Complete Software Engineering: Life's Expectations

Life's Expectations

April 21, 2004 at 09:01 AM
by rgrzywinski | 4 Comments

I have worked in an upper management position in a number of small companies throughout my career. It is always been my position to offer up as much of my control to anyone that is willing and able to take it. After a decade of watching people either ignore the opportunity or take the opportunity and completely fall apart, I have reduced the experiences down to the following:

If presented with a situation that will deliver everything that you've ever wanted in your career, will you:

Recognize it?
Be able to handle it?

Notes:

People may be under the impression that the path to reaching their goals will be presented thru obvious opportunities and the challenges associated will be easily overcome similar to someone who "plans" financial success thru winning the lottery.

Corollary 1

If it is everything that you wanted in life and you could not handle it, will you be able to bow out gracefully?

Corollary 2

If it is determined that the situation will not be able to deliver everything that you've wanted in your career (as conditions do change) will you be able to control and change the situation such that it delivers on a subset of your desires?

There is much more to this post and as I have more time available I will elaborate.

Comments

Comment by Anand at April 22, 2004 07:23 AM

I will watch this one as u elaborate ..
the problem is - do most people know what they want in their careers ?(substitute career for life and the q remains the same)
Corollary - can they ? would involve having a pretty unemotional unfiltered view of "oneself" whatever that is

Comment by rgrzywinski at April 22, 2004 08:18 PM

Thanks for the comment.

You bring up an interesting twist on "will you recognize it" which is "do you know what it is". This is something that I will need to explore further.

From my experiences, individuals certainly had a goal in mind and it is the public expression of this goal that has largely contributed to "will you recognize it". In other words, I constantly heard "I want to be the lead architect" or "I want to manage the interaction with clients" but even though the opportunity existed it was rarely persued.

Comment by Anand at April 29, 2004 01:26 AM

My personal experience has been that most people that express such wants are either basically wanting what they perceive is a position that is respected, powerful - a desirable goal as defined by "society". they havent taken the time to understand the responsibilities that come with it.
The ones (the good ones that is) have somehow grown into such a role without actively desiring it.

Comment by rgrzywinski at April 29, 2004 12:04 PM

Your statements "wanting what they perceive ..." and "[not] understand[ing] the responsibilities" are hitting at the crux of what I am delving into. Unfortunately work has gotten into the way of continuing my thoughts in this realm (damn work!). Keep your thought coming!!