The space between sabbaticals: 9 lessons from the past four years

I don’t know quite when I became this person, but I’ve come to recognize that reflection is one of the ways that I learn from life. There’s something about the process of rumination — a long, slow affair of picking apart the things that have surfaced in my life over a period of time — that helps me to better understand the patterns in my life. I try to make time in my schedule to regularly reflect, and make it a point to do a daily personal journal, a weekly career reflection, and an annual review of the lessons I’ve learned.

But coming into my third sabbatical at Adobe, I started to think about longer cycles. A year is a long time, but five years (or, in this case, four) is an eternity when you’re talking about a career. And so I committed to spend a bit of time during my current sabbatical thinking about what I learned at work since my last sabbatical. What happened? What themes have I observed? How have I grown? What have I learned?

Journaling is a key part of processing what’s happened in a day, week, or month.

The past four years have been dominated by a wildly swinging pendulum of public health crises, civil unrest, an increasingly polarized political system, war, economic instability, potential famine, and a 24-hour news cycle that fanned the flames. Personally, in the past four years, I’ve had three managers and multiple projects, many of which have spanned multiple teams and squads.

Despite these challenges, I recognize that I’ve also been given a certain level of stability and safety in which to grow professionally. The past four years were also stable personally, and I had the privilege of not having had to worry deeply about things further down Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

So, with this context, here are the lessons I’ve learned in the space between sabbaticals.

#1 Stability in your leadership can foster intentional growth

Despite having three manager changes in the space of about a year and a half, my leadership chain has been surprisingly stable over the past four years. As a result, the people who have managed me have known me, which was a relative luxury. In the previous decade, I’d been shuffled through management chains in different organizations, which meant that I had to work to re-establish trust and repeatedly have the same conversations about where I wanted to go with my career. With two notable exceptions, instability in immediate management chain meant little to no opportunity for actual growth.

These past four years have been full of development opportunities; I was able to step into bigger roles, more complex projects, and spend more time working with partner teams instead of just my own team. At no time did I feel bored or that I was coasting; I always felt like I knew what the challenge was, and how it would make me grow.

One of the key theories in education is the Zone of Proximal Development, first introduced by Vygotsky. Part of the reason I love this is that it talks about where an individual learns the best: not under-challenged, but not over-challenged, either. There’s something about that sweet spot that accelerates learning. Having someone who knows your capabilities intimately and gives you something that is challenging, but not impossibly so, helps you to actually feel like you’re growing, and not completely sinking or completely bored.

My managers these past four years have given me opportunities to grapple with new things and have celebrated my successes with me. I value this immensely and am thankful that I’ve had this level of stability in the past four years.

#2 Ask to stretch

At the same time, I’ve learned to ask for opportunities in particular areas. Over the past seven or eight years or so, I’ve had to learn how to clearly articulate what I’m looking for, and what that might look like. I firmly hold to the belief that others can’t read my mind, and so I have to communicate my desires to others so that they can help me get to where I want to go.

As a result, assignments haven’t been just given to me; my managers have had the information about where my interest laid, and were able to match me with assignments that would stretch me in ways that would help my overall career growth. I was raised to keep my head down and just do good work; asking for growth opportunities represents a significant divergence from my cultural programming, which takes a lot of emotional effort and risk.

#3 Developing trust requires proximity

Despite the fact that we all experienced a global pandemic together, our teams were able to continue working in a high-trust manner. How did that work? Well, first off, our team was relatively stable, which meant that we could leverage all of the trust that we had built over years of working together, both in person and across geographies. When you have personal relationships with people that span years (and in some case, over a decade), there’s a sense of connection that buffers for the types of stressors we’ve experienced as a society.

However, we also had many people start during the pandemic, which meant that this development of trust had to be formed intentionally. This required the intentional investment in proximity, which often looked like more frequent meetings or conversations that had little to do with work and more about life. The outcome generally is a better working relationship, one that is based on mutual respect and trust due to repetitive engagements.

The lesson I take from this is that the development of proximity, particularly in a remote or hybrid workplace, must be a part of the normal cost of doing business.

While in-person collaboration is still pending for me, the conversations don’t have to be on hold.

#4 Taking care of people takes care of business

The past four years included some of the most stressful situations humanity has been through in recent memory. I learned through observation how taking care of people and their core emotional needs helped to build a critical resilience in the organization as a whole. We’re seeing this in retention, as people are looking to stay with healthy organizations that help them grow and protect them when times are tough.

But more importantly, as a recipient of organizational care, I know that it really does make a difference. It helps to know that:

• I’m not going to be forced into a situation where I feel that my health is at risk
• Our leadership team is working on solutions to situations that stress me out
• I have not only the permission, but the encouragement, to set my boundaries for a work-life balance that allows for me to bring my A-game

I’m incredibly grateful for this, and recognize that I also have both the capability and the responsibility to set the tone of the work that happens around me.

