Student Question: I’m currently a senior undergraduate student, interning at an internet company in an operations role. I’ve been at it for a while now, but I feel like I haven’t grown much during this time. My own thinking is that I’d like to get more exposure to the product side of things, but I’ve been stuck doing new media operations work. I’ve talked to the project team leader about it, and he told me that how much I gain from the internship is entirely up to me. If I want to break into more core work, should my first step be figuring out how to optimize the work I already have in my hands?
Master Chi’s Response: There’s a very famous story about Huawei.
A new hire who had just joined wrote a long, manifesto-length letter to Huawei, laying out all the problems he’d spotted and his suggestions for fixing them.
I recall Ren Zhengfei’s reply was: if this person has no mental illness, recommend firing him. If he does, recommend treatment.
I’ve personally encountered that type of intern — the ones who are “full of ideas.”
I talked every single one of them out of staying.
For an intern, the most important thing is to execute the tasks your manager gives you, and execute them well. If you want to think about something, think about how to do those assigned tasks even better. If you want more opportunities, do those tasks better still.
A lot of people share a misconception: that in order to grow, you must first be doing “high-skill work.”
But I have to be honest with you — truly talented people outperform ordinary people even when doing “low-skill work.” So if you can’t even stand out at simple, straightforward tasks, you don’t have the ability to handle things that are harder and more complex.
A company is not a school.
So start by figuring out how to do your current work better.
Optimize every detail, solve every problem, and build from there — one small step at a time.