Becoming!

TOLERANCE FOR AMBIGUITY

When I was a little boy, I wanted to be everything. My dad, like most traditional Nigerian dads, wanted me to choose a profession that was popular with their generation. I call these professions ‘the trinity’ – Law, Medicine and Engineering. He decided on Medicine. Even though I chose within that bracket, my choice of being an aeronautical engineer was very foreign in Nigeria. Not like I knew what it would take to be one, but like most kids, I was more fascinated by the fancy name “aeronautical”.

I eventually had to outgrow what I considered my delusion of becoming an aeronautic engineer because my family did not have enough naira to our name to back up this dream and more so, no Nigerian university offered a degree of such. That is a story for another day. So, my dad would buy books on obstetrics and gynaecology and other medical fields wherever he finds them-usually under Ikeja Bridge; with the hope that one of his 13 children will somehow get triggered by the desire to study medicine.

That never happened.

Instead, we were more interested in the colourful illustrations within the textbooks he bought for us 🤐. Although exposure to these books did help build a little interest in biology during my high school days; but only just enough to complete my required 5 relevant credits needed to progress to university. And then, one day, at the dawn of the ‘computer proliferation’, a computer school came to scout for enrolment in my high school. They showed us a desktop computer which was never powered on due to lack of electricity, but their explanation of how it worked fascinated me. And that was how my entire story changed. It has been 33 years since that fateful day, and here are four lessons learnt from living and breathing the magic box called a computer.

The power of binary
Computers are amazing devices. They have the power to do amazing things to perfection. But they are in no way perfect. Humans make computers perfect. Most people do not know that although computers can perform complex tasks at unimaginable speed and accuracy, they do this in a simplistic way. And it is the power of binary. They only deal with two decisions – on or off, one or zero, true or false. Every decision it makes is hinged on a series of binary operations.

There is a lesson here.

No matter the level of complexity you face either at work or personal life, always strive to break it down to the simplest form. Better still, break it down into two simple decisions and then make one. Then whatever decision is made, stand by the consequences. Take responsibility. After all, maturity does not come with age, but with the acceptance of responsibilities.

Be a legacy hunter
I have been lucky to have worked in a few places. Some are indeed great places to work while others are not so deserving. One common thing I often hear is that we should give people credit. I think the intention around this common phrase is misconstrued. I am not saying that giving credit is not good. But what you would find in the workplace is people seeking credit. It is so amazing how much more we all can achieve when we care less about who takes the credit. In the tech world, no one person can take credit for a good implementation. It takes a team for you to build truly meaningful systems that benefit the client.

From the product team to the infrastructure team. From the business analyst and software testers to the software developers. And even from the project managers to the end users, the story is the same. The team is all that matters.

A technology project that consists of people who are engrossed in how much credit they get will likely end in monumental failure. It is teamwork all the time and the trophy is the successful deployment of the implementation. The trophy belongs to the team and each member leaves with a legacy of contributions. This principle should apply to everyone regardless of whether they work in IT or not. Do not work for the money alone. Certainly, do not work to get credit. Rather, work for legacy and impact. Work hard for the collective good of the company and all stakeholders.

Being stupidly smart
Computers are stupid and smart. They are as stupid as we program them to be and as smart as we make them be. This lesson is the foundation of wisdom most men struggle with. In your everyday life at work, be stupid enough to learn like a child and be smart enough to admit that you do not know it all so you can learn well. I have seen so many people in my few work-life years who struggle to admit their inadequacies or things they do not know. Many of them are either delusional by overestimating the depth of their knowledge or they are just too afraid of people’s opinions when they admit to not knowing enough.

There is a lot of strength in being vulnerable and of course, much greater strength in taking on the challenge and becoming an authority in one’s weak areas. My ex-boss once said “I am not always right. And even when I know I am right, I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt. The only time I will stand my ground is when not doing so puts the business at risk or puts a life on the line”. Therefore, we must sometimes give the benefit of the doubt and assume we may not be all knowledgeable about a topic or skill and that we are humble enough to let the ideas of others prevail. However, once the team agrees, we must all commit. Universal commitment is important. After all, you do not discover new lands if your ship refuses to leave the shore.

Embrace Ambiguity
When we build software applications, we often sometimes are uncertain about the extent of the challenge we will face in the development process. This is why the second release is always the better version.

When a software team starts developing an application, despite all the painstaking planning which involves lots of documentation and deliberations, the team almost always finds out that they are on a voyage of discovery. And this brings me to the biggest lesson of all – the tolerance for ambiguity. Many of us are always afraid when the path to the outcome is not clear. We always want full clarity. In life, perfect certainty is a rarity. But when we take every challenge as an embarkment on a voyage of discovery, the journey becomes more exciting. We must embrace ambiguity while seeking clarity and acting accordingly. We should take on the next challenge. The next opportunity. We should up the degree to which we are comfortable with uncertainty, unpredictability, conflicting direction, and multiple demands. We should, as a matter of urgency, test the limit of our resolve to succeed despite uncertainties. And we should do this with reckless abandon.