Do this before trying anything new
Insights from the most influential management thinker of our time
The late Clayton Christensen is one of my favorite authors.
In Why Asking Your Customers What They Want Doesn't Work we covered “Competing Against Luck”, and you’ve probably heard about ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’ - but I’m not sure how many people are familiar with “How Will You Measure Your Life?”.
This book covers a variety of topics - career choices, raising children, building a family culture, business insights, teaching, religion, and dealing with cancer.
Through Christensen’s reflections, there are many lessons you can apply in the tech world.
Here are the top 3:
Do a PoC before making a career decision
I’m still surprised how many people decide to get a computer science degree, without even knowing if they enjoy coding. I understand the allure of high salaries or pressure from parents - but it’s so easy to check if you enjoy writing code. Just do a Udemy
course for beginners, and create a small project of your own. If you hate every moment - you’ll never survive as a software engineer.
The same principle holds later on in our careers - a lot of people make decisions without trying out the water first. There are MANY career decisions an engineer needs to make:
Go for the management or IC paths?
Fulltime employment, or freelancing? Or maybe even entrepreneurship?
Being a digital nomad or working from an office?
Work for a small startup or big tech?
Going for something different
A sales engineer
A PM
A consultant
A coach/mentor
And many more.
The common to all of them - you don’t need to make such a decision based on your gut feeling - you can do small proof-of-concepts first.
Management path - ask your manager to replace them on their next long vacation.
Freelancing - try a gig on Fiverr in parallel to your full-time job.
Entrepreneurship - build a small SaaS product before you quit your job.
Being a digital nomad - ask for a month of remote work to try it out (some people go all-in on this one before such a try!)
Being a sales engineer - try to land a freelancing client. You can read
’s thoughts about it in Mastering Sales in Tech Careers, and I wrote about my friends’s story in Becoming a Sales Engineer.Being a PM - ask your manager for a small project to try it out - do the full flow, from discovery to implementation.
Becoming a coach - do some coaching for free, see if you enjoy it.
Don’t stick to long-term vision
From the beginning of his career, Christensen knew he’d be the editor of the Wall Street Journal. After getting his MBA, he was offered a job as a consultant, and decided to take it for a few years, with the thought that it’ll ‘pad’ his resume. Once he gets the job at WSJ, the consulting job will make it easier to be promoted.
After a few years, a friend offered him to start a company, and he went for it. This too was while thinking ‘It’ll be impressive, having run a company will surely improve my chances of being the editor’.
6 years later, another offer came - a career in academia. This time, he finally understood it was ok to change his goals. He went on to get a PhD, and after a decade became a tenured professor, and was very happy with his job.
Without aiming for it, Christensen became one of the best business authors of the last decades!
A career progression is impossible to predict, you can never know what opportunities will arrive.
I’m a very ‘planning’ type of person. My wife often complains about why I need to plan also every hour of the weekend :)
In my career, it’s even worse - I know I want to be a CEO, and I have this imaginary path in front of me. I think that having a long-term goal for your career has benefits, as it pushes you outside your comfort zone. It’s ok as long as you know to grab the opportunities that arrive in your way, and not stick to the plan just because you have a plan…
Don’t outsource the most critical parts
I’ll wrap up with the sad story of Dell and Asus. You can read more about it in this article.
Dell discovered that it could lower the cost of production by asking ASUSTek to make simple circuit boards inside a Dell computer, instead of them making it. Dell then could go to Wall Street and show how it lowers the operating costs.
Then one day, Asus came to Dell with an interesting proposition: “We’ve done a good job making these little circuits for you, let us supply the motherboards for your computers, too. Making motherboards isn’t your competence—it’s ours. And we can make them for a 20 percent lower cost.” The Dell analysts realized that not only could Asus do it cheaper but it would also allow Dell to erase all the motherboard-related manufacturing assets from its balance sheet.
After it had been reorganized to accommodate this arrangement, Asus came to Dell and said, “We’ve done a good job fabricating these motherboards for you, why don’t you let us assemble the whole computer for you, too? Assembling those products is not what’s made you successful. We can take all the remaining manufacturing assets off your balance sheet, and we can do it all for 20 percent less.”
The Dell analysts realized that this, too, was a win-win. That process continued as Dell outsourced the management of its supply chain, and then the design of its computers themselves. Dell essentially outsourced everything inside its personal computer business—everything except its brand—to Asus.
Then, in 2005, Asus announced the creation of its own brand of computers. In this Greek tragedy tale, Asus had taken everything it had learned from Dell and applied it to itself.
Fast forward to 2024 - Asus is worth X5 more than Dell…
Moral of the story - don’t outsource the critical parts of your business, the capabilities that make you unique.
Excellent advice on all fronts, Anton.
Looking back, I was already coding for 2 years before I decided to pursue coding in secondary school and then during college.
I enjoyed every moment, but it requires a mindset where you’re comfortable not knowing the answers every time and with your craft changing every year. This isn’t common in most fields!
Thanks for mentioning my writing!
Such a great book. Has been a few years since I have read but need to read again. Thanks for sharing!