This month’s invitation from Louis looks for One piece of advice you wish your past self had.
T-SQL Tuesday #149 had a similar topic where we gave advice to our younger selves and I made a few points. With a little more experience, I wanted to distill a couple of those:
Sharing (knowledge)
is caring (for yourself)
Within a business, sharing helps to build relationships, distribute knowledge, and empower others. But on a personal level it helps avoid baggage. You don’t want to be that person who hoards knowledge and is seen as ‘irreplaceable’, inadvertently or otherwise.
You’re not.
And your value comes not from being called upon for the knowledge you keep. The value comes from the how and where the experience and knowledge can be targeted for maximum impact.
Share the knowledge, remove the baggage,
Whatever you have, share it. Demonstrate, document, discuss. Let the knowledge and experiences flow to those who need to know. Investing the time now will pay dividends in the future. That’s what this is about, time and freedom.
Being part of an organisation for an extended period showed me the value of sharing. Or particularly the pitfall of not sharing enough. It wasn’t intentional, but it wasn’t a priority. There were rough times. There was burnout. And it bled into my personal life. I didn’t see it until after I’d left.
Never again.
After that I saw the opposite side of the coin. Joining established teams where knowledge wasn’t readily available. Steep learning curves. Reading lines of code, configuration, and piecing the jigsaws together. It ain’t fun.
So now I share. Pick your approach. I prefer to write, it works for me. Development get documentation. Inside the code, on wikis, in tickets, with screenshots, links, attachments. Anything to help educate and direct whoever may need it.
That is why I share. To have the time.
Time to do what excites and ignites me. Time to read, learn, act. Time to spend with those closest to me. Time to care for myself. Time to live.
Yes, and time to blog too. An outlet to share things I’ve seen, I enjoy, quirks, or simply documenting past adventures. It gives me chance to pull on threads to explore areas I haven’t had a need to dive into before.
So, take the time upfront and be paid back later, with interest.
Please, share what you have. For yourself, those who stand with you today, or that follow in your footsteps tomorrow. Everyone will be better off for it.
(ok, reading that back it sounds a little preachy, but I felt passionate about the subject and it was essentially one take so I’ll leave it as is, for better or worse)
Andy Brownsword 