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This morning I received a message from one of our Graduates In Training (GIT’s) : “Hi Justin, quick question. What would you say is the one thing that makes you good at what you do. The key ingredient?”

Now that isn’t quite as easy to answer as it first seems. The challenge is keeping it down to one, when there are a number of things that one is or one does that makes you who you are, but which of those makes you GOOD at what you do.

My first answer was “Willingness to learn” sent fairly quickly. To me we have to be learning things all the time, formal learning, reading, on the job, always sucking up new knowledge and building on the skill set we have. But that still doesn’t really quite get to the heart of it.

So I sent a second message “That + questioning all the time, if you don’t understand something ask, don’t just accept what people say, make them explain why, that way you learn or find out they are not right”.

That was much closer to the heart of it. Have that questioning, enquiring mind. Want to know why things are the way they are and don’t just accept them for the way they are.
The other extension to that is creating a learning culture and environment wherever you are. Not accepting things have to be the way they are and encouraging people around you to learn and to share. Knowledge is power, if shared and if used to support one another. Standing on the shoulders of giants comes to mind**. Some people sadly still see knowledge as power for themselves, so hold onto knowledge and don’t want to share. Those aren’t my kind of people and I certainly don’t want to work with them or surround myself with them.

There are many other things that make one good at what we do :

• Quality
• Persistence
• Perseverance
• Technical competence
• Hard Work
• Lead from the front
• Surround yourself with good people, with diverse skills
• Recognise the contribution of others and publicly & privately acknowledge it (the latter half of that I’m not particularly good at – don’t do it often enough).

Perhaps each of us is different enough that we will all have a different “one thing” that makes us good at what we do, and the challenge for each of us is to find that one thing for us that allows us to be the best we can be. If we can see someone similar to ourselves who resonates with us and we can learn from them, great.

Be delighted for you to share your thoughts on the matter.

Simphiwe, thanks for asking the question, and for your enthusiasm and infectious laughter every day, brings sunshine to our lives.

Other Comments from respected IT personalities : 

Great blog post, for me it’s passion, heart, attitude. All synonymous for how one feels towards something, one can be the best in one’s field or subject matter, but without these qualities you just not going to get people to rally behind you.  Yusuf Loonat (Head : Service Delivery : Enterprise Information Management Services : Transnet)

The key ingredients for me  is pride, passionate, commitment and ethics. All the others are important but these are the threads that hold it together and provide meaning and relevance. Kevin Govender (Head : Strategy and Architecture : Enterprise Information Management Services : Transnet)

to @jjza well written. A passion to make a difference would be my answer. One will find all the ingredients required to satisfy the passion.. Raghuvansh Swami (Partner : Ernst & Young)  (@swamira)

From twitter conversation with Darren Smith (@DazMSmith) :

to @DazMSmith Would appreciate your thoughts on this – Question raised by a graduate intern of mine

to @jjza A fascinating question. With no easy answer. But “attitude” separates the mediocre from the exceptional. They envisage 1st, then do.

to @DazMSmith True. I’m intrigued to see most of the answers relate to personal traits rather than knowledge, skill or experience.

to @jjza Absolutely agree! All the skill in the world will get you nowhere if you do nothing with your potential. Or knowledge. Or opportunity.

**  Wikipedia tells me to thank Bernard of Chartres not Sir Isaac Newton – interesting