Throughout my career I have become a broken record around the following quote:
The half-life of knowledge in technology is 6 months. Half of what I know sitting here right now will be obsolete in 6 months, that is the speed at which technology moves and why you can never stop learning.
I’m sure there are some people that are tired of hearing me say that over and over again, especially to new technology professionals. This article got me thinking about it again. The author talks about how we age as human beings and discusses the book “Aging Well” and the process we all experience through life. The thing that caught my attention was towards the end of the post when he stated the following:
So what has all this got to do with Learning and Change? I think it gets to the heart of the matter. Firstly, you need to be adaptable, to change as your context does – as Valliant puts it, ” to make Lemonade from Lemons”. To embrace the changes you are experiencing and to explore the new situation – to learn, to go to the Mountain, don’t wait for it to come to you.
That is so true in today’s uncertain economic times and is preaching to the choir when it comes to technology professionals who deal with constant change throughout our career. We need to embrace this change and exercise some of our leadership skills to help innovate and grow both personally and professionally.
I’m a regular reader of Zen Habits and think Leo’s post for today ties into this topic perfectly, you can read it here. Everyone who has been involved in a technology project knows that nothing ever goes according to plan, and being aware and accepting of that is the key to dealing with the project issues with a positive attitude. As much as we might like you can’t control everything and everyone around you, but you can display leadership and guidance. I loved Harvard Business Review’s management tip of the day as well “Don’t let the Recession Halt Development” in which they encourage leaders to continue to challenge your team and provide them meaningful work.
Sometimes life and circumstances do get us down, but especially for technology professionals we can not let our foot off the gas when it comes to learning and development. As leaders we must strive to constantly provide challenging work for our teams and find ways to help them find some meaningful work, especially today. So what are you going to do right now to better yourself and/or your team? I’d love to hear about it.
