You and Work: sense, influence, nonsense
Over the years, I’ve developed a mental model of how, to evaluate my own role at a company, to find harmony with it and have also advocated it in a big way to folks I’ve worked closely with. You may find it useful — here goes…
Any role, anywhere has 3 parts:
Part 1: The reason you’re in that role — the something that brought you there in the first place — domain, nature of work, location, money, timing, brand name, company type (startup vs BigCo), etc.
Part 2: Things that may or may not make sense to you, but you can influence; for instance: your manager has a bad idea, but s/he listens; the deadline looks aggressive, but you can negotiate a milestone
Part 3: Things that just don’t make any sense at all (whatsover, no matter how much you try, flat out insult to your intelligence!!!) that you inevitably “disagree and commit” to — kudos to whoever coined the phrase
The key exercise to do periodically, in your own mind, is to identify the percentage split between the 3 parts.
What that split is, that makes you happy, is your own thing, but always keep an eye on Part 3. Whatever role you’re in — Individual contributor, Manager, CXO or a Founder (most definitely!) — Part 3 doesn’t disappear. On a good day, it just sleeps. If Part 3 starts getting beyond a threshold that you set for yourself, make adjustments. Try to apply it to the least favourite role you ever had and this 3-part model should make sense.
If you’re a manager, consider asking your team members their 3-part-split in your 1:1s
A minimum viable version of the same is to ask if they are either overwhelmed or underwhelmed, in general. If they’re somewhere in between, you’re good.
I’m new on Medium and so, if you enjoyed this, check out my other posts:
* Why should an engineer do it? (on business awareness for engineers)
* Imaginary movie: Anatomy of a Resignation (Movie screenplay like treatment to an employee resignation, with a hint of The Matrix)
* Code. Pro code. Low code. No code. (my career from kernel dev to no-code and journey of code in the industry have some parallels)
* Employee Engagement for Future of Work (my startup, Yuga’s intro)
