This week, I wrote about "Not the best"-itis, a particular flavor of imposterism where you compare yourself to others.
One of my coworkers read the post & added this corrollary:
It's also important to realize this applies to everyone around you for both skills and knowledge gaps!
Nobody is the best at everything, and someone who you may think is a wizard may be completely lacking knowledge or skills that you have.
It's obvious when you say it: Nobody knows everything. So often we act like "I know nothing & other developers are gods!" but this simply isn't true. It can't possibly be true!
I can think of two ways this corollary affects your work:
- Since it's normal not to know everything, it becomes easier to ask for help
- When a coworker struggles or you wonder "what were they thinking?", you become more charitable - believing they did the best with the knowledge and resources they had