Categorizing

How does it come about that one starts this journey? Or more precise:

How does it come about that one starts a journey?

And with this I mean a journey in general. A mind journey, education, visiting places, direction less.

Form my own observation, a journey starts when one is ready. And one is ready when the known gets too stale. So it depends on how a situation is being experienced. Life is a flow, going in one direction (you can’t reverse it yet) of time. At any given moment, a situation can be such a constellation that starts a journey. It depends how big this journey is going to be. Typically, a big journey that really moves you far out into the unknown, is preceded by many smaller jumps, that never really feel as accomplishing what is necessary. Take a few of those, and at a point in the future looking back, one will see that these small hops brought you to the departure platform. Without these hops, one would not have been able to go on this big journey.

But, how to get an idea, some orientation, some structure? – I don’t think there is a right answer or a wrong answer for that matter. There are relevant ideas for each one’s situation, and loads of noise. (But the parts that you consider noise are the relevant bits for others). So how to distinguish the relevant from the noise?

The information and ideas available – more than ever thanks to the internet – can relatively easily and with little effort be categorized. But to discern which categories are of interest for you in this moment of your journey and your life, one needs to be aware of what this situation is. As we all constantly develop, we all constantly gather experience, we all constantly evolve intellectually, collect new knowledge and experiences, this assessment needs to be repeated frequently. (Or would you say that your five minutes younger self before you started reading this post and you right now are identical? No, you are not. Each agreement on anything I wrote so far (or disagreement) thought you something, made you evolve. So it already changed you, subtle but non the less.) This is why people change the Meyers-Briggs types over time for example.

This is where I spent some time recently to piece apart how to easily categorize, and how to easily assess where I fit in. I found this to be a valuable experience, so I’d like to share:

I focus for the purpose of simplifying the explanation on the work place, as this is a well known and clearly tangible entity. The principles can be transferred easily.

First let’s evaluate your function level:

I see three levels:

• The Overview
• Specific Disciplines
• Product Experience

The Overview is a cross-functional ideological function. This does not necessarily mean a managerial role. But it most likely indicates a Leadership role. See the difference here.
The Specific Disciplines are the various typical educations and apprenticeships one can get.
The Product Experience is how the consumer of the product experiences it as a whole. This specifically is not limited to the end consumer. It can specifically include company internal customers. e.g. every employee experiences the process of asking for time off. With all the details.

Typically, one feels at home in one of the levels, some feel home in two of the levels.

I will go deeper into these levels in another, subsequent post.

Another categorizing aid is the stage in a product life cycle:

• Introduction
• Growth
• Maturity
• Decline

Each stage has very specific requirements. This in return means that everyone will feel the most comfortable in one or two of the stages.

I will expand on the details in another, subsequent post.

I, for myself have found to be at home in the Growth and early Maturity life cycle, with an increasing interest in Introduction. As for the levels, I work in the overview and at the same time in the experience. Sounds contradictory, but is not: I can take any problem, understand all the details how they are, and how they should be. Then I can take the problem apart, reconfigure the building blocks, add and remove until on the overview level I have the configuration that will create the results I am looking for in the experience. This then are very clear requirements at the specific disciplines. I do not need to know or concern myself how each member in the specific disciplines does it’s part (and I do mean this positive. I trust the knowledge these individuals have and their ethics. I do not require to know better).

Recognizing this has shown me that I would not be happy with a year long education e.g. as a mechanical engineer or doctor or… Also, it has shown me I need the crazy times in the early stages of a product life cycle, the times when there is room for revolutionary approaches, experimenting, making mistakes aka learning the valuable lessons. Once a product reaches the high point in maturity and during decline, there will be small continues efforts, evolutionary changes.

Why is it so important to know your home level and your home stages?

Because this tells you what position in what kind of company you fit best in. And if you are right now in a matching position. Or if a mismatch could explain why you are ready for a journey.