12 Dec 2013

Growing

Growing is hard. As I watch my son develop, I can tell that people are geared to learning quickly in the early stages of our lives. After we get through all the trials and tribulations associated with getting to adulthood, we reach the point where we tire of growing. We want to spend some time at our current “size.” Individual milage varies of course. From what I’ve experienced, most people hit plateaus in growth throughout their lives. I know personally, once I got a full time job after college I was more focused on making a name for myself than continuing to grow into a well balanced engineer. It took time, mentoring, and more responsibility to help me figure out I needed to keep growing.

I was reminded of growth plateaus the other day when I observed some of the same negative behavior in which I have engaged. The behavior is creating a straw-man argument based on the “moral high-ground.” One of the downsides to the “software craftsmanship movement” is that it leads to these kind of arguments. Someone discovers something they don’t agree with and feel the necessity to beat the issue to death. Essentially, there is no way to win the argument because such an “egregious violation of principles has occurred.” No compromise or forward progress can be made because the trespass must be continually raised. This article is a good example of this kind of argument related to craftsmanship. You’ll notice as you read through, it’s all judgement and “principle-based high-ground” with no positive actionable recommendations.

Playing the moral trump card feels good. Positioning yourself as the greater craftsman and the more principled person tickles the ego. It’s easy to look at situations in retrospect and tout how you would have done everything differently. Looking down your nose at someone else’s decision tends to extend the base of the growth plateau. I’ve found these types of straw-man arguments tend to perpetuate frustration and negatively impact a teams ability to make forward progress. Still though, it feels good to be “team righteous.”

What I have found is that making some progress everyday is one of the most rewarding things in your career. Whether that progress is project work, personal growth, or team building, moving forward leaves me feeling motivated and energized. To me feeling motivated and energized, is ultimately a better feeling than the “moral high-ground.” So I have been trying to focus my personal growth on turning craftsmanship issues into positively directed actions rather than judgmental snubs. I’m not always successful, but it seems like a strategy that helps me avoid those situations more often.