up one level
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2016-12-08
Becoming a more Professional Web Developer By Discussing Business and Money at Work
By w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶l̶i̶n̶u̶x̶.̶c̶o̶m̶ author Morgan Jassen
I've got a problem. I've been ignoring about business and money. Over the years never paid much attention to colleagues when they've been discussing business and financials. Blah blah blah ok the rant part is over.
What I hadn't realized, is how closely job performance and professionalism are connected to knowing about business and knowing about money.
It comes down to is measuring my and my colleagues' performance. Business and money can be one great measure of my and my colleagues' performance, and so I should respect money, and business metrics, as a measuring tool. And I should start, and join in, these conversations at work, as appropriate.
This brings me to my point.
I'm working in a Web Developer role, and in order to be more effective at my job going forward, I will start to want to know more about the business aspect.
Now I will want to know as much as I reasonably can about the business, money and financial aspect of my company. I will want to talk with the managers and executives whenever possible. Even just a transparent view of what is happening at that level would increase my performance, effectiveness, and professionalism.
In any case, I am beginning to feel that what motivates me is knowing how what I'm doing is affecting the business and knowing how what my colleagues are doing is affecting the business. I want to feel that what I'm doing is making a difference, contributing to the company's bottom line, and is in line with the company's goal.
At the same time, I'm also realizing that (fortunately for me as someone in the position of making this paradigm shift) if one makes it a habit to ask more about the financial side of one's company's business, that one will get more opportunities to learn more about that stuff. Like an upward spiral of knowledge where learning begets learning.
Also at the same time(, unfortunately for me as someone in the position of making this paradigm shift), another thing is, I can't make my colleagues start to discuss money around me at work. If they are in the mindset that they don't want to discuss business and financials at work, then they won't. However, I can carefully start discussing it around my colleague, and listen to what they have to say about it, and I have a feeling the result will be better for everyone. So the change has to start with me.
In conclusion, I feel that over the years I haven't had enough business/money -related conversations at work, and that has stunted my professional growth, but even so, starting from now I can start to discuss business, money, and the bottom line around my colleagues, and as a result I will gain professionalism.
Tags: #working, #mingling
2016-12-23 update: Yesterday I came across this article in bizjournals, and much of it aligns with what I wrote in the above blog post. So I wanted to link it here as "further reading": "3 steps to better manage personal finances and boost career satisfaction" (http://www.bizjournals.com/...-personal-finances.html
[2019 edit: Moved to: https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2016/... .html.]