Random lessons 2016 taught
2016 has been a quick, not so funny, funny year. It’s the last day, so here are some seemingly simple lessons i learned — The hard way mostly — from it.
Lesson 1: It’s all about the people
I currently work at a Tech firm in Abuja, Nigeria. The Software Engineering team has just always been the Software Engineering team. Then a certain team member left the company. It hit harder than I thought it would. I had failed to recognise the energy that Ada alone created in the work environment until that energy was gone.
We underrate the impact of the people around us more often than not.
Bottom line, the people around you can make all the difference.
Lesson 2: Effective communication is key
Nothing much to point out here. Just that I’ve come to realise — The hard way — that leaving details out when explaining concepts to people can come to bite in all the wrong places down the road. It’s extremely important to communicate facts and manage expectations.
Lesson 3: Accept nothing less
It’s 4pm on the 6th of December 2016, all Emerging Platforms and Ventures Platform staff convene to celebrate the boss, Kola A. It’s his birthday. Everyone goes on to ask the CEO some questions. Abimbola puts his right hand up as he smiles. He has a very simple question.
“Who sews your clothes?”
After everyone is done giggling, Mr. K. goes on to explain the process he goes through with his tailor and it’s not a complicated one. The short of it is that he never accepted the final cut until every stitch was sewn to perfection. He’d keep it with the tailor until he got it all right. Sticking with one tailor meant he didn’t need to explain a lot anymore because the guy, his guy has come to understand exactly what he wants.
Lesson 4: Think twice, execute once
Another simple but very important lesson. it may seem easy to dive into a problem head first because you had done something like it in the past. It is only after you’ve spent a few hours that you would realise that the problems were not very alike.
Analyse the problem, do the math, compare possible solutions and choose the best.
It’s been an eventful, scary and interesting 2016. I’m going into 2017 with pure optimism about what it holds.
