Of all perspectives on mentorship I have come across, my favorite is from an insightful chapter of the novel Siddhartha. The book narrates the journey of another Buddha in the making.
When a young Siddhartha and his friends get to meet the enlightened Buddha - while his friends yearn to be accepted as disciples; Siddhartha, though immensely impressed, decidedly stays away.
In an interesting dialogue that follows, Siddhartha is effectively telling the Buddha that I don't want to the best Buddhist; I want to be a Buddha! And even the Buddha himself cannot teach me how to become one!
I think same goes for even us, the lesser mortals, in any field of life. Experience and realization can neither be "taught" nor "transferred" as-is. They are best meant to be sought and gained first-hand in distinct, personal ways.
Leaving you with these wise words from the Nobel Laureate's celebrated work -
".. But there is one thing which these so clear, these so venerable teachings do not contain: they do not contain the mystery of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he alone among hundreds of thousands."
#mentorship
In his TED talk, and his book "Flow", Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes the "flow state" as being a state of intense focus and complete absorption in an activity, for it's own intrinsic sake. Interestingly, he describes one of the key conditions that induces such a state, as being in a zone where your skills either match or, can be stretched to match a worthwhile challenge at hand. When the challenge is relatively too low for your skills, you experience boredom; while in the reverse scenario, you experience anxiety. He also talks about the altered sense of time you experience in this state of mind.
So, when was the last time you found yourself working an odd hour? - not because you had a deadline to meet, not because you had been asked to, not because you were driven by external rewards and praise, not even out of a noble sense of duty - but simply because the task at hand felt so worthy and challenging in itself, and your skills felt so perfectly utilized, that you couldn't wait for the next day to see what you have built! :-)
#workplace #engagement #productivity #happiness
Technology is under-represented in the leadership across the industry, and no diversity council in the world happens to question that. The tech pipeline of your organization just mirrors that, as success gets blindly copied as a formula.
A general awareness of tech jargons, trends, and case studies is not to be confused with tech capability, and in itself doesn't qualify one for a tech position. Just like googling/researching about COVID doesn't make me a doctor. "Talk is cheap", as Linus Torvalds aptly puts it.
Regardless of which one of the plethora of fancy tech titles you hold; if all you do is delegate, coordinate, control, streamline processes, conduct so-called "reviews", and give out knee-jerk reactions when things go wrong; you are an administrator, not a techie.
When you review my work, make sure you understand the technical subject matter, and review substance over anything else. If you can line up an army of "reviewers" for every contributor; that itself is a worrying metric. As a rational being, the least I cannot help but do is question what qualified each one of you to show up for that review session. And I would expect the army to collectively be a powerhouse of technical expertise and competence, and share some real feedback.
#technology #leadership
[Re-posted from my recently authored posts on LinkedIn]