After graduating from the ivory tower and entering the big dyeing vat of society, many people have talked to me about their career confusion. Some of them have just graduated, and some have been working for more than 10 years. It basically revolves around how to continue to improve and how to be promoted to a senior manager. So in this article, I will talk about the journey from programmer to executive.
technological leap
The so-called technological leap is: the first leap is from an individual first-time author to an individual contributor. This leap is from a layman to a capable person.
When you are a beginner, your abilities are as follows: Have a problem → Find help → Solve it
And once you become an individual contributor, your abilities have been improved: If you have a problem → do it yourself → solve it
So how to improve your ability, here are several aspects you need to achieve.
The first one is target upgrade
It means having strict requirements for oneself, changing from having no goals or clear goals before to having clear and achievable goals.
So how should you set goals?
You must meet the smart principle and don't set unattainable goals for yourself.
Once this kind of goal is not achieved, it will become a reason for you to release your guilt.
Set stage goals for yourself.
What studies should be completed within 1 year?
What system should I become familiar with in 2 years?
What abilities should be improved within 3 years?
…
Target upgrade is the most basic requirement for ability jump.
If a person doesn't even have a goal, what's the difference from a salted fish?
The second is to learn and upgrade
When we are students, we learn new knowledge, and this learning method is systematic learning.
But when you enter a company, you obviously don’t have a lot of time for systematic learning.
An enterprise is to achieve commercial purposes, which is its only purpose.
So how to study efficiently? It is necessary to upgrade from a systematic learning method to a multi-dimensional learning method.
It is based on the point-to-point method and supplemented by the systematic learning method.
At work, you often only need to concentrate on solving a specific problem.
But there must be a more complete and in-depth knowledge structure behind these problem points.
Therefore, after the work is completed, you still need to continue to learn the knowledge structure behind it.
Take network programming as an example. I made a tool in 2015, a device discovery tool, using UDP multicast technology, and it was developed quickly and smoothly.
But learning has just begun, and there are many technologies that can be explored in depth:
Expanding from UDP, it can be extended to every corner of network technology, from user mode to kernel mode, from API to specific implementation methods, from data structure to algorithm, this is a complete knowledge system.
The third is to think about upgrading
You need to upgrade from simple thinking mode to deep thinking.
We will face many difficult problems at work. You can rely on experience to solve the problems, but if new problems arise, you will be helpless.
Why is this?
Because you lack the ability to think, especially the ability to think deeply.
Deep thinking is not something you are born with, it can be cultivated.
Acquire deep thinking by mastering the methodology.
One is the **5why analysis method,** also known as the "5 questions method", which means asking yourself five "whys" continuously about a problem point to investigate its root cause.
Second, **reverse thinking, **the so-called reverse thinking, is when you don’t know what to do? You have to think about things in the opposite direction from what the public thinks on a daily basis. That is, it is not in accordance with [Cause]->[Result], but [Result]->[Cause].
Third, deliberately connecting, applying what you have learned, and thinking deeply is a habit. Since it is a habit, it needs to be practiced. And it requires a lot of deliberate practice.
The above three upgrades, goals, learning, and thinking can be completed step by step.
I believe your abilities can improve.
management leap
The second jump is from individual contributor to grassroots manager. This leap is from working alone to working as a team.
This jump is your real door to management.
Although it just opens the door, for you, this is a change in the entire ability system.
When you are an individual contributor, your ability is like this: Have a problem → Do it yourself → Solve it
When you are a lower-level manager, your ability requirements have completely changed:
Have a problem → analyze the problem, solve the problem → assign tasks → track the progress → solve
My work has completely changed, and the requirements have become coordination, organization, and feedback.
So the following four upgrades must be done.
The first upgrade is called responsibility upgrade
When you are an individual contributor, you are responsible for the task. I will give you a task, tell you the details of the task, and inform you of the deadline.
You just need to do this well before the deadline, and you'll be fine.
And now you need to be responsible for the outcome of this matter.
That is, the same thing is not done by you yourself, but by you assigning tasks to your subordinates, and the coach guides the subordinates to complete the task.
