Know When You Suck

You can’t be an expert in every area. The wider your area of competence is the more superficial is your knowledge. That’s by the way one of biggest issues higher management has to face when they get their promotions – they become generalists, they want it or not. However it really doesn’t matter if you’re an expert in one area or jest knowledgeable enough in many of them. You will face situations when you will play a role which doesn’t suit you very well.

Let it be some office politics played between vendor and client for a developer who’s accidentally in the room. Let it be contract negotiations with customer for a support services manager. Let it be cold calling for a technical guy who supports sales forces. Let it be deciding about code-level issues for a project manager. Let it be whatever.

Sometimes you can’t avoid being involved. Sometimes you can’t even avoid making decisions. Although you can limit negative impact those decisions have on you, your project and your team. The trick is simple. You just have to be aware when you suck. If you know your weaknesses and you consciously avoid entering the ground where you lack experience you won’t harm your side much.

If I suck at negotiations (and I really do) I don’t negotiate. I work hard to avoid situations when I’m a single person responsible for negotiating anything. And when I’m in the bigger team I just try to limit my participation to merits I came for. When someone in my team chooses other line of negotiations than I would, I take a step back. He knows better 9 times out of 10 as I suck at negotiations. Although not always I’m successful at that it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. The whole thing is being aware of my weakness.

And what is your weak side? Are you aware of it?