Read These 5 Books To Get Promotion, Raise, or New Job

A few days ago I came across an online article that was published in 2012. Right under the headline there was a note advising the reader that the article is old and its contents might be irrelevant.

If the information gets outdated so quickly, should we still read books? How can they stay relevant? Can they compete with the Internet?

These days most of my reading happens online, through articles, posts, and blogs. They are recent, relevant, informative, and short. And yet, books still keep a very special place in my heart. Some of them shaped my personality, showed me the way, and helped me achieve my goals. Some of them I have re-read several times, every time finding a new important aspect. Some of them I use as a reference when need an example or a solution for a specific problem.

I give you 5 books that have been crucial for my professional journey. Some of them are pretty old but they are not outdated. They teach the fundamental truth, they show the way to improve and grow. I want to share these books with you. I chose one in each of the following categories: development, testing, leadership, teamwork, empowerment.

Development

We live in an era of digital transformation. We support millions of rows of legacy code that is hard to understand and even harder to maintain. According to Michael Feathers, the author of Working Effectively with Legacy Code, the definition of the "legacy code" is this: code without tests.

The truth is, our industry has a major problem: people who write code don't have to test it, or in many cases maintain it after it's written. That's why for many years we have been mostly concerned with finding ways to engage in easy, comfortable, continuous code writing. The result is the legacy code that was easy to write but is now impossible to read, understand, test, change or add to.

Don't be discouraged by the fact that the book was first published in 2004. It's relevant and will help you become a better programmer, regardless of what language you use, and whether you are working on a legacy or a brand new application. After all, a green field product can easily turn into a legacy black hole as soon as it hits its first production release.

Learn techniques and patterns to refactor and optimize your legacy code, reduce dependencies, and establish a test harness. Adopt TDD approaches and start practicing "cover and modify" instead of "edit and pray". Write better code, improve quality and teach others. If this doesn't bring you a reward in the form of a raise or promotion, start looking for a job, I'm sure you'll have a few amazing offers.

Testing

Testing has always been a largely misunderstood area. With testing happening so late in the game, we turned our Quality engineers into Quality police that checked the product against the requirements and fought the deadlines at the end of the project.

With the transition to Agile testing became mostly ignored. We think about Agile development as... well, development. Testing still comes as an afterthought, only now it's crammed into a tiny little hole at the end of a tiny little sprint.

We don't talk enough about testing. We don't raise the painful questions of conflicting cultures within the team, as well as within the larger organization.

Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams is a special book. It's a must read if you are a tester, or if you manage QA or cross-functional Agile teams. It addresses every single challenge the testers go through in their transition to Agile: loss of identity, fears, lack of training, mini-waterfall, functional silos, test automation, different types of tests and how each one fits in the fast paced development cycle.

The way I'd like you to read the book is chapter by chapter, followed by a discussion with your tester peers. Compare your challenges with those described by Lisa and Janet. Can you adopt some of their advice? Can you stop the death march and the passive-aggressive confrontation between Dev and QA? Can you deliver faster? Ultimately, can you improve the quality of your product?

Leadership

I read this little book a few years ago while studying for the MBA degree. Despite its humble size and somewhat silly cover, Zapp! was a highlight of the entire course. In a short and simple tale it taught me everything I had to know to jump-start my leadership journey.

How to build a culture of open mindedness, innovation, initiative, and ownership? How do people react when they are told versus asked for help? What works better, micromanagement or empowerment, and most importantly, why?

The book outlines strategies and simple steps on your way to servant leadership, as well as potential pitfalls and common mistakes. It is entertaining, and it will make you grin when you recognize situations and the cast of characters you certainly met over the course of your career.

It's a quick and cheap read (hint: check out the "Used" options). So go ahead, buy a copy. Put it on your summer reading list, take it with you to the beach, read it in your hammock next to the campfire.

Back in the office, start exercising leadership and empowerment. Observe how it makes you feel and act. See how "zapping" affects people around you. Make a personal goal and grow into a new role (formal or informal) by the end of the year.

Teamwork

This book reminds me of another MBA class that gave me hands down the most important knowledge: what teams are about and how they work.

What's interesting about The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable is that it doesn't focus on a typical team of individual contributors, like developers or testers. Instead, it tells the story of a new CEO who has to get a failing company back on track and achieve some aggressive business goals, while dealing with all kinds of attitudes from her direct reports - the C-suite.

The book is not as funny as the previous one on my list, but is still extremely engaging. The group of characters has to go through some painful realizations about themselves and each other. The story uncovers some difficult truths about conflicts, personal agendas, trust, and accountability.

The ideas of teamwork apply to all levels, not just the development teams. The higher you go in the corporate structure, the less teamwork and team spirit you typically find. It becomes more and more about ego and status, and it's not a coincidence that the author Patrick Lencioni chose a bunch of dysfunctional executives as a perfect example of how not to be a team.

Put this book on your desk and think about dysfunctions and anti-patterns that your team demonstrates. What can you do to make your team better? If you are a manager, do you even belong to a team? Raise these questions, find like-minded folks in your organization and make your team functional and successful. Make sure your effort is visible and has tangible outcomes aligned with the business objectives, and a promotion will surely follow.

Empowerment

Last night I was at a local Agile meetup. A bunch a people huddled together working on a practice problem printed on a piece of paper. We tried to rotate the page back and forth so that everybody could read the problem, when a young woman softly said - it's OK, I can read upside down. It struck me as a very feminine thing to do.

If you're a woman, you have probably read Lean In Women, Work, and the Will to Lead right when it was published, back in 2013. If you haven't yet, put it on your list, or better yet, on your reading group list. Talk it over with friends or female colleagues.

The question Sheryl Sandberg is addressing is this: how do I find my voice? It's about the way we say things out loud, as well as our inner voice that whispers we are not qualified. It's about awareness and many different subtle ways we can sabotage ourselves. It's about making active choices about our careers and earnings.

Read the book, discuss it with other women and find your voice. Grow up and grow out. Woman up and take what you deserve and if it's not with the current employer, then with another. Sit at the table, drive the change. Lean in.

What books helped you get where you are?

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