#5 Very few technologies are permanent, but people are always there

As I look back on my entire career at Adobe so far, I’m struck by how much technology we built over the past 16 years that just doesn’t exist any more. I worked on Windows Mobile before the first iPhone was released. I worked on Flash Player, which seemed like it would be a part of the industry forever. Operating systems have come and gone. IE6 isn’t supported anymore. (If you know, you know.)

I’m struck by how little of what I built at the beginning of my career is still around. But I also recognize that the people are still in my community. I’ve been to children’s birthday parties, weddings, celebrated the birth of babies, purchased Girl Scout Cookies, gone on hikes, sang karaoke, and met cherished pets. When I look back on my career, it’s not just what we accomplished, but what we accomplished together — and the relationships that were formed while solving problems together.

#6 Form a well-reasoned opinion, but hold it lightly

“You’re paid to have an opinion.” This was one of the clearest messages I had in my first years as a product manager, and I’ve learned how to form and battle for a well-reasoned opinion. I went from someone who delivered to spec to someone defining the spec, which was a significant shift.

At the same time, I’ve also learned how to hold this opinion lightly. Falling into entrenched positions is incredibly easy, and there’s nothing quite like eating crow once you’ve had an opportunity to really think things through. If someone is arguing particularly hard, I’ve learned to reflect back and summarize until they agree that I at least understand the thrust of their disagreement.

Sometimes, this reflection helps me understand their point and allows me to change course if it makes sense, or to respond in a way that makes the other party at least feel understood, even if I intentionally chose another path.

#7 Encourage and challenge those around you

One of my earliest PM managers told me, “You can either lead out of a place of fear or a place of love.” I’ve discovered that I thrive in the latter, as I respond better to criticism when I know that it comes out of a place where someone has my best interests in mind.

Similarly, I know that I can do the same for those around me. People don’t have to be directly managed by me to benefit from any insight I might have; a word of encouragement or an observation about strengths is an opportunity to not only feed into another person’s growth, but also a way to create a working environment that is encouraging and emotionally safe. At times, it’s also appropriate to challenge someone else, especially when you know that they are capable of reaching for greater.

#8 Invest in others’ growth

When I became a black belt, one of the first things I learned is that my responsibility was to make new black belts. While it was important for me to invest in my own training, the entire system would die off if there weren’t a consistent, intentional investment in the lower ranks in the club.

This past season has given me opportunities to feed into both the pipeline of aspiring product managers at Adobe as well as the growth of new product managers. Whether it’s opening an opportunity for shadowing, helping others to understand the fast-paced day-to-day of my work, pointing out an important nuance in a recent negotiation conversation, or helping a peer understand how I stay on top of hundreds of Emails a day, I always make the time to share whatever solutions work for me in order to help others accomplish their goals.

This means that I have to let go of any temptation to treat career development as a zero-sum game; I can’t perceive others’ improvement and growth as a threat to me. Instead, their growth often manifests tangible benefits to me as the people around me increase their capabilities and skills.

#9 Nothing is ever wasted

At this point, my background includes professional music, secondary and post-secondary education, martial arts, music, video editing, book writing, social media marketing, volunteer coordination, quality engineering, software development, internationalization, and localization. During a career change, it’s often quite tempting to minimize the work that you’ve done previously, categorizing it as inapplicable or useless.

However, I’ve come to truly understand that every experience we’ve had previously influences not only our perception, but our approach to work as well. Classroom management skills become particularly important when leading ideation exercises or presenting to executives. Volunteer coordination helps me focus on peer motivation and care. Being in a band gave me experience working with high energy squirrels, organizing complex schedules, and experience with sound production. Working with editors on a book project gave me the skills to sort through and judiciously apply feedback unemotionally. My unique combination of skills comes largely from my equally unique experiences and interests.

In looking back at the time between three sabbaticals, I see three distinct phases:

• Phase 1: Learning how to deliver. What are best practices for making software? How do we make this sustainable, nail deadlines, and communicate?
• Phase 2: Learning how to lead. How do I bring clarity and do that in larger and larger increments?
• Phase 3: Learning how to develop. How do I scale my influence by equipping, empowering, delegating, encouraging, and challenging?

I’m already starting to see the trajectory for the next phase in my career, and am looking forward to this next season. No matter where the road leads, I know that I’m learning something valuable today that is applicable tomorrow.

After all, nothing is ever wasted.

• Journaling in a cafe by Thom Holmes on Unsplash
• Two women collaborating in an office by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
• Woman watering plants by Cassidy Phillips on Unsplash

Adobe’s sabbatical program grants an extra chunk of paid vacation every five years and must be used within two years of becoming eligible. To learn more about this program, check out the Adobe Benefits page.

Elaine is a senior product manager at Adobe. You can find her on Twitter at @elainecchao. All statements in this essay are her own and do not reflect the opinions of her employer.