In a blink of an eye, it has been more than 10 years since I graduated from school. I have grown from an ordinary programmer to an architect of a Fortune 500 company. Now I am also doing IT management work. Along the way, I have some insights, and I have also seen some experience and lessons from other people. I have summarized 10 suggestions on how to control my career. I hope to help those young friends who are in confusion.
Determine what you want to do as early as possible
A person's career always consists of many stages, and each stage is interlocking and mutually causal. Therefore, we can always see a group of people who graduated at the same time. After 10 years, their respective developments are very different. Some people can always get one step faster and reach new career heights early, while some people are slow. Gradually fall behind. Among them, there must be the influence of other objective factors such as luck, but if we observe carefully, we will find that those who succeed are often those who have firm goals and continue to work hard.
Therefore, as early as possible to determine what you want to do-your career goals, means that you can get more time than others to work hard. Most of us are not geniuses, so the achievement that can be achieved is often directly proportional to the time you spend to achieve this goal.
As a technician, in every company I have ever stayed in, there will be colleagues who abandon the technical route and become a business person because of salary or other reasons. And because of my passion for technology, I always insist on engaging in technology-related work. With the accumulation of experience and ability, I became a technical expert of the company, and on the contrary, I got better promotion opportunities. Looking back now, it is precisely because I determined my career direction earlier and persisted in it that I gained a comparative advantage in certain fields and achieved current results.
10,000-hour law
I have read a book called "Apocalypse of Different Kinds of Success". The author analyzed those successful people in society. In the book, those who are called strange computer geniuses, outstanding baseball players, performers, Without exception, it took more than 10,000 hours of practice to achieve extraordinary skills.
And another one of my favorite stories is about a Japanese old man who makes sushi. He is Jiro Ono, known as the god of sushi. His sushi restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro (Sukiyabashi Jiro) was reviewed by the Michelin Guide. It is a three-star gourmet restaurant and is recognized as having the best sushi service in the world. As the oldest Michelin three-star sushi chef in the world, he is still exploring the way of sushi making at the age of 88. Of course, he spends far more than 10,000 hours on sushi making.
I use the above two examples to show you that no matter what field you are in, as long as you can persist in working hard for the same goal and spend more than 10,000 hours of practice and research, then you will definitely be able to become an outstanding talent in this field. And become an alien in the eyes of others.
Improve work efficiency
In our work, we often see such scenes. Two employees, A and B, have similar tasks assigned by their leaders. Employees A work very hard and work overtime to deliver the tasks assigned by the leaders on time, while employee B does it very quickly. It was completed in a short time, and I went home as soon as I got off work. As a boss, how would you evaluate these two employees? I think he will definitely think that A is a good employee, but employee B has greater potential and is worth more effort to cultivate.
We do it faster, which means we can do more and create greater benefits for the company or group. This can also bring us more opportunities. Therefore, you should improve your work efficiency as much as possible.
I have two suggestions for improving work efficiency
Improve the pace
of work
Use tools to complete the work to improve the pace of work: I often like to use the Chinese men's football and Brazil men's football to compare, the biggest gap between them, in my opinion, is not a technique, but a completely different rhythm. From a single player to the entire team, the rhythm is faster than the Chinese men's football, so the Chinese men's football is always passive. The same is true at work. We tend to work at a pace that we feel comfortable with, but if we can constantly try to speed up our work pace, we can greatly stimulate our potential and effectively improve our work efficiency.
Use tools to complete work: One of the important reasons why employees of large Internet companies like Google and Facebook have such high work efficiency is that they are good at using and creating tools. Most of the repetitive work is done through tools. of. Similarly, we also need to constantly review our own work, which is the repetitive work that gives you a headache, and how can we let the tools help you complete it. When we have such awareness, we will naturally try to find or create some tools to get rid of the complicated work and become more efficient.
Concise communication
I think current companies can be roughly divided into two categories. The first category is technology-centric (or technology-driven) companies represented by Google and Baidu. Such companies have often adopted flat management methods. Respect individual creativity and the contribution of small teams. The other type is traditional business-centric companies, such as the traditional financial industry where I work. Most of them are driven by business or are in the process of transforming the Internet. Such companies often have a relatively clear hierarchical relationship and use email as the main communication method.
No matter what type of company you are in, it is difficult for you to change the company culture, but as an individual, I suggest trying a more concise way of communication, which will not only make your work clearer, but also significantly improve your communication with others effectiveness. Take email as an example. I generally need to process nearly 50-100 emails a day, and for higher-level managers, they may need to process more than 200 emails a day. In order to allow others to understand your intentions more clearly, I often add logos such as [please review] and [need attention] directly at the beginning of the title. As for the content of the email, I will also put the conclusion at the very beginning of the email, so that other people can grasp the main information and intention of the email in the shortest time. If further information is needed, read the rest of the email. section.
In addition, you can try to reduce email communication. In many cases, you can go to the other party's desk to communicate face to face or use telephone communication for some secondary communication. After the two parties reach an agreement or reach a conclusion, add an email to confirm. I think this is much simpler and more efficient than mail back and forth.
PKSS and continuous learning
In most companies, when evaluating employees at the end of the year, they are result-oriented and horizontally compared. So how can we stand out from the competition with colleagues?
There is a word abroad called PKSS-PK Saturday and Sunday, which means to compete on Saturday and Sunday. Einstein also said: The difference between people lies in their spare time. Especially in the current competitive society, continuous learning is particularly important for everyone in the workplace. Set aside 2 hours a night, and 4-6 hours on Saturday and Sunday to read, study, think or participate in deliberate speeches and discussions. You will find that after a few months of persistence, you will surpass those around you.
