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Philip John Basile
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Greatest Advice I’ve Heard in a Long Time

"Just learn how to get stuff done. I’ve seen at every level people who are very good at describing problems, people who are very sophisticated in explaining why something went wrong or why something can’t get fixed.

But what I’m always looking for is, no matter how small the problem or how big it is, somebody who says, 'Let me take care of that.’

If you project an attitude of whatever it is that's needed, I can handle it and I can do it., whoever is running that organisation will notice, I promise.

And which is why I think with young people, you don't always need to be so impatient asking for the plum assignment. A lot of times the best way to get attention is whatever is assigned to you, you are just nailing. You’re killing it. Because people will notice, 'Oh, that's somebody who can get something done.'"

  • Obama

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Top comments (13)

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petermilovcik profile image
PeterMilovcik

How can one balance the need to take initiative with the risk of taking on too much and getting overwhelmed?

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toddpress profile image
Todd Pressley

short answer? there is no blue pill here… one simply needs to note their personal metrics - velocity comes to mind but usually in the context of teams (for good reason). once a trend can be established, and the goldilocks workload identified, one’s taking of initiative becomes a mitigated risk.

i’ve personally found that taking every initiative is not a very effective way of showing initiative… becoming the expert on a specific type of thing or project area has been much more beneficial to my career than burning myself into the ground trying to do everything well.

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philipjohnbasile profile image
Philip John Basile

Metrics are a hot topic. You depend on alot of people getting things right to measure a task. A lot of the time it’s going in blind and hoping for the best but measuring for the worst.

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ryencode profile image
Ryan Brown

Similar to advice I was given starting work life:

Don't scoff at the scutt work. Do what needs to be done, show you can sweep the floors as good as land the next big contract. It's all work that needs to be done.

In doing so, I learned more about whole sides of business which helps in being able to problem solve in a wider domain than a silo'd "I only do X" mindset.

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philipjohnbasile profile image
Philip John Basile • Edited

I was a ‘I only do X’ mindset human. Specialists are expensive and expendable.

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diomed profile image
May Kittens Devour Your Soul

he is needed, and needed badly—the man who can
Carry a message to Garcia.

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overFlow

People forget that he is a politician he is good with words and what he said is probably taken out of context.
Politicians really know how to talk. And that is all politics is all about. come to coding there is a whole lot of time to be invested in it and brain work. Social life and health and other aspects of a persons life can suffer. If you are gonna be a do it all, I feel that you are gonna thin yourself out. And I really feel that one needs to get to a point where one specialises. Do a handful of things and do them very good. Have a focus. And avoid burn out.

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pinotattari profile image
Riccardo Bernardini

No, I am sorry. Even if Obama said that it remains something so awfully superficial, PHB level superficial. It is just the old adagio "Bring me solutions, not problems" just in a fancier dressing.

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overFlow

People forget that he is a politician he is good with words and what he said is probably taken out of context.

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katafrakt profile image
Paweł Świątkowski

That's an advice on how to get noticed by the management - and as such it's probably good. It's worth to not mistake it for an advice about how to make a good software or something like that.

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philipjohnbasile profile image
Philip John Basile

It’s also a way to gain job security in this market. Management isn’t interested in ‘good software’. They just want things to get done and someone who can do it. I’ve been doing this for 24 years now and the Swiss army humans always last and get promoted. This is coming from a life long ui specialist.

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vegas73509 profile image
FuadVegas

Consider well ..!

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dimitrim profile image
Dimitri Mostrey

Building a house goes brick by brick. Creating a project goes line by line. Both have something important in common: A good plan