What skills do software engineers have for CEOs to learn? Clearly, software engineers are logical, efficient, detail-oriented, and planned, and so are most CEOs. But software engineers have some more subtle, even frustrating qualities, so can CEOs learn from them?
1. Lazy
Good engineers (not just software engineers) are lazy: they like to automate repetitive tasks and are reluctant to do any unnecessary work. Meetings and paperwork usually fall into this category. By avoiding unnecessary work, software engineers can be more productive and have more time to do more useful work.
CEOs should also strive to be efficient and lazy. Remove unnecessary activities and focus energy and time on tasks that add value. In most cases, it is pointless to do the same thing over and over again. If it must be done repeatedly, then use an automated method. If you can't do it automatically, delegate it!
2. Fail often
Software engineers share some of the same traits as inventors and scientists—both suffer from failure. Usually, this is intentional, but sometimes it is experimental. It's not recklessness, it's fearlessness. The unknown is a risk to explore, and you can't keep it out. Focusing on experimentation and prototyping allows people to learn quickly.
A CEO adapting himself to this practice can have a huge impact: exploring new markets, experimenting with different approaches, and even researching trends and expectations. The key is to fail fast without wasting costs, and keep the purpose in mind. (If you think this sounds a bit like lean manufacturing, then you're right.)
If you don't fail often, you're not trying anything new.
3. Manufacturing problems
Software engineers actively look for problems, and sometimes even create them on purpose. A problem is an opportunity in disguise, but finding a problem doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Software engineers would rather destroy work to see what happens. They write tests just to make sure all edge cases work. They implement monitoring systems so they are alerted when something goes wrong. All in all, they listen to people's complaints—because there can be surprises, it's the same thing as finding the problem on their own.
Startup CEOs should learn how to do this systematically, exploring the opportunity space until they find the right problem to solve, with the right solution, targeting the right market, at the right time. Helps businesses gain a firm footing. And the CEOs of well-known companies do this well by creating problems as a form of continuous improvement.
4. Do it yourself
Software engineers tend not to like to talk on paper. Not only are they fighting on the coding front, but they also work with users and customers to understand requests and complaints. The answers don't come out when you sit in the office: they're on the factory floor, in the customer's office. Learn about user experience concepts in the software world and how it should apply to your supply chain, and your employees. A new angle could mean a huge surprise.
5. Ignore the human factor
The human element is often overlooked when software engineers work, especially when they are working on implementing improvements. They argue that most problems originate from constraints somewhere in the system—it can be time, money, motivation, incentives, standards, or process—and individuals are often incapable of solving the system. Culture, peer pressure, and prejudice against the status quo are powerful obstacles to overcome. The unsolved thing, changing the system is the sword that hangs over the software engineer's head, and these have nothing to do with the human factor.
CEOs are often used to dealing with the political system and dealing with people, so they may be inclined to assign risk and blame to certain individuals. Sometimes this might be a good idea, but if you look back at the systems that people have run in the past, you might find that the system is the source of the problem.
Remember, no system is perfect and no system is sacrosanct.
6. Kill your darling
Engineers aren't afraid to test their ideas and don't hesitate to discard them if they prove impractical. They will often "kill their own darling" by throwing away precious ideas and side projects, no matter how fascinating the darling may be, if they don't work. CEOs can "kill their own darlings" by vetting their ideas in the face of reality, or by objectively evaluating the performance of others. (Obviously killing people is against the law, not real people here.)
7. Daze
Software engineers are often in a daze, but they call it systems thinking: the ability to see a complex set of interrelated systems as a whole. Systems thinking is arguably the most important (and sometimes most annoying) catalyst for generating coherence and simplicity from complexity. Software engineers are good at systems thinking, and problem solving often requires them to balance multiple constraints including time, money, and quality. While this habit can be very frustrating when deciding where to go for lunch, it can be very valuable when dealing with big problems and looking for opportunities.
CEOs must deal with multiple interrelated systems and conflicting constraints at all times. It is not enough to examine each part in isolation - you must also consider all potential interrelationships and forces. Systems thinking includes both high-level and nuanced thinking from multiple perspectives. From this point of view, a complete model can serve as a framework for identifying, organizing, and solving sub-problems. Often, a few simple concepts and rules are enough to turn a messy failure into a holistic crystallization.
Software engineers don't get paid for writing code: they get paid for thinking. Systems thinking doesn't happen when you're writing code (although sometimes, both can happen at the same time). So, if you see a software engineer in a daze, often in a daze, that's what real work should be like. Simple and elegant solutions do not fall from the sky, but come from relentless thinking and pursuit.
creativity
Give yourself some quiet time and use all your imagination and creativity to take on the problems you need to solve as a CEO. Analyze the intricacies and constraints of a problem. Guess the interaction force between them. Think from multiple perspectives. Look for patterns and analogies that help explain or simplify what happened or what you want to happen. And when you find a possible answer, run a quick and cheap experiment to test it. Then repeat. cycle back and forth. Your job, like the job of a software engineer, is never done.
Translation link: http://www.codeceo.com/article/7-skills-ceo-learn-from-programmer.html
English original: 7 skills software engineers can teach CEOs
Translation author: Code Farm Network – Xiaofeng