Some people may think that these are the skills used at work. What do we need to learn? My suggestion is to be both "professional" and "bo". What modern society requires is T-shaped talents, that is, they have skills and other related skills. If you spend 10,000 hours in a certain field, you can become an outstanding person in this field, you might as well try to spend 100 hours learning in any other field you are interested in. For example, spend 100 hours learning sketch. The level of painting can far exceed those who have never studied. Therefore, in addition to investing time in your field of focus, try to learn anything you are interested in, such as cooking, writing, photography, etc. The knowledge is often interlinked. The more you learn, the faster you learn. As far as I am concerned, photography, writing and other skills can greatly promote the software development I am engaged in.
Learn to control emotions
Most newcomers in the workplace can complete their work more rationally, but sometimes there is still a lack of emotional control ability. The specific performance is subjective, casual and emotional, which often causes damage or even disaster to personal career development. There have been such examples around me. She is a girl who is very strong and can always complete her work very well. It didn’t take long for her to be transferred from another group, because a small matter did not agree with the leader’s opinion, and she was emotional After a quarrel out of control, she has entered a vicious circle since then. She always thinks that the leader deliberately makes things difficult, and the leader finds it difficult for her to cooperate. Over time, it affects her work enthusiasm, and the quality of work has plummeted. Do not transfer again. It can be seen that many things in the workplace do not entirely depend on your personal abilities, but you need to have a better emotional intelligence and be good at controlling emotions and getting along with others.
So how can I improve my emotional control ability? A simple way is to do right things and wrong people. When you are very angry about something, you need to ask yourself whether it is useful to get angry. If the answer is no, then why don’t you stop and think about how to solve it. The problem? Secondly, you need to have empathy and consider the problem more from the other side’s perspective and position, that is, we often say empathy, you will find that often the other side does not deliberately embarrass you and oppose you, but also has his considerations. And the existing real problems. Finally, you should also have some ways to vent your emotions, such as chatting with friends, practicing calligraphy, watching movies, etc. are all good ways to release.
Let the best people surround you
An important reason why technology giants such as Apple, Google, and Baidu can continue to innovate is that they have gathered the best talents in the world. They have common interests and goals, and they have gathered together to form many excellent teams. , Thus creating products and technologies that amaze the world.
I once interviewed an excellent UI designer. When asked why he left his job, he told me that when he had dinner with his colleagues at noon every day, all the topics he talked about were stock trading, parenting, and travel. He decided to leave that company. It can be seen that whether the people around him are good enough has become an important factor in his choice of business.
When you are a newcomer in the workplace, you need to work hard with excellent people to accomplish one goal after another. When your position continues to rise, there will be some flattering people around you. At this time, you need those excellent partners who can correct your mistakes and help you move in the right direction.
Good at induction and expression
With the improvement of your own skills and experience, you are likely to be given more management responsibilities in the company, or independently undertake some important projects. At this time, the ability to summarize and express will be very important. You will often be asked to report on the progress of the project. Or, when you meet the boss in the elevator or corridor, you may also need to use the shortest time to describe the progress of the current project. Problems, risks, etc.
Because of work, I have had a lot of contact with a consultant from Accenture. His generalization and expression skills are very good, and he can often describe the essence of a problem sharply and conduct a thorough analysis. And he told me that his ability is not inborn. He used to be a Cobol programmer. After he switched to consulting, he was afraid of public speaking at the beginning due to his shy personality and poor communication with others. After his boss discovered his problem, he specially arranged for him to give a public speech inside the company every day before leaving get off work to tell the content of his work that day. Within a month, he found that he could be very confident and comfortable with many people. I gave a lecture in front of me.
If you are also a newcomer in the workplace who is introverted and not good at interacting with others, you should learn from the consultant if you don’t imitate it, and create opportunities for training by yourself, such as giving a lecture every day. After a period of time, you will be surprised at what you have achieved. Of breakthrough.
Mastering English
If you are in a foreign company, English is very important as an essential skill. But even if you are in a domestic company, you should still master English because it can help you gain a broader perspective and bring more job opportunities.
The first time I really used English was during my first job. By chance, the leader asked me to take a summer intern in computer science from the University of Cambridge. During the internship, he told me how he taught himself game programming through the Internet, and formed a team with school students from France, the United States and other places to develop a 3D game and give lectures in various schools. And all this is communicated through English. His story touched me deeply. From then on, I try to use English as much as possible in my work and life. For example, I look for development issues on StackOverflow, and I use GitHub to manage code bases and programs from other countries in the world. Members maintain open source projects together. I also browse the excellent UI design works on Dribbble to get design inspiration, and I also do some interesting part-time projects on Freelancer. English opened up my horizons, from a person of a country to a person of the world.
Sleep makes you stronger
This rule is very useful to me. Many people think that sleep is a manifestation of the weak, and they always go to bed as late as possible. I think this is very dangerous. Sleep can help me to balance my life well. After a good sleep, I can always devote myself to the new day's work very vigorously. I will also become more efficient and effective. More creative. People who do not have good sleep seem to have more time, but in fact they tend to be under greater pressure and lose efficiency. This is a vicious circle, they have to reactivate themselves through other means, such as massage, recreation, vacation and so on.
In my opinion, the role of vacation is often overestimated, and travel is not even a break. In fact, I believe that travel brings more pressure than staying at home and doing nothing. I personally feel that completing the necessary work every day is a pleasant and satisfying thing. Even when I travel, I will spare at least some time to do some simple tasks. Of course you should travel because you need to discover new things, not because you need to relax.
Many people told me that it is difficult for them to wake up in the morning. What I want to say is that it is not difficult to wake up early, but it is difficult to go to bed early. You need to adjust your work and rest time to ensure adequate sleep. This will benefit you for life.
