I see a lot of comments questioning some of the ideas, especially the notion of spending time to build aptitudes and become excellent at something you’re good at rather than immediately jumping to a more “impactful” role. I’ve also seen comments from people regretting spending time on one thing and wishing they had switched sooner.
From my perspective as someone later on in my career than some here, I would say Holden’s observation is spot-on.
I’m sure there are exceptions, but in general, a huge amount of what you learn as you work is topic-agnostic. It’s just the ability to work with people, to get things done, to communicate well, to manage your boss and listen to your direct-reports, to plan your time … Once you’ve learned all this, you just cannot imagine that once upon a time you didn’t know about it. But (for most of us) there was such a time.
Today maybe you ask someone to help you and they do, and you don’t realise that if you’d asked 3 years ago, they would probably have refused because you wouldn’t have known how to ask. And you would not even have realised that you had done anything wrong, you’d just have concluded that they weren’t willing to help.
Today maybe you look at a problem that seems intractable … but maybe in 3 years you’d look at the same problem and find at least 4 different possible paths forward. Today you don’t even realise that the intractability of the problem might be related to your own lack of experience.
Your career is a marathon, not a sprint. This is the line every manager uses to explain why it’s not such a big deal that you’re not getting that promotion this year :D … but it’s also the truth. Your potential to contribute will grow massively over the first 5-10 years of your career. Your ability to identify where you can have the most impact will also grow in that time. So as long as you don’t do anything which precludes you from being able to take on an impactful role in the future, the most important thing to do now is to find a role that you enjoy, that you’re good at, and where you can learn a lot.
Obviously, all the above refers to the first few years. There comes a time where there is a real risk of stagnation, where you may not be learning anything much. If you find yourself in that position, it’s probably a great time to think about moving to a more impactful role.
Really appreciated this post.
I see a lot of comments questioning some of the ideas, especially the notion of spending time to build aptitudes and become excellent at something you’re good at rather than immediately jumping to a more “impactful” role. I’ve also seen comments from people regretting spending time on one thing and wishing they had switched sooner.
From my perspective as someone later on in my career than some here, I would say Holden’s observation is spot-on.
I’m sure there are exceptions, but in general, a huge amount of what you learn as you work is topic-agnostic. It’s just the ability to work with people, to get things done, to communicate well, to manage your boss and listen to your direct-reports, to plan your time … Once you’ve learned all this, you just cannot imagine that once upon a time you didn’t know about it. But (for most of us) there was such a time.
Today maybe you ask someone to help you and they do, and you don’t realise that if you’d asked 3 years ago, they would probably have refused because you wouldn’t have known how to ask. And you would not even have realised that you had done anything wrong, you’d just have concluded that they weren’t willing to help.
Today maybe you look at a problem that seems intractable … but maybe in 3 years you’d look at the same problem and find at least 4 different possible paths forward. Today you don’t even realise that the intractability of the problem might be related to your own lack of experience.
Your career is a marathon, not a sprint. This is the line every manager uses to explain why it’s not such a big deal that you’re not getting that promotion this year :D … but it’s also the truth. Your potential to contribute will grow massively over the first 5-10 years of your career. Your ability to identify where you can have the most impact will also grow in that time. So as long as you don’t do anything which precludes you from being able to take on an impactful role in the future, the most important thing to do now is to find a role that you enjoy, that you’re good at, and where you can learn a lot.
Obviously, all the above refers to the first few years. There comes a time where there is a real risk of stagnation, where you may not be learning anything much. If you find yourself in that position, it’s probably a great time to think about moving to a more impactful role.