How to do good work fast: pursue craft, not politics

In my previous post¹, I argued that being able to do high-quality work, fast, is a superpower.

In the next several posts, I’ll share what I’ve learned about how to do good work fast. Specifically, I’ll explore the character traits and habits that I’ve consistently observed in people who possess the superpower.

A helpful mental model is sharpening the axe.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

—Abraham Lincoln

A sharp axe bites far deeper on every swing. Someone who is fast and good gets far more ROI per hour of work.

This is a matter of the mind: when you apply the full power of your mental force, how much impact is created? How much can you accomplish?

Pursuit of the craft, not politics

“Politics” broadly means pursuing career above all else. Career becomes craft, and the primary skill is acquisition of power and influence, not talent.

One of the best works on politics is a short college commencement speech from the 1940s². In The Inner Ring, C.S. Lewis argues that the pursuit of being on the inside (politics), which we all desire, will ultimately turn us into people we don’t want to be. The antidote is becoming a craftsman:

The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it.

—C.S. Lewis, The Inner Ring

People are political creatures whose natural tendency is to act out of self interest, so politics are unavoidable in any organization. Naivety to this reality guarantees frustration and disappointment.

Those with the superpower acquire enough political understanding skill to serve the pursuit of their craft. Michael Lopp described this dynamic in his article, The Wolf³:

They understand how “the system” works, they understand how to use “the system” to their advantage, they understand why “the system” exists, but they think “the system” is a bit of a joke.

Craft creates career

Ironically, those who pursue craft over politics often move up the political ladder anyways.

Steve Jobs described this dynamic is his classic take on managers⁴:

...you know what's interesting? You know who the best managers are? They're the great individual contributors who never ever want to be a manager, but decide they have to be a manager because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as them.

—Steve Jobs in a 1985 interview

In my experience, these great individual contributors are sought out for management before they step up themselves, first because real talent and the respect that comes with it is rare, but more often because the authenticity of their motives means they can be trusted. Leaders, especially those at the top of an organization, have very little time margin, so trusted, apolitical reports are a precious resource.

While management is the most common way to progress at many companies, the engineering discipline has developed staff and principal roles⁵, which enable talented people to advance without running teams. This is a pattern other disciplines of knowledge work would be wise to adopt.

Stay in love with craft

As those with the superpower progress in their career, the natural pressures of demand for their talent create forces that pull them away from practicing their craft (and learning new crafts).

The forces are almost always more responsibility: management, ownership of a project, transition to a new role, team or company.

If those forces aren’t resisted, the superpower atrophies and you begin to draw down the equity the superpower created previously, without making new deposits. When the account gets low, career as craft becomes the path of least resistance and, if followed, creates the kind of managers and bureaucracy we hate working for.

The key is staying in love with the work, which means figuring out ways to do the work, week-in, week-out.

Footnotes

1. My first post in this series is called Being fast and good is a superpower. ↩

2. C.S. Lewis delivered his speech, The Inner Ring, at King’s College, University of London, in 1944. ↩

3. Michael Lopp writes Rands in Repose. The Wolf is an insightful article about the “10x engineer.” ↩

4. You can watch Steve Jobs’ short bit on management on YouTube. ↩

5. You can learn about staff engineers at staffeng.com. ↩