Have you ever had a “lightbulb” moment in the midst of a tumultuous time? A moment of clarity where a new part of the dark forest you find yourself in is revealed?
There came a point in the midst of the chaos of the past year where it dawned on me that I had become the statistic. I became one of the “left behind” moms. In the pursuit of creating the family I had long dreamed of, and the hard slog of motherhood, I never thought much about having lost anything. I’d gained 4 people! The living, breathing, eating, pooping (repeat!) embodiments of my prayers were wrapping their little arms around me and telling me about their day at school. What loss can there be in such abundance? I had been in the forest enjoying the trees, not even considering taking a peek from the eagle’s view. Until I was forced to.
When my career became the shit hitting the fan, there were several, very kind and well meaning, people who swore up and down that I had all the leverage, I had all the power, I could use this to my advantage to push for that promotion or whatever I wanted. But that’s not true. Not in this market, and not for me in any market. You see, I’ve taken the bold approach, “I need a promotion because x, y, and z strong case…”; I’ve demanded it. And I was met with silence. In fact, years of silence and an eventual brush off. Never an explanation as to why, or how we could make changes to make it happen. I’d tried putting my head down and working hard. Taking on newer and bigger responsibilities. That project no one wants, give it to me. And I excelled. These left me with a fantastic reputation. Top annual reviews. Even a substantial raise beyond anything I could have imagined. But a promotion? Any outward representation of the success in my role? Nope!
There’s never been an ounce of help with a development plan. Not even guidance. Are there steps even fuzzily defined to get to the next wrung up? Hell no.
Despite all of the social buzzwords of the time we live in, equity in the workplace is still a goal not yet achieved. What I didn’t realise was that the cost I had paid for having my children was my career growth. It was also my personal growth. No courses or education. No clubs or networking events. No hobbies. No goals. An armful of babies for a fistful of achievements. What a deal!
“Wars are not won by fighting battles. Wars are won by choosing battles.” – George S Patton Jr
I’d love to badge through the office entrance tomorrow with the job of my dreams. I’d love to come home at the end of that day to the loving arms of my children. But there’s a very important lesson I’ve learned these past months. Pick your battles. Strategically plan how to engage your opponent, always with a mind to how this battle and the next and so on build up to the greater victory. Have dreams but measure the steps and requirements to achieving them along the way so that you do not get lost in the forest.
Oddly enough, you can think of a roadmap in the same way. Strategic placement of a series of steps on your way to achieving delivery and adoption of a product. A long-term goal, the product. A set of mid-term goals, releases and MVP. And several short-term goals that can be used as benchmarks against meeting the bigger pieces of the roadmap. We’re not just releasing new backend APIs or optimizing the UI for mobile responsiveness. We’re building out a whole experience and setting up markers along the way to gauge progress.
Everything has a price. The more important part is the value of what you get for that price.
Bình luận