Are we the best professionals we could become?
Do we really add value to the company we work for or to the clients who pay our fees? Or do we just do what we’re told and nothing more, unable to take the initiative on anything?
The phrase adding value is often used, but most of the time it remains little more than a catchy slogan for internal promotion in human resources departments. It sounds good, but nothing actually changes to create a corporate culture that promotes value, talent, and proactivity. I see far too many people talking about being proactive while doing very little proactively: we say one thing and then do something completely different. To me, that sounds like the definition of insanity.
We won’t know how to add value in our environment if we don’t invest in ourselves. In fact, it’s the best investment we can make.
Generally speaking—and this is what I’ve observed in the workplace for years—we let other people decide what we need to learn to do our jobs. There’s a powerful inertia that carries us along, so if no one intervenes, six months from now we’ll have the same level of professionalism we have today, whatever that may be. We let external factors decide who we’ll become in the future. It’s regrettable.
If we’re mediocre and no one or nothing forces us to change, we’ll still be just as mediocre a year from now. If we’re excellent, we’ll probably remain just as excellent, but equally stagnant at the same level. Things don’t happen out of nowhere; change doesn’t happen by magic. The only way to change is through tremendous personal effort, and staying at the forefront of software development takes tremendous personal effort.
The fundamental mistake is letting others force us to change, improve, and learn, when in fact there’s only one way to improve ourselves, both personally and professionally: our own inner motivation. I’m afraid I see a lot of people stuck in a constant state of complaint about their situation, but very few with enough internal motivation to change things.
We only change the outside after we’ve changed the inside. This may sound very Zen, but that’s how it works, and there’s no need to overthink it: we really are the professionals we choose to become. There’s no more mystery to it than that.
We generally let the company we work for tell us which technologies to use and what kinds of products to build. In short, other people decide what we need to learn. That’s very sad and professionally dangerous. Far too many résumés cross my desk where software developers say they know the technologies used in the products they worked on at companies A, B, and so on—and… nothing more.
I’m not saying that’s wrong; it’s necessary, and we need to be aligned with the goals of the place where we work. But I am saying that it isn’t enough. In fact, it’s nowhere near enough.
We need to set medium- and long-term goals for the kind of professionals we want to become and the kinds of services we want to offer—and then seriously consider the effort it will take to get there.
The way to do that is by investing in ourselves; there is no other way. I’m surprised by how willing we are to spend 60 euros on a concert ticket, for example, and how reluctant we are to spend twenty on a webinar by a well-known professional, or a little more on an excellent technology book. I also don’t understand how a professional can lack an extensive library, digital or physical, of dozens of books they’ve devoured over the course of their career. Of course, there’s nothing to object to—this is what’s commonplace. Why do we spend so much on entertainment and so little investing in our own careers (the very thing that pays for the entertainment)? For the record, I love live music…
If we want to grow professionally, we have to be willing to make an effort, probably outside working hours if we’re not freelancers, spend some money on our education—not just once, but regularly—and recognize that this expense is really our best investment. We should also work on personal projects, alone or with others, that enrich us. That’s the best résumé we can offer.
Good intentions aren’t enough; they only let us get lost in dreams that will never materialize. Anyone can sit by a swimming pool with a nice cold beer in hand now that summer is approaching and come up with wonderful ideas and proposals for projects, or ways to improve the ones underway at their company.
Very few—very, very few—take the next step: putting the effort and resources on the table to turn those ideas into reality. That’s where 95% of the entrepreneurs I call idea entrepreneurs stop: they never take the next step. The rest do, and only a few of them succeed. But it doesn’t matter at all if success never comes, because the journey itself enriches you, whatever the outcome.
It so happens that the only people who succeed are those who have failed several times before. That’s no coincidence: they’ve learned from failure! We overlook the fact that failure is a wonderful learning tool.
We have to invest in ourselves. That will help us grow professionally and enrich the workplace around us. The best ideas I’ve contributed in my work environment have come from ideas and projects I’ve pursued outside of work.
Here are a few simple ways to become better professionals:
- Commit to reading one book a month about technologies that interest us.
- Attend at least two webinars a month.
- Keep a log of project ideas: it’s amazing how many suggestions and proposals come up simply by putting a project idea on paper.
- Study—not just take a quick look at, but devour and get right down to the guts of—a particular technology every six months, and build an interesting project with it.
- Write about the things we know (or think we know). The act of writing about a particular subject helps us grasp it more deeply.
- Organize internal seminars in our workplace.
- Attend any interesting events in our local area.
The habit is what matters: if we set ourselves goals like these, I assure you that in a year you’ll be far richer in knowledge and experience than if you’d simply let yourself be carried along by circumstances, as most people do.
We’re moving toward a talent economy in which wealth (everything you want to gain in life, not necessarily money) will come after you genuinely contribute solutions and value to others. The only way to do that is to invest in ourselves.
For example, The Programmer’s Black Book is one of those projects I started outside my day job. It’s amazing how much knowledge I’ve accumulated by writing it, replying to emails with comments about the chapters, and so on. Was it an expense? An investment of time and money? What I can say for certain is that the project has made me a slightly better professional than I was before.