🪚 𝗜𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝘄 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗻𝘁? 𝗜𝗳 𝗻𝗼𝘁, 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗽?

🪚 𝗜𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝘄 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗻𝘁? 𝗜𝗳 𝗻𝗼𝘁, 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗽?

The phrase “sharpening the saw” originates from a parable popularized by Stephen Covey in his 1989 book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where it represents the practice of self-renewal and personal improvement.

📖 Covey begins his chapter on this habit with a story of a man struggling to cut down a tree with a dull saw and refusing to stop and sharpen it because he’s “too busy sawing” — illustrating the need to regularly invest in growth to remain effective.

☁️ 𝗔𝗪𝗦 𝗮𝗻𝗱 “𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝘄”

AWS applies this concept by embedding continuous improvement, self-renewal, and learning processes at both organizational and individual levels. In my role as Solutions Architect, I’m incentivized to reserve time in my calendar to sharpen my saw — in this case, to learn about new technologies and services as well as my customers’ industries. This is also embodied in the Amazon Leadership Principle “Learn and Be Curious.”

⚖️ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗰𝘁

Like everything in life, it’s counterbalanced by other demands. In my role, the Leadership Principle “Customer Obsession” clearly states that customers are always the focus. At first glance, this might imply that I can’t take time for sharpening my saw, but rather should spend all my time on customers.

💡 It took me a while to realize that one aspect of customer obsession is really caring about myself — about my skills — so that I can better help my customers.

❓ 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗬𝗼𝘂:

  How do you keep up to date?   How do you manage to reserve time for this?   How do you justify it for yourself and in front of your stakeholders?

🏃‍♂️ 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

This post has been inspired by Kobi Omenaka’s post I read this morning on my commute. He compares corporate professionals and professional sports athletes. The former are pushed to perform 99% of their working time, while the latter spend 90% on training and perform “only” 10% during competitions. The question he raises is: how sustainable are those approaches? His post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kobiomenaka_athletes-spend-90-of-their-time-training-activity-7376217271620513792-kCaD