same things as I’ve recorded more podcast episodes. During my first interviews, I was more focused on the questions I had prepared. Now I’m more comfortable listening to an answer and deciding that a follow-up question might be more interesting than whatever I had planned to ask next. I still prepare a lot of questions. I just use them differently because I have previous interviews to draw from.
Writing a student column for the Weston Observer has given me another kind of repetition. Each month, I have to find an idea worth exploring, figure out what I actually want to say, fit it into 500 or 600 words, respond to edits, and then begin again with a new topic. Talking with Melissa and Chris also helped me see my column differently. What I submit is one small part of all the reporting, interviews, editing, decisions, and deadlines that go into producing a newspaper each week.
This connects to something I’ve been thinking about through my student leadership research. We often talk about preparing students for leadership by giving them training, advice, and support. Those things matter. But students also need opportunities to take responsibility for something themselves.
Planning an event gives you experiences that can help when you plan the next one. Leading a meeting changes what you notice the next time you lead one. Having to follow up with someone who missed a deadline teaches you something about accountability that is hard to understand from a presentation about delegation.
That’s why I’m starting to think about experience as part of the training. There are things we can learn before taking on a responsibility, and there are things we begin to understand once we’ve had the chance to do it ourselves.
After that first experience, we have more to work with the next time.