Growing the fan base

Cranky Cal:  “I already solved that problem, but nobody listened to me.”

As I work with engineers that have been at it for a few years, I often hear that kind of statement.  Sometimes it’s of the uglier form:

Angry Al:  “I solved that problem X years ago, but those _____  ______  _____’s wouldn’t listen to me then, so I’m not going to help them now.  That bunch of ______  _______  ______’s can just figure it out for themselves this time!”

Here’s the deal, simply having the answer is no longer good enough in many work environments.  We need to be able to sell our solutions; which ultimately means that we need to sell ourselves.  Let’s take this out of the realm of engineering for a minute and talk about software.  “Apps” are everywhere so let’s ease into this topic by talking about them – instead of ourselves.

Ever since the first cave engineers started writing FORTRAN, software was evaluated based on its ability to function.  This makes sense; we use software to perform some function that we don’t want to take on humanly.  For example, we can use software to compute the first 1,000 prime numbers – a task that we really don’t want to have to perform ourselves.  The software package that can pull this off calculation and provide the results is deemed to be functional. 

However, in today’s world, a new evaluation criterion is emerging - not just for software but for all products.  It’s called “user experience” and it’s becoming a very important factor.  Check out this Fast Company article.  The catch: the greatness of a software package isn’t just based on its ability to function – it’s also based on “how the user feels”.  

We now face evaluation questions such as: Is the software easy to understand?  Is it “friendly”?  Do I feel good using it or do I get frustrated?  Do I feel like I can master it by just looking at it, or do I need to ask for help?  Or, heaven forbid, do I need to look at a manual or book?

As an engineer, you are being evaluated just like that software package.  People don’t really care if you have all of the answers if you are a pain in the butt to deal with.  This great quote has been credited to several authors, politicians and speakers ranging from Theodore Roosevelt to Zig Ziglar to John Maxwell:

People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

So think about this: what kind of experience are you creating for those people that you are supposed to be working with and/or helping? 

Ultimate effectiveness, comes from not only being able to create great things and solve tough problems… it comes from actually having those great things and great solutions put into practice by others.  With that in mind, we need to focus a bit more on how we are selling ourselves.  Yeah that’s right… we engineers need a lesson in sales.

Recently I came across a really great TED talk by Simon Sinek.  If you have a few minutes, take a look at it.  These same principles of leading a great business can also apply to growing a great reputation as an engineer.  Here’s the link:  How Great Leaders Inspire Action.
 
Now Simon is not an engineer, nor was the talk even about being an engineer, but we can still learn a ton.  (Great engineers can learn from anything and anyone, right?)  Check out a few things about the presentation itself and think about his “user experience” or in this case the “audience experience”:

1. There was no PowerPoint.  Simon actually created the content with; get this… an old school marker and a flipchart.  Pretty retro, eh?  But it kept your attention, didn’t it?  Rockstar Engineers are able to present to an audience in a way that keeps their attention.  Often the act of actually “creating something live” rather than packaging it as slides is the best tool for keeping an audience glued to you.

2. The room, the stage and the acoustics were lousy.  He even dealt with a mic change partway through the talk.  But it didn’t matter.  Simon was passionate about his material.  He seemed glad to be able to share it with the audience and the environment took a back seat.  Rockstar Engineers aren’t afraid to show and share.  In fact, they consider a chance to present as a chance to shine.

3. The message was a simple solution.   There wasn’t a presentation of 12 other things that didn’t work.  The language was understandable - he didn't over use a bunch of big multi-syllable "show off" words.  Rockstar Engineers know their audience and know the importance of speaking in an understandable way... using the language of the audience.

Now let’s switch gears and talk about content of the talk…

The basic message of Simon’s talk is that people will more passionately buy the “why” – far more than they will buy the “what”.   He summarizes it in a great statement:

People don’t buy what you do; people buy why you do it

I’m going to take some liberties here (hopefully honoring Simon) with this interpretation on a personal level:

Your effectiveness is being based on “who you are”, not just “what you do”.

If you were to draw just two of Simon’s concentric circles and put “Why” in the middle and put “What” on the outside, how would you fill in the details? 
The “why”:
         Why did you become an engineer? 
         Why are you still an engineer? 
The “what”:
         What do you actually do as an engineer? 
         What is your “product”? 
Note: I’m not talking about that widget that you are currently designing and may someday somehow actually end up going down the road in a car.  The real “what” question is based on this:                   
         What is it that people come to me for?

As you consider these questions, you should be formulating a kind of “user experience” in your mind.  Here’s how I answer these questions regarding my career:

First here’s a general summary:  I’m a surface metrologist – I develop surface measurement technologies in terms of hardware, mathematics and software.  (Pretty geeky, eh?)   I initially became an engineer because I enjoyed math and science.  (I was young and didn’t know any better – it sounded like the right thing to do.)  I got into the measurement field and it allowed me to develop as a teacher and a helper.  I get to be the one that goes in and helps people better understand the world that they are working in.  I get to see the “light bulb go on” in people’s minds.  I even get to create tools that keep on helping people even after I’m gone.

