Wisdom of the Aged

Tina Darmohray, editor of SAGE News & Features, is a consultant in the area of Internet firewalls and network connections and frequently gives tutorials on those subjects. She was a founding member of SAGE.


So much of what we learn that makes us successful as professionals is nontechnical. I've always felt better with hard and fast numbers than with subjective or "touchy-feely" accomplishments. I typically feel I've been more productive on days I've rolled out six routers with packet filters on them than on those when I can say, "I facilitated a difficult meeting between warring departments that resulted in a successful agreement." Somehow the former means something, while the latter leaves me wondering if I really "worked," although many would argue that the ability to accomplish the latter is harder to find and may be more valuable. So it's no wonder that I'm sometimes the last one to recognize that something as "simple" as "experienced perspective" is an invaluable and necessary component to organizational success. If "soft" skills are hard to quantify, how are you ever going to teach or learn them? The best answer I have for this is that it just takes time.

What got me thinking about this is an article that my parents passed along to me last month. It appeared in the August 9 U.S. News. It was about the latest research on brains, which reveals that adolescent brains are not like adults' brains. (That's a big, affirmative "duh" coming from the teenage crowd.) Apparently, the part of the brain that acts as the CEO, in charge of making sound decisions with multiple inputs, just isn't working to the level of an adult's. And that part, the prefrontal cortex, doesn't really hit maturity until somewhere between ages 20 and 30, depending on gender and the individual. Wow, doesn't that technical tidbit go a long way toward explaining things to this sysadmin/mom! The article goes on with more fascinating findings on brain development. All of it makes perfect sense and goes a long way toward explaining what all of us have already observed: a little time and experience go a long way toward creating a well-rounded individual.

I was reminded of that, professionally, a few weeks ago, when I was working with several young system administrators at their site. They were clearly bright and filled with boundless energy. Without the structure that spouses, children, and mortgages bring, they also enjoyed the flexibility to spend unlimited hours at work and pour all their energies into it. At some level, they were literally running enthusiastic circles around me, and I caught myself wondering what I could possibly bring to the table. But a short time later, during an organizational review meeting, I realized that I brought professional experience to the mix, and that it was tangible and valuable, if somewhat hard to measure with strictly quantitative methods.

For all their sheer brain power and overwhelming dedication to the job, these administrators were making lack-of-experience mistakes that were costing their company. Here are a few that stood out:

• unilateral decisions without seeking input or consensus

• new-feature development ahead of basic infrastructure implementation

• changing features on the fly

• falling into the "NIH" mindset

• rushing to new technology before determining why the old didn't work

In short, they were working hard but not smart. All it took was a few "Have you thought of approaching it this way?"s, and they were off and running in more productive and fruitful directions.

So if simply providing alternatives to their approach made so much difference, why weren't these suggestions obvious to them? I think it gets back to the experience thing. I can recall many lightbulb moments (you know, the kind where it suddenly comes on?) that were triggered by someone just asking me to look at the problem from a different perspective or relating a time that they solved a similar problem and what they learned while doing so. These bits of advice and experience don't have to be earth-shattering rocket science. Typically they aren't technical book-learned revelations at all, but problem-solving skills gathered over time. You learn these from trial and error and observation. And, little by little, you integrate them into your own repertoire, which you can then draw on for future success.

Like brain development, professional experience doesn't happen overnight. Arguably, this kind of learning "takes a lifetime," continuing as long as you remain open to it. Knowledge without experience is only half of the toolset required to be a well-rounded professional. Combined, they add up to wisdom, the best tool of all.