18 Fishing Poles Aren’t as Good as 4 Fishing Poles
Finding a Direction
In his book, Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps!
I am of the firm belief that most technology professionals are in a trap. They go after learning “hot” skills that have a short shelf-life just because everyone else around them are going after those “hot” skills. When these skills become obsolete or “out of fashion”, they go after a new set of “hot” skills. They repeat this cycle and think that they can continue to repeat this cycle (3 - 5 years) forever.
When these same people leave the traditional organization, they find that their wide and varied skill set offers many general business possibilities they might pursue on their own. Too often what happens is that they look for external factors to decide which skills are important on which to build a business.
These would-be entrepreneurs define what they do in a new way to each person they meet — in essence each time putting a new “fishing pole into the water,” hoping that one of the definitions will catch a client. That client will become the foundation from which the new business will grow. Unfortunately what most often happens is that the proverbial fisher ends up with 18 fishing poles in the water. He or she spends valuable time running up and down the proverbial riverbank, checking to see whether anything has happened. If the answer is negative, he or she might even add more.
As time passes, the fisher’s effectiveness at defining a skill set or attending to any one pole becomes more and more diluted. He or she gets more confused and less attention from people who might have been interested in someone who focused on a single goal.
The illusion here is that more fishing poles means more options are open. But in fact, that is not remotely true. The 18 fishing poles in the water mean it is 18 times harder for the fisher to respond to a real offer. The illusion of 18 fishing poles makes decisions seems 18 times closer, but in fact each decision is just as far as if it were one, and the fisher’s time is over invested in attending to things that haven’t caught any attention.
Do you have 18 fishing poles in the water? If you do, find someone who can help you determine which 3 or 4 are worth investing real time in. Pull the other poles out. Use the time that you would have spent tending them focusing your direction and defining your plan.
Liz Strauss
Behind every Successful small business there is an Outstanding Manager. — The Perfect Virtual Manager