As John McCain and Barach Obama seek the presidency, the word “inexperienced” has been recently thrown around by the  unjournalistic and stupidly biased media when describing these candidates or their running mates. Between Obama and Palin’s resumes, nothing in their backgrounds show that they would be prepared to stand up to the likes of Ahmadinejad, Chavez or Putin, whether they can run two wars, or understand the Great Power’s conduct of foreign policy. But is experience really necessary?

In my opinion, the playing field (with regards to experience) in this race is fairly level, and as a result is a very exciting time for anyone following the election.

When I train young managers in the candidate interviewing process, I spend a good deal of time working with them on probing their interviewees in previous experience as one of the best indicators for future behavior.  However, I also tell them a little story about Ben Sliney and his memorable first day of work.

Ben Sliney, started his first day at his job like anyone else – a little nervous, a little excited and a little cocky that he could handle almost anything put in front of him.  Little did he know that his first day of work would be the true story of the four most critical hours in aviation history.

A boisterous, loud and forceful ex-lawyer, Sliney was returning to his earlier roots (back in 1964) in Air Traffic Control was starting his job as an Operations Manager for the Herndon, VA Federal Aviation Administrator command center. This New York Lawyer was part of a hiring trend on behalf of the FAA, to correct some of the public criticism at that time of record flight delays.

He was hired because of his new fresh outlook in the Administration and not necessarily because of his experience.  He was hired because he was a problem solver and had evidence of good judgment. He was hired for who he is and how he thinks.

AND he was also hired to start his first day of work on September 11, 2001.

Just hours after starting, Sliney in a historically unprecedented move, on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, ordered the airspace over the United States of America – CLEARED.  To land every plane, about 4,200 aircraft, in the air over America at that time, effectively shutting down US airspace.  Never before has such an order ever been carried out.  Never before has it ever been discussed in a Air Traffic Control or pilot training program. Never before has anyone ever experienced such an important decisive action in the likes of the chaos of that morning.

What’s interesting to note here is that while he made the decision on his own initiative, he did not do it in a vacuum.  He had the benefit of the advice of a highly experienced staff of air traffic controllers and traffic managers.  He did it by following his gut and following his experience of listening to the experience of others.

How could anyone train for this?  The events that unfolded that unforgetable day, re-wrote history. The 9-11 Commission stated that it was a sound and decisive decision to land all aircraft.  Certainly this hindsight is 20/20, but suppose it was someone else in that position with perhaps more experience.  Maybe in crisis management?  Would she have followed her gut or some previous protocol from her vast experience? Would he have had the wherewithall to pool together the combined experiential energy in the room for the best advice? Would this more experienced person have been that lucky?

Who’s to say? I believe, from my traditional managerial background, that experience is a good indicator for future performance, however, suppose you are involved in writing a new history.  Now put this new history on a global stage and you’re just one of the many players in it.  Do you really want someone with experience, or do you want someone who can pool together his or her world-class resources and make a sound decision?  — That is the real question here.