I have referenced one movie a number of times in leadership writing, and it continues to give me inspiration in writing. Of course, I am referring to the near Shakespearean epic of Conan the Barbarian, with Arnold as the loquacious rogue.
After Conan and friends have successfully robbed a temple of coins and jewels, they go on a spending spree, complete with excessive food and recreational beverages.
Mako, a likable character actor, provided the narration for the movie. In the scene, Arnold is seated at a table, stirring a bowl of soup and sporting 50 pounds of new, fancy armor.
As Mako says, “… success can test one’s mettle as surely as the strongest adversary,” Arnold, perhaps a bit inebriated, falls face first into the soup bowl. Just think if Hamlet had uttered, “To be or not to be” and promptly fell into some gruel. Great drama and humor.
As funny a gag as it is, Mako brings up a topic that is not frequently covered in IT. Success is wonderful, and every serious professional wants to do excellent work. But is it possible to have events that follow success be a challenge?
IT success as an engineering contributor involves doing difficult work in fulfilling functional requirements, addressing non-functional requirements, adhering to standards, attaining high quality marks and keeping or exceeding schedule projections. If you have had a project where you have made each of these elements, you should be smiling with pride. What risks are there?
IT managers look for those engineers who are ready for the next challenge. If you had success on project A, would your next assignment be more-important project B? If you did complex, senior-level code, should your next assignment include leading a team of engineers? If you did well on a tight schedule, could the next project be done in less time?
In my opinion, managers may not know that project A was really difficult. Almost no IT project gets to production without some type of adjustment to scope, people, technology, schedule or costs. Managers may think that success A should equal success B. I have experienced this personally. In one project, that was valuable but not too difficult, I did quite well, and received the next assignment. It was more challenging and had multiple risks, but managers had similar expectations.
“You have a cat,” my ears heard as the manager placed me in the senior role. “We want you to be the lion tamer.”
As much as I thought that having a whip and chair at work might be fun, perhaps the high expectations with added risk would not become the same type of success for me. Would my prior success turn into an episode of Mission Impossible? At the same time, I didn’t want to turn down a great opportunity.
When am I ready for the next big step? Certainly, following a success, I should be looking for a challenge and be open to a tougher assignment. How better to prove my skills and readiness for a promotion?
Here are some questions to consider, and ways to communicate with leaders about your next challenge:
- Did the last project take a lot of extra time and effort? Were you doing the work of 1+ engineers in order to keep an IT commitment? In this case, consider asking for time off between one significant effort and the next. Reward yourself and avoid becoming over-taxed or discouraged with a constant workload.
- In the next assignment, is the technical complexity in an unfamiliar area? In this case, think about asking for some coaching time from a guru in the tech to make progress quickly. If there are no internal experts in the company, consider taking some advanced training in that area. Give yourself time to take steps to guru status yourself.
- Do managers want you to take on technical leadership for a group of engineers? Personally, I never wanted to turn this down, because my career path was going to include leader assignments. Here is the catch. I could not do all of the deep tech work that I did in the prior project and lead a group of engineers. Plan to spend a quarter of your time delegating, teaching and helping your team. Avoid simpler or repetitive work and keep your team happily busy with assignments. Take on technical work that really needs your advanced expertise.
- Do you see risks in scope, schedule, staff, quality or technologies in the new project? In nearly all new projects, you could answer yes. This is where leaders and your project manager need to understand where a risk can slow down engineering. Communication is key here – make leaders aware of anything that would slow down the team.
- Do you doubt yourself? This is the easy one. Your managers and leaders in engineering want to see you succeed. If you need a hand in trying a new responsibility, find others who have been there before. Ask for their help and mentoring. You would be surprised how other good IT people will share to help make you a success. If you fail, guess where all that work and problems could end up? Right back in the leader’s lap.
- Success must include a work-life balance. It is just too easy to lose good talent today. Your manager is smart – there is no way the leader wants to lose a hard worker. Challenge your leadership to find time for you to enjoy family and free time.
I tend to exaggerate, and perhaps this article is overselling the dangers of success. Success is certainly better than failing in a significant IT effort. Still, IT organizations have a habit of sending the most work to the most successful individuals. My caution to you is to accept the next steps beyond a great success at a pace right for you.
After all, we don’t want to end up face-down in some gruel.