The outcome of this task, good or bad, is your responsibility.
Suppose your leader gives you a difficult task and orders you to complete it within a week. However, you mess up and fail to complete it on time. Your boss asks why this is the case?
You must never shirk responsibility. Even if your subordinate fails to complete the task, it is still your responsibility.
Remember that there are many ups and downs in the middle. As a lower-level manager, you need to find ways to achieve your goals because this is your responsibility.
The second upgrade is called action upgrade
You have now gone from working alone to becoming the manager of a team.
You may be promoted to team leader or manager (lower-level manager) because of your outstanding technical skills.
As a new manager, one mistake that I always make is to "always think that others are not doing well and do it myself."
This idea is very stupid.
No matter how capable a person is, he can't work as an organized team.
When you are an individual contributor, your work is relatively pure. Just use your brain and hands to do the job well.
When you are already a lower-level manager, you need to upgrade from using your brain and hands to act directly to using your brain to guide your actions. This is a complete action upgrade.
When you encounter a difficult problem that needs to be overcome, you need to show your organizational skills, arrange a plan, identify the appropriate responsible person, and issue your task order.
Let your subordinates understand your ideas, understand your methods, and ultimately successfully solve the problem.
Remember, never solve problems for them.
The third upgrade is called collaborative upgrade
When you become a manager, your working relationships will become complicated, including leaders, subordinates, brothers and colleagues, external customers, etc. At this time, the way of collaboration needs to undergo major changes, relationships become more complicated, and the way of working together also needs to be upgraded. It has been upgraded from pure technical collaboration between colleagues within the group to a hybrid model of cooperation and technical collaboration between groups.
Upgrade from closed collaboration scope to developed collaboration scope. Then you need a handy tool. Front-end technology is constantly being updated and iterated, and new technologies and frameworks are emerging one after another.
The big guys all said that we should pursue high reuse, high cohesion, low coupling, and easy expansion, and everyone began to learn these concepts and application practices non-stop. Later, the community began to discuss low-code and artificial intelligence, and everyone seemed to be very excited. of.
Low code emphasizes development efficiency. As a front-end, few people actually think about how to improve R&D efficiency. This issue is no longer limited to development, but to improve the quality of the entire team or even the entire company.
It is highly recommended that you try the JNPF rapid development platform, which is a simple, cross-platform rapid development framework based on Java Boot/.Net Core.
The front-end and back-end encapsulate thousands of common classes for easy expansion; it integrates a code generator to support front-end and front-end business code generation to meet rapid development and improve work efficiency; the framework integrates various commonly used classes such as forms, reports, charts, and large screens. Demo is easy to use directly; the back-end framework supports Vue2 and Vue3.
Official website:www.jnpfsoft.com/?csdn. If you don’t want to hear my blabbering, you can go directly to the website to experience it. If you have free time, you can do some knowledge expansion.
The fourth upgrade is called achievement upgrade
Now you need to upgrade from individual achievement to team achievement.
Through your management, your subordinates continue to grow and the team's capabilities become stronger and stronger. This is team achievement.
As a grassroots manager, if we only focus on personal achievements and do not pay attention to the achievements of subordinates, it will be difficult for our team to become stronger.
if:
What do you think when one of your subordinates becomes more and more influential and recognized by more and more people?
If you feel threatened, you feel like your position is not secure. Then you can only be a grassroots manager.
You have to know that you represent your entire team. The success of your subordinates is your success; the recognition of your subordinates is your recognition.
If a team is not strong, think about it, can you still be promoted?
As the boss of a team, you need to have the ambition to achieve success for your subordinates in order to go further.
If you can complete the responsibility upgrade, action upgrade, collaboration upgrade, and achievement upgrade, then you will have completed the management leap and become a real manager.
Final summary
The leap from programmer to executive requires two major leaps.
From individual first-time author to individual contributor.
From individual contributor, to manager.
The first jump was from manpower to automobiles.
The second jump is from car to plane.
Every leap is a radical change and a reconstruction of the ability system.
There is a long road ahead, but I hope everyone can be proud of themselves!