Go above and beyond: Don't just do it, own it

When I was in school, back in Romania, I had PE 2 times per week. And man, did I hate PE! I hated running, I hated playing basketball or other such games, I hated anything that wasn't gymnastics. How did this hate came to be? Looking back, I see it as a self-sustaining prophecy: I didn't do much physical activity, and when I had to do it I didn't put my heart into it, and I sucked at it. Not being good at PE made me hate it.

When I was in university - joy, no more PE! I decided to go to a gym. Because this was something that I wanted and I had to pay for, I put my heart into it. And lo and behold, I loved it. It gave me energy, I had fun, I became better and better. The day I first ran 10K I was ecstatic.

We have a choice in life: take a task and get it done, quick and easy; or put our hearts and minds into it. Choosing room number 2 requires more effort and energy, but offers so much better results and so much more satisfaction!

 "Love life, engage in it, give it all you've got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it." (Mays Angelou)

To continue my gym saga, at the beginning I didn't know how to properly do many exercises. For example, crunches. Arguably one of the most popular exercise (who doesn't want that elusive 6 pack?), it's so easy to get it wrong or to not to reach the max effectiveness. I learned with experience to breath correctly (exhale as I sit up, inhale as I lie down), keep the muscles engaged on the down move (squeeze the abs on the way down), don't yank my neck, but use the abs instead, don't use momentum and get up to the right height. Now I know how to do it, so I have a choice: go to the gym and just "do it", or I can focus and pay attention to the form and all the parts of the move. Not just doing it, owning it, doing it like it's my purpose in life. And you know what? It takes effort, but I am rewarded with a very effective workout, a positive state of mind and desire to do it again.

How does this relate to work? I am a software engineer, so I'll tie it back to writing code. Developers X and Y both get the task nobody wants. They must add some new functionality to a piece of code that nobody knows and nobody touches. For good reason, the code is a boilerplate of nonsense that can’t be poked at, or it may explode.

X looks at the code, his eyes glaze over and he decides to do the only possibly sane thing: stay away. He writes the new code in a bubble and plugs it in by touching the least amount of the existing code. It works (barely). He doesn't write too many tests, cause after all it's not his code. Better to finish this task and move on. If someone finds bugs with it later - your problem, dude. Tag, you're it!

Y looks at the code, scratches his head and decides that the code needs a refactoring. He keeps rewrites the whole thing. It wasn’t his code, but he MADE it his. The new functionality flows naturally, everything is tested and the product just got better. 

Did Y spent more time on this task? Hell, yeah! Did he do a better job? The feature is working and it's integrated with previous functionality. It's better tested and it's easier to maintain in the future. He is proud of it and he is more than happy to add new functionality to it!

 X just did the task he was given, Y took ownership of the task and went above and beyond. Personally, I did both in different situations. I took shortcuts when I had other priorities, other constraints or other excuses I could make. But I can attest that every time I took ownership, I got the most out of it. I was inspired, totally present and engaged, and I got satisfaction and recognition.

"What you put into life is what you get out of it" - Clint Eastwood

 There is nothing I love more than to see people taking ownership (including myself). I know we will get the job done the best way, and also be happy and engaged. So here is my career and work plan: for tasks that matter, don't just do it, own it!