Optimizing for your Superpowers
When I started working, I eagerly awaited feedback on areas I was weak at. I did this primarily to “fill in the gaps” so I could be the best possible well-rounded professional. I used to observe what my colleagues were doing and try to become better at things that they were good at just so I could be the best at everything. Soft and hard skills.
I defined hard skills as skills I needed to do the technical part of my job. Performance tuning databases or optimizing SQL or fine-tuning architectures. I was good at all these but always wanted to become better so I read whatever I could find on the subject, was the first to jump at problems that I saw, and ultimately I became good at it. Good. Not really good. I recall this one instance where I was trying to improve the performance of a specific SQL statement and after going at it for hours a colleague came in and solved the problem in 30 minutes. I was in awe but also agitated that I didn’t get to the problem. This person however was not very good at architecture or general database performance.
Soft skills were those that I needed to do the non-technical part of my job. Things such as communication - written and verbal, time-management, adaptability, problem-solving, teamwork, creativity, interpersonal skills, management reporting, work ethic, timeliness, and presenting to leadership fit into this bucket. Once again I was good at this but always observed and tried to mimic other colleagues that were really good at a specific skill. For example, there was this one colleague who was a crisp communicator and his weekly status updates were clear and concise. My status updates were a bit wordier.
Over the ensuing years, I have realized that it's important to have a range of hard and soft skills. A baseline so to speak and to then build out your Superpowers. For example, you can be the smartest engineer in the room but if you are unwilling to communicate your ideas to your product managers or designers, or other engineers they will go nowhere.
The second dimension and this is a really important dimension is do you like doing what you are good at. This is one of Bryan Mason’s (CBO at VSCO) favorite questions: “What are you really good at, but never want to do anymore?”. He uses it to weed out the right fit for a job but I think you can use this to figure out your own superpowers. If you really don’t want to do a specific thing any more this should not be your list of superpowers. It's important to note that this can change over time as you go from job to job and progressively learn about yourself.
Visually this is how this looks:
True Superpower(s)
Your true superpower(s) lie at the intersection of things you love doing and things you’re better than everyone else at. These skills (hard or soft) are things that energize you and should form at least 70-80% of your workday.
Super-distractors
You may have things you are better than everyone else at but you hate doing. When interviewing these might stand out in an interview or while taking up projects you may inadvertently be assigned work that has a major component of this kind of work. You’ll excel but will probably hate your job. These should comprise no more than 10% of your day
Hobbies
Things you love doing. I fear if I became a professional writer I’d die of starvation ;) Seriously though, these are things you should consciously identify. While you may want to put your hand up for projects like this at work you may not do a great job if it makes you appear weaker. These should be things you do outside of work to become better at. Don’t make these your job!
Dead Zone’s
These are to be avoided at any costs; it's true that some jobs might require a certain % of your work to be in your dead zone. I recommend your dead zone work be at no more than 10% of your day. This will help you optimize for your true superpowers.
Non-differentiators
Finally at the center point of this entire Venn diagram is a little red dot. These are things that you’re average at, at that specific company. These could also be things you neither hate nor like. They won’t help you stand out or give you an edge. An example is being an engineer at a FAANG company (MAANG I guess now?). It will take you a lot to shine out as an engineer because everyone at these companies is a rockstar engineer.
I hope this framework was helpful. I have purposely not addressed two questions. What if you can’t identify a superpower? Do you fit into the red dot? Secondly, do superpowers make you more likely to succeed? Thoughts, questions, or comments on both these or the article are welcome!
