This is what I have learned in my early career and a very useful and valuable mindset to myself. And I started to connect all the dots together and share them here.
Initially, I was so eager to learn and grow right out of school. Luckily enough, I found myself a major in Computer Science and landed a job as a software engineer. The feedback loop of solving a problem is short, I could just write a few lines code or update a line of code and see it’s running on my device. The wanting-and-getting loop is fast and the joy is obtained in a short of period time. I’m so fascinated by the “game”. I love solving problems.
I slowly recognized the value of solving more problems. And I don’t differentiate too much about what problem I should solve, I just solved the problems when I encounter them.
Easy problem to build credibility and confidence. On the one hand, if it’s an easy one, I solved it very fast, and I can get things done quickly, which contributes to the progress whole project, which makes me happy. It also has other side-effects, 1) it helps to gain the trust of the team 2) it helps gain more context. Those will get me more challenging problems.
Hard problem to learn fast. On the other hand, if it’s a hard one, which means either I lack the knowledge or skills to solve it, I need to do some research to learn about the problem. At the same time, sometimes I might learn something irrelevant by chance. And I will develop a better problem-solving strategy, either using a try-error approach or a strategic approach. I will learn more about a hard problem. Not only did I gain more knowledge but also can I improve my problem-solving skills, which help to solve the new problem faster.
Gaining more context. Not differentiating (easy/hard) the problem gave me opportunities to explore all the corners of the codebase, after less than a year, I touched almost all the corners of the codebase. When there’s a new problem occurs, I can give a very quick “guess” about the root cause and potential solution, most of the “guesses” are right and the solutions are valid. Connecting most of the relevant dots together can bring the optimal solution, and potentially find more potential improvement opportunities and more problems.
Getting more opportunities. A problem can only be discovered with a proper degree of enough context. There are a lot of times when working on a problem and understanding and learning around the problem, more other problems are discovered. It’s hard to discover the problem if not working on other problems. Proper context and knowledge are important. An unsolved problem is an opportunity to improve or contribute to solving a larger problem. Opportunities are waiting for a prepared mind.
A problem is like a puzzle, it triggers curiosity, and exploration, thinking, and that’s where learning happens, and it’s really fun to solve puzzles, you will emerge yourself into the solving puzzle “flow”, and forget time and space, that’s deep joy.
Solving problem mindset at work. There are all kinds of problems at work and a lot of problems to be solved. Focusing on solving problems rather than treating the “work” as a job to make a living. Having a lot of fun by solving more problems at work and making a living is a by-product. With this mindset, you will be happier at work.
Get stuff done. Ref
Just learn how to get stuff done. And what I mean by that is I’ve seen at every level, people who are very good at describing problems, people who are very sophisticated in explaining why something went wrong or why something can’t get fixed.
But what I’m always looking for is no matter how small the problem or how big it is somebody who says, “Let me take care of that.” If you project an attitude of whatever it is that’s needed, I can handle it and I can do it., whoever is running that organization will notice, I promise.
And which is why I think with young people, you don’t always need to be so impatient asking for the plum assignment. A lot of times the best way to get attention is whatever is assigned to you, you are just nailing. You’re killing it. Because people will notice, “Oh, that’s somebody who can get something done.’”
- Barack Obama