Have you watched All the Money in the World?. As a film, it leaves a lot to be desired. But I was struck by its depiction of J. Paul Getty senior, a Business tycoon and the world’s richest man at the time.

Mr Getty is supposed to be running a vast business empire but apparently spends his time acquiring expensive objects, playing chess with himself and reading ticker-tape – 1973’s version of today’s ubiquitous excel dashboards. Granted, he introduced the supertanker to move oil at larger volumes and lower cost. One innovation: a lifetime of riches. What a different world that must have been.

Mr Getty wouldn’t have lasted long in today’s dynamic business environment. Adoption of Digital technology makes constant strategy development and lifelong learning necessary. The business world is persistently evolving, and so must you. Today’s red-hot skills are tomorrow’s baggage of obsolescence.

Leaders, particularly those at the top, are most at risk from this ever-accelerating tide of new knowledge that must be acquired, understood, evaluated, asimilated and deployed effectively across the business.

CEOs are successful people. They know their industry and company so well and have such a track record that they have been entrusted total control. Nobody has been more successful than them. They know everything that’s worth knowing. Furthermore, they surround themselves with CxOs from similar backgrounds, with similar experience, knowledge and track record. They’ve all been doing this well for decades. They’re the most experienced. What could possibly go wrong?

Experience is indeed a major asset, which is why important people are referred to as senior. However, in today’s Digital business world, experience can also be your undoing. It is definitely no longer enough. If you started your career in the 70s or early 80s, your experience was built at a time where communication was analog, point to point and narrowband; data was small, slow and inaccurate; technology was mostly about applying mechanical force, and global scale was difficult and very costly – within reach of just a few very rich organisations. People spent their entire careers at the same company. Customers had very little information, acquired through very few, mostly local channels. They were responsive to and trusting of advertising.

Businesses need to adapt to a very different reality, and many are trying to do so. Younger employees are recruited, to bring modern skills into the workforce. Transformation departments introduce technology and new project management methodologies. IT or Marketing departments launch websites and apps, pouring eye-watering amounts of money on Digital advertising to generate traffic. Strategy teams are set up, to look for new business opportunities and ways to save costs. And yet, very often all these initiatives are only partially effective. Many organisations struggle to remain competitive, relevant and even to survive. Why is that?

I think the reason is to be found at the top. While all this investment is going on at the operational levels of the organisation, the top is frequently insulated from change, often by choice. I once suggested taking the entire C-suite on a coding day, in order to give them hands-on experience of an activity that had become pervasive at our company. We produced many more lines of code than we took customer calls. Yet, while quarterly visits to contact centres were an established ceremony, I had no takers for the basic technology training. The same applies to opportunities to learn about Agile methodologies, Digital Strategy, Innovation Management, Data, AI, Service Design… These are the tools of modern business, built on very different paradigms to those that came before them, and yet leaders feel comfortable running businesses with no particular knowledge of any of these, nor the patterns and models that they build upon. Experience over competence as a formula for business success.

Many CxOs have lost their curiosity along the way, and believe they can continue to successfully manage a business without understanding what it does and how it does it, simply by relying on experience and seniority. In a world where it is easiest than ever to learn, our business and political leaders must stay curious, learn something new every day and remain at the top of their game, as their game changes beyond recognition ever faster.

It’s time for Mastery to replace Seniority.