Tag Archives: #Adversity

Communication – is it key?

Communication is easier now than it has ever been. Whenever we need to get in touch with somebody, we can call, e-mail, or text, regardless of where we are and where they are. Geography isn’t an issue; we can instantly send a message to somebody halfway around the world. Some people even text each other while they are in the same house – just because they don’t want to get up and go to another room. Without much effort, we are almost always “connected” if we want to be.

But have you thought about what we may be losing when we depend more on electronic contact and less on face-to-face communication? When we’re with others, we understand them much better. We can read facial expressions, pick up on emotional responses, and communicate our own feelings very clearly. The results is more interaction, more depth, and more substance.

The communication tools available to us today are wonderful. It’s great to be able to get in touch with people anywhere, anytime, and I wouldn’t want to go back to being unable to contact someone easily when I’m out of town or need a quick response on an urgent matter. I like being able to keep in touch with my family regardless of where they are. But when we start to depend on technology as a substitute for one-one-one time with each other, we are missing an important key to relationships. In forming virtual bonds, we may be forsaking the benefits of true human interaction. We need to make sure we are not so connected with everything out there that we miss the chance to connect with the people directly in front of us. Being connected means thinking of others and reaching out. Make that happen as often as you can.

Each person, and or leader, is different and has different methodologies and view points. One of the key components or attributes I have found in leadership is communication and having an open communication with other team members and business units. When was the last time you had effective communication in a meeting? When was the last time you had effective communication about an idea with a team member? Let’s take it a step further, when was the last time you had an open dialogue with your team? Building confidence and building a team takes a strong and discipline element composed of communication.

Don’t settle for the status quo; become an exceptional leader and/or an exceptional Data Professional. Be the game changer and motivator your team needs today.

Growth In The Face Of Adversity

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Adversity as described in Webster’s Dictionary is a state, condition, or instance of serious or continued difficulty or adverse fortune.

Not really a topic most want to talk about, but nonetheless is something we experience on any given day. There are all types of adversity if you think about it. The Data Professional might face adversity on the job, one may face adversity with their health, or one may have ongoing issues with family. Whatever the case may be adversity at some point in ones life will come.

How does the Data Professional handle adversity when it rears it’s ugly head?

You look at your board and you see over 20 initiatives waiting to get completed, a process on one of your SQL Servers is executing extremely slow and you need to figure out why, log shipping decided to croak and you need to ensure that you get this back up and operational, and to top it off your core business server decided to fail over to another node all of a sudden.

All that ever hit at once? If you’ve worked in this business long enough than you realize that adversity will present itself in some form or fashion ~ it’s inevitable. If you have not had to be faced with adversity before than you will at some point.

With all that said adversity does not have to be viewed as a negative occurrence. Looking back, in my own circumstances of being a Data Professional, I see that in some of these instances it is where I have grown and built the experience that I longed to obtain.

Get your learn on

Let me ask this question; when is the last time you ventured out and really dug in and started to learn something? If you had down to learn CMS or Policy Based Management would you depend on others to facilitate that or would you install it on a local machine or spin up a VM and start tinkering around with it and how it works?

In today’s work environment we have so many tools at our disposal; so many community members who are willing to help and offer advice. One of the best phrases I ever read stated, “Failure to learn is not an option”.

The Peaks and the Valleys

Careers can be a set of peaks and a set of valleys. Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m stuck in the same old mundane rut”. How do you break that? One great thing about being a data professional is that we have so much that goes on in a given day. If you really step back and look at it you can start your morning on SSIS, follow it up with some log shipping or disaster recovery planning, review capacity planning, heck why not even throw in some learning of Always On and column store indexes.

I’ve seen the gamut from professionals who are on fire, the flame starts to dwindle, they get burned out, and then you never see them anymore as they move on to other things. Will that be you?

The Opportunities

Now here is the great part that is just lying around the bend. Opportunities abound ~ daily. When adversity strikes don’t get faint hearted or weary. I have first hand knowledge that inspiration is rampant through the SQL Community. When we fall we pick each other up, when you least expect it someone that you works with SQL from overseas will say one encouraging word that will ignite that flame that was about to go out.

Yes, I know it won’t always be a bed of roses for this is the game called life, but how do you handle adversity when it comes your way. Tackle adversity head on, it is in times when you are faced with something great that character is built and learning abounds.

Game Time

It’s fourth quarter and game is on the line. It’s now time as a Data Professional to “D” up. Tackle every day as if it were your last and when you seem to faced with adversity whether it revolves around SQL, learning in general, Cubes, Azure or whatever the case may be – stop, assess, learn, and grow from it.

Be Challenged

Don’t let that flame burn out

Keep Pressing Onward

Adversity – How Do You Handle It?

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Adversity by definition is a difficult situation or condition misfortune or tragedy. When that time comes; how do you handle it?

If replication breaks causing the business to not get the data they need in a timely fashion and you are the lone conductor driving the train down the tracks and everyone is standing at your desk, how do you handle it? I

f your backups failed from the previous night and for some reason your notification of failure didn’t reach you and you had no knowledge of the situation until days later, how do you handle it?

Someone calls and said they can’t access their systems and you find out something is causing tempdb to fill up, how do you handle it?

Better yet, you find out that a certification you were working toward had been retired (MCM), how do you handle it?

Response

I can only speak for myself and no one else, I fell into the same category a lot of people across the nation did of working toward the MCM certification goal. I mean let’s face it, last I checked a very small percentage obtained this goal and being the competitive person I am I wanted to reach that goal. Not for anyone else but for myself and the standards I set for my own self.

At first I was upset and like so many others not so much toward the retiring of the program but how it was delivered by Microsoft. I purposefully waited to construct a blog post as I didn’t want to let emotions get in the way of potential views toward the topic.

Adversity has now hit for a lot of people, for me in particular I choose not to dwell on it but wait to see what will be offered next by Microsoft, restructure my goals, and move forward. I am a bit biased but I get to work with some of the best technology day in and day out and am in constantly learning mode. Some of the things that we can control are the way we handle adversity when it rears its ugly head, the attitude to how we conduct ourselves through the adversity, and the character building we can learn from it.

Am I happy about the retirement, no I wasn’t. At the end of the day though I do have a lot to be thankful for and looking back on my studying, lab testing, hours of working toward the certification it allowed me to push myself to learn a lot more than what I did the previous day and the day before that. I’m eager to see where the next chapter leads in the stepping stone of my learning.

Adversity – how will you handle it? Each of us are different; doesn’t make one person better than the next by how we handle it, but I do encourage others to push through adversity when it comes. You’ll be a stronger person in doing so.