career

The common creed of I.T. and data professionals is “just make it work”.  Commonly we’re tasked with crazy problems, weird situations, and difficult challenges and we just get our heads down and get the work done.  It’s not often that we look up and plan beyond the current project or task.  We’re a cog in the machine, a smaller piece of a larger process, focused on getting the work done that we can control.

It’s a position we often struggle with.  How can someone come to you with a half-baked solution?  Something a user doesn’t fully understand even though they insist that “this must be the problem”?  I know I’ve been there, asking myself these questions while gnashing my teeth and shaking my fists at the sky.

Stepping up

The unfortunate truth is that these situations, like many other problems, are somewhat of our own making.  It’s a matter of trying to ride the proverbial tiger instead of trying to cage it.  The fact of the matter is that very few people, especially at a management level, understand database technologies the way we do.  If they do, it can make our lives a little easier, but typically we in the trenches will know more about the new features and limitations of our platforms.

How do we leverage this to our advantage?  By becoming thought leaders at our jobs.  Our management needs to plan to leverage new technologies and want answers about capabilities and options in order to find a way forward.  Do they go to the cloud? Should their databases be hosted on physical or virtual servers? How can we improve system response?  We can answer these questions, but can’t wait around for someone to ask us.

Resource of Record

How often do you talk to your managers about what you could do?  Information they’re looking for?  Opportunities for improvements that you can provide, either through current or new elements of your platform?  Our managers only know what they know, so we need to educate them by getting in front of them and sharing our knowledge with them.

So how?  If you’re one of the many professionals following the advice of Brent Ozar(@BrentO), you’re already well on your way.  Blogging?  Make sure your boss is reading your blog, so that he’s aware of what you know and are thinking.  Presentations?  Make sure your management is aware that you’re speaking on technical topics and what those topics are.  Building your personal brand is as important to your current job as your next.

You also need to have an opinion.  Sure, we live by a creed of “it depends”, but when someone asks as “how” or “why”, we should have a good answer for them.  Physical or virtual?  Cloud or on site?  Should this index be added?  As thought leaders, we need to provide more than just options, we need to provide answers and the knowledge to back those answers up.

Throughout my life, I’ve had this concept of “having the initiative”.  Basically, it means that I try to take control of situations, not letting them take control of me.   This is very much in that vein.  By advertising my knowledge to those around and above me and selling my expertise, I become the first stop for a question instead of a second or a third.  If you were the first stop, what would do that for you?

Michael Jordan.  Peyton Manning.  Joe Sakic.  Kobe Bryant.  Tom Brady. Andy Pettit.

Sports superstars. We watch them throughout the year, enjoying their athletic performances and last minute heroics.  Whether you love them or hate them, their abilities are amazing.  But there’s more than that.  We also watch as these special athletes also become a focus for their team, a linchpin for their team mates, a fulcrum upon which their organization’s efforts are leveraged.

I typically listen to the local sports talk radio on my way to work.  One day, the hosts were discussing superstar qualities, such as the ability to make plays and elevating the play of their team mates.  Since I was heading in to work, I started wondering how that translated to my job and if I was trying to bring these same superstar elements to the database court.  After all, I’ve always considered myself smart and able to handle any technical task in front of me, but being a true superstar is more than just being good, it’s also about being a leader and a force that drives the people around you to success.

I don’t think it’s quite that far of a leap from sports superstardom to the corporate world.  While we can’t do what these guys do (or get paid millions of dollars to do it), we can approach our jobs with the same mindset.  Here are some of the qualities that bounce around in my head and how the can be brought to our jobs:

• Talent – Successful athletes all have some basic level of talent.  You don’t have to be the best, but you do need to be good.  I think all people in the technical field have this capacity, since we wrap our brains around some pretty involved concepts daily, so this is the easiest to attain.
• Drive – It’s not enough to be ok.  It’s not enough to do the minimum.  Superstars are ambitious, want more, and strive to be the absolute best they can be.  For the technical field, this means we embrace the constant change, the continual learning, and the desire to find better ways to get our day to day work done.
• Leadership – Now it gets harder.  Superstars realize that they’re on a team, and have to be a part of that team.  But true superstars step forward and lead the team, they set the tone for the people around them.  As data professionals this means we look for projects and weaknesses in our environments and improve them.   Don’t ask for permission, don’t look for approval, just lead.  Is there a better way to run your backups?  Do you see poor performance due to bad query or table design?  Where ever you see a place where something can be made better, lead the way and those around you will follow.
• Make those around you better – Once people start following, you need to help lift them up.  Your team is only as strong as the weakest link and, as a superstar, it’s incumbent upon you to strengthen those links.  Maybe a teammate is struggling with escape characters in dynamic SQL or they have questions about creating a server side trace.  Whatever the case, withholding your knowledge or doing the work for them doesn’t help the team.  True superstars raise up those they work with, because they know that the success of the team is dependent on the ability of the team, not the ability of its superstars.

The work we do every day is a team sport.  We can be good as individuals, but we are rarely viewed as that.  Take John Elway and Dan Marino, two of the greatest quarterbacks of their generation.  In almost all cases, Elway is seen as the better quarterback because of his team’s success.  While he’s recognized as a proficient individual talent, the Superbowls he led the Broncos to set him apart.  That’s the key, that he led the Broncos.  His superstar status is more a result of what he did with his team than what he did by himself.

We want to have the same effect.  While there might not be a championship on the line, our own talents and abilities are enhanced by what we do for those around us.  These people might be team members, co-workers, or even the extended SQL community.  Note that a lot of the superstar SQL contractors we know (Brent, Paul, Denny, etc.) are heavily involved in sharing knowledge with the rest of us.  Their sharing makes us stronger, resulting in a better database community.

The next time you watch a major sporting event, look at how that team is being led.  Consider the superstars and what you can do to emulate them.  While we may not have the money, we can certainly have that same success by choosing to make their habits our own.