October 25, (THEWILL) – Golf has a way of exposing the difference between how long you have been doing something and how well you are doing it. You can arrive at the first tee with years of experience, impressive clubs and enough technical vocabulary to host a television commentary. None of this persuades the ball to go where you intended. Experience still needs practice, an inconvenient arrangement for those of us who would like our past achievements to do more of the work.
I thought about this when Vijay Singh won the SAS Championship last week. At 63, the Fijian finished two shots ahead of Ernie Els, claiming his first PGA Tour Champions victory in more than three years. He had not recorded a top-ten finish all season before winning. There is plenty to admire here, especially for anyone whose knees now contribute to discussions about their sporting ambitions. But his explanation afterwards caught my attention. Singh acknowledged that although he had maintained his fitness, he had not been practising enough. He credited renewed dedication and extra practice with helping him win. Here was a golfer with an extraordinary career recognising a gap in his preparation. That admission interests me as much as the trophy.
There is a version of this in professional life. Meetings fill the diary. People want our opinions. Someone introduces us with a biography so generous that we wonder who they are talking about. These things confirm that we have accumulated experience. They tell us rather less about whether we are still developing.
We recently welcomed six young management trainees into our workforce. During one of our fortnightly knowledge-sharing sessions, one of them presented new ways to improve search engine optimisation. I had considered SEO familiar territory, but as she explained her approach, I realised there were things I had taken for granted. I was happy to be learning and acknowledged it to the team. After nearly three decades in communications, I was being brought up to speed by someone beginning her career. Apparently, search engines had continued evolving without waiting for my permission.
I could easily have missed that opportunity if I had assumed the learning would all be in one direction. We had brought these young people in to develop their capabilities, and here was one helping me develop mine. My experience helped me appreciate what she was sharing; it had not spared me the need to learn it.
Hearing something useful is only the beginning, of course. We still have to work with it. In Peak, Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool explore why repeating an activity does not automatically make us better at it. Effective practice involves identifying something specific to improve, stretching beyond familiar routines and getting feedback that helps us make corrections. The hours matter, but so does what we do with them.
Any golfer understands the temptation to practise what already feels good. If your driver is behaving beautifully and your short putting is a small humanitarian concern, hitting another basket of long, straight drives is satisfying. Unfortunately, the three-foot putt waiting on Saturday has received none of the benefit. It remains unimpressed by your work elsewhere.
At work, the confident speaker accepts another presentation while postponing a difficult conversation with a colleague. The brilliant strategist attends another conference but gives little attention to whether the team understands the strategy. We polish the parts of ourselves that earn applause. The awkward bits are left for another day, preferably one that never arrives.
Familiarity can also make us quick to assume we understand a problem. A client may still be explaining while an old solution is already putting on its shoes in our minds. Sometimes it is exactly the right solution. Sometimes we need to let the client finish.
Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favourite authors since I first read Outliers, offers another perspective. In Revenge of the Tipping Point, which I just started reading recently, he explores how the surrounding culture influences behaviour. His idea of an overstory draws attention to the broader narratives and assumptions shaping what a community considers normal. Applied to work, it raises an interesting question: what happens to learning when someone becomes the boss?
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Early in our careers, asking questions is straightforward. Nobody expects us to know everything. Then the title gets longer, the office gets bigger and asking for help becomes strangely complicated. Surely we should have mastered this already? We find ourselves nodding thoughtfully at something we would understand better if we asked another question.
In Nigeria, many of us were raised to respect age and seniority, and I value that courtesy. But sometimes a younger colleague spots a problem and says nothing because they do not want to appear disrespectful. The boss leaves the meeting thinking everyone agrees, when someone in the room knows there is a better way. What is missing is what HR experts call psychological safety: the confidence to raise concerns or disagree without fear of embarrassment or punishment.
If correction feels like a challenge to authority, colleagues learn to keep observations to themselves. Fewer objections reach the leader, who may conclude that things are going well. Meanwhile, the more accurate assessment is taking place in a WhatsApp group to which the leader has not been invited.
Looking back at our trainee’s presentation, I am glad I acknowledged what I was learning.
Such moments help establish what is welcome in a team. A younger colleague should be able to contribute without pretending that the most senior person already knows it. Those of us with experience should be able to ask questions without feeling that our entire professional biography is under review.
The next step is practical. A golfer can book a lesson and focus on a troublesome shot. An executive can choose a weakness and work on it. If meetings repeatedly end in confusion,ask a trusted colleague to observe how you give instructions. If difficult conversations become confrontational, rehearse one with someone who will be honest about your tone.
For those of us who advise others, practice might begin by asking what happened after our advice was delivered. Which recommendation helped? Which proved impractical? What did we overlook? The answers may be less comfortable than a polite thank-you, but they give us something to improve.
Every disappointing result does not mean we failed to prepare. Markets move, circumstances change and even a well-struck shot can take an unfriendly bounce. Singh’s victory offers no guarantee that extra practice produces trophies. It does remind us to examine what remains within our control: the skill we keep promising to sharpen, the feedback we dismiss or the habit we know needs attention.
Staying good asks us to retain some of the willingness we had when we were trying to become good: to ask, listen and occasionally look less accomplished while learning something useful. Sometimes the reminder comes from a champion returning to practice.
Sometimes it comes from a management trainee presenting to the team. Our experience remains valuable, but the next challenge still requires our attention. As any golfer will tell you, the ball has never read your biography.
By Meka Olowola
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Meka Niyi Olowola (FSPIN, FIMC) is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Zenera Consulting, a business leader and entrepreneur with three decades of experience, and an avid golfer.
