By Teaching, We Learn

“Docendo discimus.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Back to school: USACE engineer interns in Europe to mentor students on academic futures I often want to teach something I just learned. This may not be great for the people learning from me (sorry guys!). But I love to share the cool things I’ve learned from others.

For example, a year after I become a technical manager at a large corporation, I started offering management workshops to aspiring leaders on my team. This was the first time I had been formally managing people, though I had a strong passion for it. I consumed classes, breathed in books & blogs, and met with experienced managers to better learn this craft. I also made a lot of mistakes along the way, and took note of each painful lesson I learned.

Before each workshop, I crafted a lesson plan. I picked a central topic, researched various opinions & approachs for it, and related a personal story of how I’ve seen or tried to implement it. Feedback from the attendees shaped what I taught in subsequent classes, though I loosely followed an overall outline too.

My first few workshops probably sucked. I like to think that they got better over time. I hope they did. My management skills improved though, from both having to think about and explain various topics, to hearing suggestions from the attendees. Ironically, even though I was the one teaching, they ended up teaching me a lot too.

Later, I started offering general business workshops for my entire team. I thought I could make each software engineer more effective by helping them understand the motivations behind the actions of our business leaders.

At that time, I wasn’t formally in any kind of a business role. I was still a technical manager. But I dealt with product, buisness development, and marketing teams often enough to get a sense of their motivations and ways of thinking. That, and I consumed classes, breathed in books & blogs, and met with experienced managers too. This helped a lot when I took roles as a product manager and product director later in my career.

I may not have been the best teacher, but hopefully I imparted my teams with some useful knowledge. For myself, these experiences have been incredibly enlightening. I thought I was the teacher, when in reality, I was really the student.

Photo by: USACE Europe District

Author: Mike Lee

An idealistic realist, humanistic technologist & constant student.

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