Now let’s put it in the “Why/What” context:  My “why” is: I love helping people and I love seeing them respond to my help.  My “what” is: measurement-related consulting and technology.   My “what” is the outward implementation of my “why.” 

Without my “why” it would be hard for me to get up in the morning and go to work.  Without my "why" I could ultimately turn into a cranky Cal or an angry Al.

Here’s the big question – do those around you really get your “why”?  Worse yet, have you ever even considered what your “why” even is?    Knowing and selling your “why” can be an essential part of providing an awesome “user experience” and growing your effectiveness through a great fan base.

Rock on!

Jamming with a Legend

If you want to get good at something… hang out with someone that is already good at it.

Recently, a friend of mine that plays guitar was talking about wanting to hang out with some great guitar players – just to see how they do what they do.  A few days later another friend was talking about improving at tennis by playing against better players.  This got me thinking about the importance of learning from or just plain hanging out with the “gurus” or “legends” that may be sitting in the very next cubicle.

Several years ago, (too many years to count) as I was just a few weeks out of college, I had a chance to work with “Tom”.  He was one of those “gurus” that helped shape my career trajectory in ways that were unimaginable at the time. 

At that time, Tom had been with the company almost as long as I had been alive and had worked his way into a technical advisor kind of role – dealing only with special (that is “crisis”) kinds of projects.  He was one of those slow, methodical and meticulous kinds of guys that would spend hours studying a problem and testing theories.  You’ve probably seen or at least heard stories about this kind of guy… the guy where a “cluttered” office means that he happened to have one extra piece of paper on his desk next to his notepad and computer keyboard and monitor.  (I, on the other hand, tend to migrate towards a natural habitat of not being able to even see my desktop surface.)
As a young engineer, I was able to work with Tom on special projects and I was able to take in some valuable lessons.  Here are just a few:

1. Every pixel counts.
We were working on a huge multi-million dollar problem and were dealing with the analysis and presentation of 1000’s of data sets.  Tom emphasized the importance of presenting data in a clean, concise and understandable way.  If you don’t pay attention to the way you present your results, what will cause your audience to trust your results?  He was the first person that encouraged me to work toward “elegance” in solutions and their presentation.  Later I discovered the work of Edward Tufte (of whom I'm now a big fan) and this totally reinforced those previously learned lessons. 

2. Build your brand
When you are in front of an audience – either “live” in a room or “remotely” via documents or email that you’ve created; you have a chance to build a reputation.  As you think about your audience (and, yes – that means you should be thinking about your audience) what do you want your work to say about who you are and what you bring to the table?

3. Take your time
I’m assuming I’m among friends here, so I can admit this… I’m a very “type A” kind of person.  Generally I work at two speeds: fast and faster.  When I shut down, I generally shut completely down and go totally “offline” only to re-engage at some later time right back at full speed.  In the classic Tortoise and Hare fable I’m definitely the hare.  This kind of duty cycle is tough on machinery and is pretty tough on people as well.  My time with various engineering gurus throughout my career has revealed on common trait in them: they are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and dig deep into a problem... and stay "in deep" for a long time if needed.  They are not generally inclined to go with the first, impulsive answer; they take their time to find the “right” answer.
 
Now for some of you, those three lessons may not be earth shattering.  Nonetheless, those lessons were exactly what I needed at that specific time in my career.  However, beyond those specifics, I think there is an even bigger general lesson to be learned:

You need to spend time with mentor or a guru.

No matter where you are in your career, there is always someone that can make you better.  World class athletes need coaches in order to perfect their physical abilities.  World class engineers also need coaches or “mentors” in order to perfect their effectiveness.  Sometimes you can get lucky like I did and be able to spend some serious time with a mentor.  Other times you may need to seek out a small window of opportunity with a “guru”.  Here are some ideas for making it happen:

1. Identify a person that you can learn something from. 
This is probably the most important step.  Some gurus can help you with something as general as “dealing with management” while other gurus might be able to help you with “partial differential equations”.  These may not necessarily person, nor will you necessarily need input from the same guru at the same time.

2. Let them know where you are coming from.
Telling a person that you want to learn from them can be a huge compliment for them.  It lets them know that they are valued and it may help open the door for their sharing this ability with you.  This is a great way of “building a bridge” to them in cases where you may not know each other very well to start with.

3. Establish a small (make that a “very small”) commitment and…
4. be the one to keep that commitment.
I love the story about how Christine Comaford met with Steve Jobs for just a few minutes in order to ask him a few key questions.  She sent (even FedEx'd) letter after letter indicating the desire to spend just 5 minutes with Jobs.  In the end Jobs finally conceded and they met.  After the predetermined 5 minutes, she stood up and thanked Jobs for his time.  Jobs told her to sit back down and they continued to talk for another 45 minutes.  This is a great lesson in showing respect for a guru and can even help establish a solid relationship whereby further interactions can take place.  My advice – try a lunch with a guru.  When the time ends, thank the person and pick up the check.

