Perpetual Rookies

If you ever get bored in your corporate 8 to 5, or just need a new fresh perspective? If so, I have a suggestion for you. Go hang out with some of the newer employees in your organization. Listen, observe and be humbled. Not too long ago I decided to have lunch with a group of new “fresh out of college” software engineers that I hired this summer in my organization. These wide-eyed neo-pro’s are barely drinking age yet goo-goo ga-ga to change the world via their coding chops. They sport a back pack filled with innocence and ambition and are yet to be corrupted by the gravity of a large fortune 100 company. It’s actually very refreshing.

Yes, they are “rookies” yet the power of what they do NOT know is a competitive advantage that helps fill the gap of experience they lack. One of them (who taught English in Japan in her previous life) taught me about the following phrase :

Wabi-sabi (侘寂?) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.[1] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印 sanbōin?), specifically impermanence (無常 mujō?), the other two being suffering (苦 ku?) and emptiness or absence of self-nature (空 kū?).

A simple yet wise concept, glowing with eastern mysticism and enlightenment. As a leader I see the relevance of Wabi-Sabi to my organization in that we work in a sometimes chaotic, fast-paced, agile world of software development, where quality and speed are assumed to be happily married, rather than two opposing forces sometimes thought of as arch enemies among the developer community. For some people, perfection is the only way, yet always seems to be unattainable. What if we accepted imperfection? Would our work be more meaningful? Would we work smarter? Would we add more business value? Would we sleep better at night? More importantly, would our customers still be happy with what we delivered?

Again, all this insight and wisdom came from a conversation with someone who by any standard based on time in job, would be called a rookie. My question to all of us experienced folks … How do we nurture our own rookie spirit in every new role we take on? How do we strive to be perpetual rookies in our careers?

#leadWithAnOpenMind #harnessTheRookieSpirit
#stayYoungInMind
#leadership