You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

My wife and I have owned many dogs—French Poodles, a Portuguese Water Dog, a Soft-Coated Wheaton Terrier, and a German Shepherd. Ominous-looking because of her dominant black color and huge ears, but unusually gentle, Hannah the Shepherd was my all-time favorite.

During one of her frequent visits to my home office, where she knew I kept treats in the lower-left desk drawer, I gave her a treat. And then, on an impulse, I asked my approximately eight-year-old “friend” to come into the living room and told her she was going to learn how to roll over.

Other than basic commands, and listening to me babble on about many things, Hannah didn’t do tricks. That was somewhat demeaning for this beautiful creature. But this one case would be different.

While facing her and saying “roll over,” I grabbed her and rolled her over. Although we often “rough housed,” she looked stunned but went along with it. We repeated this exercise two or three times. Then I said “roll over,” and she did—as she did whenever, after that introduction to the trick, I asked her to do so. Clearly, I could teach this “old dog” (Hannah, not me) a “new trick.” More precisely, the old dog could learn a new trick.

How about those of us that are “old or middle-aged dogs?” Can we be taught or can we learn new tricks? Or are we set in our ways, perhaps practicing what Joel Barker, in his book Discovering the Future: The Business of Paradigms (ILI Press, 1989), called paradigm paralysis? Barker defined a paradigm as “a set of rules and regulations that (1) defines boundaries and (2) tells you what to do to be successful within those boundaries.” While paradigms are useful, we can become slaves to too many of them—that is, we can be bound by paradigm paralysis. Accordingly, Barker advocated selective paradigm pliancy—being open to the possibility of fundamental changes in our view of the world and the limits we place on ourselves.

The world, within and outside of our professions, is changing at an accelerated pace. Take 1990 as a recent benchmark. Here are some glimpses of the world as we in the United States knew it then:

Can you imagine what the next fifteen or so years will bring? What 2020 will look like? I can’t, other then to be certain that it will be dramatically different—technologically, economically, politically, and socially—than today.

Those of us—individuals and organizations—that want to thrive, regardless of age, will need to learn new tricks. If we choose to hunker down and just “survive” and “get by,” we risk irrelevance, failure, and regrets. Regarding regrets, journalist Sydney Harris said: “Regret for things we did can be tempered by time…. Regret for things we did not do… is inconsolable.” We can avoid such inconsolable organizational and individual regret by having the courage to plan new directions and learning what is needed to move in those directions.

Here are some possible “new tricks” for the “old dogs,” chronological or otherwise, among us.

The “old dog” in us, whether attributed to age or attitude, can be taught new tricks. However, we must be willing to learn and we need able teachers. Let’s conclude with this observation about the need to continue learning from self-taught social philosopher, Eric Hoffer: “In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” And, we might add, many suffer, or will suffer, with inconsolable regret.