This post is about mindfulness amidst organisational change. It is about learning to relax into and sensitise myself to the shifting currents of the people who surround and are impacted by my work. It is about "putting my finger on the pulse". Being non-reactive, proactive, understanding what's happening in an organisation and in my own head, and my relation to others.
I use Dr. Jud Brewer's "expansion and contraction" idea throughout. Listen to him on e.g. Dan Harris's 10% Happier podcast, and you'll get a better idea of this. But ultimately expansion is just about softening and acceptance of current experience, or something like that. It doesn't really matter all that much for this post, but if you're interested in more you should definitely check out his stuff.
When I am contracted, my experience at work narrows. I put blinders on. I am working for myself above all else. When people post new projects and so on in public channels I view them as a nuisance because they take my attention away from the thing that if I finally could just get around to, I could deliver something of value.
By the way I see this all the time online in videos and blog posts: people frustrated about corporate work and echoing this same sentiment of "too many meetings, too much distractions, can't do "real work"". Maybe that's often right, but perhaps those people too would benefit from "softening towards" the people and goals in the organisation and learning to work with them, not against them.
In this sense, my value is my technical output. Therefore, if my technical output is low, I am of low value. This mindset isn't sustainable (or really healthful at all).
I have noticed a pattern in myself of trying to carve out a technological niche at work that allows me to work in relative solitude while impressing others at the same time. But this pattern plays out fairly poorly: if I bring nobody along for the ride, then I end up building only for myself. The fruits may be impressive, but ultimately the core task is in using my technical skills to build bridges, not moats.
I have spent a lot of my career in this contracted form. But lately, a few things have come together to cause me to revise my approach to working and I can feel an expansion: the organisation I work at rapidly undergoing change, a couple of experiences with my work not "sticking" (not working on the "right" things), major life changes, and two seemingly unrelated books.
It just so happens that one of those books is about "mindfulness" (phew, loaded word, don't get stuck on it) at work, and the other is about organisational understanding for engineers. These two, along with an environment of rapid change, has given me an opportunity to shift my focus from technical things to changing systems and processes (read: people).
In expanding, making room, allowing, I create the opportunity for connection and real productivity. In this way my value is what I can do for others which includes a far richer tapestry of actions and connects me to people, not work output. In fact, the work output is a function of connecting me to people and giving the gift of my skillset to improve the lives of others.
This is not just the users of whatever product I am creating (though it includes that), but also other engineers I work with, past engineers who have touched the code I am modifying, and even my family who are supported by my paycheck.
Now I'm not recommending meditation per se, though this has been helping me lately. More like, consider the path you are taking and the choices you make, and find a way to imbue them with a softness, and a recognition that we are all imperfect, and a sensitivity to the changing shores of your organisations coastline. This might look different for everyone. But it ultimately involves some level of practice and curiosity. Take special note if you are prone to tightening or contracting your world.
I remember a past manager whom I respected highly saying to me that I should "bring people along with me". At the time I knew it to be true in some surface way, but couldn't see how to fit it into my approach more largely. I see more clearly now what he meant. My job is increasingly about convincing people, and being convinced. Expanding.
The organisation is a living, breathing thing. It has a past, present and future, ultimately composed of human beings.
Casey Muratori talks about Conway's Law + time, in his video. Add to this (perhaps he does in his video, I can't quite recall) all of the other human "failings" (loss of institutional knowledge by various means, tempers, personal conflicts, inner turmoil, unresolved traumas, ladder climbing + careerism, etc) and it is clear that there is an intimate connection between software and the human stories behind its production.
Organisations (as with pretty much all social systems) are filled with these "failings". They are so pervasive and powerful that they almost certainly drive large scale change in a way that is kinda silent, or hard to read. It's like a non-linear system. All these human elements interact with each other. These interactions are an ecosystem with their own endangered species,
We all know this to be true somewhere, but I (and maybe you) chose to ignore it and focus on something "real" and "tangible" like a refactor of a complicated service, sometimes missing the human element for whatever reason.
The thing to take from this post is this: people and our relations are always the important thing to keep in mind, above all else. Let this remind you to take a beat, a step back, and see if your pursuit of efficiency is blocking your view onto something more meaningful.