Computers are ignorant, dumb machines. We write new operating systems and routines, compile and deploy them and these machines behave differently. Just as you programmed them. At times I wish that my own head would work like this, because this machine, called brain, does not simply accept new routines.
Did you ever had to admit that the routines and skills that made you successful at work, or even in life, simply do not work anymore? How easy was it to realize this and then figure out how to change your own brains programming to adapt to whatever is needed now? When we have changing user workflows and requirements, we adapt the code and change the program. Simple. Not so simple when you try that with yourself and your own behavior routines which you used for so many years.
A few years back, I felt the desire to shift gears in my career as a software professional and move away from an individual contributor (a term that I learned at Amazon) and shift more into leadership roles. I had the feeling that I reached what I could reach as somebody who loves to solve all problems alone with a maximum in individual freedom and effectiveness. I considered myself very successful, got several acknowledgments, even won some funny prices as “best… of the year”. But I knew that somehow, I could not achieve more and more impacting result would only be possible when I work as a part of something bigger. I wanted to become a leader (whatever that means) and try to tackle bigger challenges with a great team. And so, I got appointed to my first Chief Product Owner (CPO) role, later became team leader for a Solutions Architect group, then portfolio architect for a new product suite and now again landed in my favorite role again, CPO. And I failed at first… and at second… and at third… Looking back, this entire ride, over several years, was a brutal failure at first glance. So, what happened?
Looking back, only 2 things came together: 1) I used techniques and skills that made me successful over the previous 15 years, and they did not work – wrong tools for the new job. And 2), I blamed other people, the world and universe for “not letting me proceed and succeed”. I got trapped into the loop of failing and blaming for several years, which made me critically depressed. By blaming others, I got blind to the fact, that my own operating system was the problem. Due to this blindness, unproductive and negative thoughts creeped into my existence up to a point where I did not believe any more into my own strengths and my ability to reach anything of relevance.
Maybe you know the “Peter Principle” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle). I truly believed that I reach my level of maximum incompetency. And it was true. But it was only true when you apply that to the skills that I used to leverage. It was not true about the fact, that I can change my skillset, change my programs and routines. In that sense, I think the “Peter Principle” is a strongly demotivating concept. Cited from Wikipedia:
The Peter principle is therefore expressed as: „In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.“ This leads to Peter’s corollary: „In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.“
This suggest that we do not have a chance, and I came to the same conclusion, wanted to quit and go back to my individual contributor role where I feel confident and strong. It would have meant to give up my idea to tackle challenges that are much larger of what I could deliver alone. It would have meant to give up. And I hated the thought to lose this game, giving up, loosing is not acceptable! So, what to do? I figured that maybe, and only maybe, my brains operating system needs a major upgrade. When I changed jobs and landed in this one real innovation project that really could make a difference, I promised myself: I will change all the code that needs to change, will throw out old routines if required and go through the pain of letting things go. And I will accept the facts that my environment throws at me, imperfect and ugly as it might be. I needed to learn, I needed to listen and needed to get some people who tell me relentlessly where I am stuck with my own old routines.
The first step was to not blame others or the circumstances for anything that goes not according to my plan. Get out of this negative, demotivating and powerless state. Here I can recommend a great book that helped me to confirm my own situation, and which provided some good hints to reflect my own thoughts. “The Responsibility Process” (https://responsibility.com/responsibility-process), by Christopher Avery. This book tries to go behind the question
WHY ARE SO MANY SMART PEOPLE UNHAPPY AT WORK?
They assume that many of us are stuck in situations without power to change, feeling depressed and unable to act. Sitting in a victim’s position and using 4 main mechanisms to cope with bad things happening: Blaming others, using excuses (blaming the circumstances), blaming oneself with shame and blame obligations so that you do what you must instead of what you want. As a result, many people end up in either denial of problems or in quitting, giving up. Both generating negative emotions, filling up your unhappiness level. Beside other things, the key idea to get out of this is to first develop a sense to monitor your own thoughts whenever something bad is happening (in your mind) and then use this self-reflection to not get stuck in one of the blaming states but make active decisions how you want to deal with the situation. And that requires to know what you want in this situation, acknowledging the circumstances as they are. Three simple things: become aware where you blame to feel better, acknowledge the circumstances and understand what you really what. Sounds easy, it is not. For me, this book put in words what I was developing somehow in the back of the mind, and suddenly it all made sense. I started observing how I behaved at work and at home when people behaved completely off my way. When the days had bad news, and circumstances really gave me a hard time. And what I realized was, that I was the dumbass here.
That was the point where I started to overwrite my own code. Line by line, trial and error, lots of unit testing required, of course. But I am now certain it is possible. And I was lucky enough to find an environment where it was ok to be the dumbass for a while, becoming now productive in return. It is so crucial to have people around you who give you a clear amount of feedback when you fall back to the old routines and guide you to find the right focus.
Still, there is a lot of new skills to learn, and some old ones to unlearn. It is hard for me to not dive deep into technical discussions and with that step on the toes of the people who have the technical roles. It is hard to not jump on any problem at once and solve them old in good old superhero routine, but always try to figure out what are the 20 percent urgent and important things to focus on. It is still hard to trust everybody who needs to excel so that I can reach my goals but put more focus on developing, mentoring and coaching of others. Building teams and grow ownership in people is more important than solving the problems myself. All these good things you learn in leadership courses. LinkedIn is full of advice of what good leadership means, there is so much to master. What they all do not tell you is, how hard it can be to adapt yourself when you must first unlearn skills before you can grow as a leader.
Sometimes, before you can start writing the new routines, you need to delete a good amount of existing code.
One of my favorite music producers, Hardwell (https://www.djhardwell.com/) seems to had a similar thought process, at least one of his tracks suggest that. I really love this track, when you play it – play it loud!
Forget managing the Situation – manage your Mind!