Lesson Learned #1 – Don’t be lazy & Do your best.

On this lesson learned, the verse that lingers with me is Luke 6:31 – “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” Some of us know that as the “Golden Rule” or simply to treat others as you want to be treated.

About a decade ago now I was working at Microsoft in their Azure Product Group when I learned this one. I was sharing offices with a guy, and he was multiple years my senior. We were working on implementing some Security compliance controls into the codebase that we were responsible for. Many of the items required interpretation of the security requirements as well as understanding where in the codebase the requirement may (or may not) be most applicable.

Here I am, a year 1 or 2 engineer at Microsoft and I find myself asking my office mate “Hey … for requirement <blah> what does it mean” or “where should it be applied” or …

Eventually I wore his patience out and he said something along the lines of “Have you even googled that question?”

In that moment, something in me clicked. I realized that I was using him as my search engine when I should have looked it up first. I was wasting my colleagues time by being lazy myself. I was so focused on “go go go” and trying to get something done as fast as possible that I was trying to shortcut it and be lazy.

Complementary to not being lazy is the concept of “doing your best”.

Growing up, my dad would tell me “do your best, as fast as you can…”. He was implying both an urgency and a quality in whatever I put my hand to.

What is best really depends.

For me, “Best” is ensuring quality and that the next person in line can use what I’m producing. The next person could be the customer or another developer or my leader or my peer. It’s also me thinking through enough detail to where I can establish a high enough quality bar to where I’m proud of what I’m delivering. To me, it’s being satisfied with what I’m delivering to the next person and glad that my name is on it.

• If you’re a developer… can the person reviewing your code understand what you just implemented?
• If you’re building a project plan… have you detailed out the precise steps needed to accomplish the outcome your seeking?
• If you’re in a Service Desk role, are you working the ticket to resolution where the end-users problem is solved or escalated? And if escalated, is it easy for the next person to pick it up and carry it forward?

I’ve had many team members fall short of the above and need to be coached on these items on an ongoing basis.

Things to ask yourself – have you…

1. looked it up to the best of your ability?
2. gathered relevant information that you can easily share with your colleague?
3. already tried ChatGPT, Google, StackOverflow, Wikis and have come up short?
4. finished the task at hand completely?
5. worked with a sense of urgency?
6. done quality work that you can be proud of?