Be replaceable

Every now and then, my blog takes a slight detour from the usual crypto/tokenization topic to address other things. I enjoy writing about my professional career as a Project Manager and related subject,s and I often find myself wondering whether I should create a separate account to write about those topics.

I haven't yet reached a conclusion, so my readers will get the gift or curse of finding articles like this one every now and then.

Being replaceable

As I mentioned, I'm a Project Manager with over a decade of experience working mainly in the tech industry. One of the good things about working in project-based environments is that you get to work with a lot of different people on a lot of different types of projects.

Because of that, over the years, I've seen a lot of things.

One thing that intrigues me is how some people believe they must be irreplaceable to succeed. I understand where it comes from, but I don't really agree with that way of seeing things.

In my professional career, I've witnessed that more times than I can count. People who refuse to mentor more junior colleagues, people who intentionally omit things of documentation or refuse to document their projects altogether. In many cases, this behaviour stems not from personality archetypes but from the notion that they must be the only person who knows how to do something.

The motivation behind that behaviour is promoting some kind of "scarcity of knowledge," making the people who possess that knowledge a more valuable asset.

That is fundamentally true, of course. People who possess knowledge that is considered useful to an organization are indeed valuable to said organization. The problem, in my opinion, starts when these people try to become the sole gatekeepers of that knowledge instead of becoming multipliers of it.

It may look like they are helping themselves by turning into people who are very hard to replace and thus securing their jobs or their roles for the foreseeable future.

The way I see it, one of the many issues with that strategy, and I'm not even touching on ethics here, is that being hard to replace may mean you will not be taken down anytime soon but it also means you will not be moved up either.

In fact, I just went through a professional situation that backs up my point of view.

Be replaceable

Our biggest client came to us with an urgent need for a Project Manager to help them get a huge project off the ground. They needed someone to start immediately and on a full-time allocation.

We didn't have anyone readily available but my boss still recommended me to the client and I eventually got the "gig".

It's a big opportunity for me as this is a huge project with a lot of visibility and the big reason why my boss recommended me is because he knew I could quickly onboard someone else to take over my current projects with minimal disruption.

That only happened because, some time ago, I made the conscious decision of being replaceable. That means having pristine documentation, creating comprehensive knowledge bases and training my team to be very autonomous in case a transition is needed.

This decision enables me to be considered for promotions and reassignments to better projects, which just happened, and it also makes vacations and sick leaves a lot easier on the team, as they are prepared to fence for themselves for some time, if needed and also on myself as I can have the peace of mind to enjoy some time off to relax and/or heal knowing that the project is in good hands.

Does that expose me to the risk of being replaced? Perhaps. But it's a risk I'm willing to take.

The only situation in which we should be irreplaceable is with our friends, family and loved ones. For everything else, be replaceable.

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