I recently met my friend, who told me how much he has changed over the last couple years. When I worked with him a few years ago, he was a great software architect, could see the bigger picture, and all that, and was someone I had high regard for.
He then took the plunge into management, and is a Sr. Manager now at a mid size company. He told me how much he had changed since we worked together, and how he is more comfortable with imperfections now. Not every decision needs to be right anymore.
What he said reminded me of what my dad would say to me when I was a fiery teenager: You have only 24 hours in a day. You always need to pick your battles. If you don't, you will lose them all.
Often, it is very hard for us trained as scientists and engineers to internalize this. Our brains are wired to think about correctness first. However, whether it is the software we sell (with all its known and unknown bugs), organizations we run, or business decisions we make, the key to success is to get things to be good enough so we can move on to the more important battle.
I now have even higher professional regard for my friend. He is now making another career shift. Good luck to him and wish him more transformations and learning!
He then took the plunge into management, and is a Sr. Manager now at a mid size company. He told me how much he had changed since we worked together, and how he is more comfortable with imperfections now. Not every decision needs to be right anymore.
What he said reminded me of what my dad would say to me when I was a fiery teenager: You have only 24 hours in a day. You always need to pick your battles. If you don't, you will lose them all.
Often, it is very hard for us trained as scientists and engineers to internalize this. Our brains are wired to think about correctness first. However, whether it is the software we sell (with all its known and unknown bugs), organizations we run, or business decisions we make, the key to success is to get things to be good enough so we can move on to the more important battle.
I now have even higher professional regard for my friend. He is now making another career shift. Good luck to him and wish him more transformations and learning!
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