Reprint: 7 Skills that a CEO should learn from a software engineer

What are the skills of a software engineer worthy of the CEO's learning? Clearly, software engineers are logical, efficient, detail-oriented, planned, and so are most CEOs. But the software engineer has some more subtle, even annoying qualities, so can the CEO learn from it?

Lazy

Good engineers (not just software engineers) are lazy: they like to automate repetitive work and are reluctant to do any unnecessary work. Meetings and clerical work usually fall into this category. By avoiding unnecessary work, software engineers can be more efficient and have more time to do more useful work.

CEOs should also strive to be more efficient and lazy. Remove unnecessary activity and put energy and time into the task of increasing value. In most cases, it makes no sense to repeat the same thing. If you must do it over and over again, use automated methods. If you can't do it automatically, entrust it!

Often fail

Software engineers have some of the same qualities as inventors and scientists-all suffering from the wind and rain of failure. Usually, this is intentional, but sometimes it is experimental. This is not reckless, but a fearless. The unknown is a risk that needs to be explored, and you cannot refuse to be out of the door. Focusing on experimentation and prototyping allows people to learn quickly.

The CEO's adapting to this approach will have a huge impact: exploring new markets, experimenting with different approaches, and even researching trends and expectations. The key is to fail quickly and without wasting costs, and remember the purpose. (If you think it sounds a bit like lean production, then it's right.) ）

If you don't always fail, it means you haven't tried anything new.

Manufacturing issues

Software engineers are actively looking for problems, and sometimes even deliberately creating problems. The problem is a disguised opportunity, but not finding the problem does not mean that there is no problem. Software engineers would rather ruin the results than see what would happen. They write tests just to make sure that all edge situations are valid. They implement a monitoring system so that problems can be warned. All in all, they listen to people complaining-because it can be a surprise, and it's the same as finding a problem.

The CEO of a startup should learn how to do this systematically, explore the opportunity space until they find the right problem to solve, use the right solution, target the right market, and at the right time. Helps enterprises to gain a foothold. The CEOs of well-known companies do well in this area, and they make problems as a form of continuous improvement.

Do it yourself.

Software engineers often don't like to talk on paper. They not only fight in the coding front, but also work with users and customers to understand the various requirements and complaints. The answer is not that you sit in the office and come out: they're in the factory floor, in the customer's office. Learn about the concept of user experience in the software world and how it should be applied to your supply chain, as well as your employees. A new angle could mean a huge surprise.

Ignoring the human factor

When a software engineer is working, it often ignores human factors, especially when they are trying to implement improvements. Most problems, they argue, originate somewhere in the system--time, money, motivation, incentives, standards, or processes--individuals often powerless to solve the system. Culture, peer pressure, and prejudice to the status quo are formidable hurdles to overcome. What has not been resolved, the change system is the sword that hangs over the head of the software engineer, which is irrelevant to the human factor.

CEOs are often accustomed to dealing with political systems and dealing with people, so they may tend to assign risk and blame to individuals. Sometimes it might be a good idea, but if you look back at the systems that people used to run, you might find that the system is the root of the problem.

Keep in mind that no system is perfect and no system is sacred and inviolable.

Kill Your darling.

Engineers are not afraid to test their ideas, and if they prove impractical, they will not hesitate to discard them. They often "kill their own darlings" by abandoning valuable ideas and amateur programs, no matter how fascinating the beloved is, if they can't work. CEOs can "kill their own darlings" by looking at reality for their ideas, or by objectively evaluating the performance of others. (It is obvious that killing is illegal, and that this is not a real person.) ）

Idle

Software engineers are often in a daze, but they call it system thinking: the ability to think of a complex interconnected system as a whole. Systematic thinking can be said to be the most important (and sometimes most annoying) catalyst for the continuity and simplicity of complexity. Software engineers are adept at systematic thinking, and solving problems often requires them to balance multiple constraints, including time, money, and quality. While this habit is very annoying when deciding where to go for lunch, it is valuable when dealing with important issues and finding opportunities.

CEOs must handle multiple interconnected systems and conflict constraints at all times. It is not enough to examine each part in isolation-you must also consider all the potential related relationships and forces. System thinking also includes from multiple angles, high-level and subtle thinking. Thus, a complete model can serve as a framework for identifying, organizing, and resolving sub-problems. Often, a few simple ideas and rules are enough to transform a messy failure into a holistic crystallization.

Software engineers don't get paid for writing code: they're thinking. System thinking is not going to happen when you write code (but sometimes the two may be at the same time). So, if you see a software engineer in a daze, often in a daze, that is the real work should look like. The simple and elegant solution is not falling from the sky, but through unremitting thinking and pursuit.

Creativity

Give yourself a little quiet time, play all your imagination and creativity to take on the problems you need to solve as a CEO. Analyze the intricacies and constraints of the problem. Guess the interplay between them. Think from multiple angles. Find patterns and analogies that help explain or simplify what's happening or what you want to happen. And when you find a possible answer, run a quick and inexpensive experiment to test it. And then repeat. Cycle. Your work, like the work of a software engineer, is never finished.

Reprint: 7 Skills that a CEO should learn from a software engineer