5. Find someone that you can mentor and build up.
The best way to really learn something is to teach it.  This is true in the mentoring dynamics.  As you grow as a rockstar engineer, find someone that you can build into and help them grow as well.  This helps you better understand the sage/student relationship and ultimately can make you a better student.  Furthermore, mentoring a young engineer is the absolute best way I know to stay “mentally young”.

Too many people become engineers because they are brilliant, independent-minded, can tackle tough problems and can create amazing products and solutions.  Unfortunately, this independence (the same attribute that can launch a great engineering career) can also completely squelch such a career when an engineer doesn’t choose to spend some time “rocking with the legends”.

Rock on.

Getting the band back together...

Tomorrow will be a life changing day for 6 people.

But let me rewind a bit...

A few weeks ago I was reading Wired Magazine and came across an article about the Mars500 project. (“Are We There Yet” November 2011)

This was a fascinating article and I was surprised that I (being the geek that I am) had not heard about this before!

Basically the Mars500 project is an experiment where 6 guys were locked away in a simulated spaceship for a pretend trip to Mars. The total travel time... 520 days! That’s right, 520 days cooped up in an “experimental isolation facility”.

Their “journey” began in June of 2010. Tomorrow (at 11:00 am Central European Time) they open the hatches and the 6 guys (3 engineers, a surgeon, a physiologist and a astronaut research instructor) return to the real world. The Wired article speculated that they will return “changed in ways that they will forever protect as secret, and also in ways that they may never quite fathom themselves.” 

This got me thinking... these 6 guys were removed from society for more than a year. They had only electronic communications with the "real world" and even they had to deal with a "simulated delay” – the delay being based on the lag associated with where they were in their "simulated journey”.

Let’s pull this into the rockstar engineer context...

These guys have already gone more than a year with no “live” interaction with people. One of the biggest lessons I learned when hitting my first “real job” out of engineering school was this: people are the most important part of the effectiveness equation. The quicker you learn this, the more effective you will be.

In college you can “hole up” in some remote location and pull an all nighter to tackle some task. You can be somewhat self-sufficient. In the real world you are, more often than not, dependent on others in order to be able to deliver. Even if you can create something you are going to be dependent on others to either supply, package, test and/or buy it.  

As a typical engineer you may be better with math and science than you are with people. But to make the best use of your math and science you need to learn to play well with others. The best way to make that happen is to begin to understand the “value” of those around you.

I still remember walking into my first role as a laboratory advisor and the first time I met the technicians. All of them had been with the company longer than I had even been alive. I wasn’t too intimidated, however, since I had just completed my Master’s degree in the exact area of measurement that they were working with.

As I met the guys, I started asking them questions about sampling strategies, Nyquist wavelengths and transmission characteristic curves – all the analytical stuff that I learned about in graduate school. It’s probably no surprise that they couldn’t answer any of my questions.  It's probably no surprise also that they thought I was a complete jerk.  However, I went on to find about 1.0E6 things that I could learn from them . (That’s a million by the way.)

I went on to rebuild a relationship with those guys and thoroughly enjoyed working with them each day.   Each morning I looked forward to keying the combination to the door and they seemed to look forward to my arrival.  It turned out one of them was a phenomenal baker and his particular interest was in creating the greatest chocolate chip cookie ever.  I was more than happy to be his cookie tester... but that's a story for another time

Nonetheless, here a few learnings from that experience:

1.  I learned how things get done.

I learned that they “knew the system” and I didn't. These guys knew the right people and the most efficient way to make things happen. They introduced me to some of their "friends" and it was amazing how effecient things could be.

2.  I learned that my book knowledge meant very little in terms of what really matters.

I knew measurement systems signal processing. However, that meant very little when the main questions are related to “can we ship these parts?” or “why isn’t this part working the way it should?” Fortunately for me, these guys could look at the situation and know exactly what is going on. They would usually start their response with “several years ago we had this same problem...” and they went on to specifically identify the problem and propose best solution.

3.  I learned that a “position” or a “title” mean very little in terms of a person’s “value” .

My current job takes me from dirty manufacturing floors working with those that are the lowest on the salary scales all the way to executive offices of multi-million dollar businesses working with presidents and CEOs. I can honestly say that something can be learned from both places as well as from all those who are somewhere in between.

The Mars 500 guys have been "away" for a long, long time. Hopefully, a great deal can be learned from this experiment as I'm afraid that the team has paid a great price.  These 6 guys were cut off from human interaction for more than a year. Some engineers take this approach in their work lives and do all that they can to get away from people. I admit, there are times when we need to get away to focus. But I’m also the first to say, real effectiveness comes through working with people.

Welcome back guys!

Let's get ready to rock...

Person 1.     Wow, Frank sure is a jerk.

Person 2      Well, he is an engineer after all.

Person 1       Oh, that explains it.

Throughout my life as an engineer I’ve heard that kind of exchange numerous times.  In fact, having heard that kind of “he’s an engineer” exchange three different times in the past week I’ve decided it’s time to spill my guts on the topic.

Some people wear the title “Engineer” with great pride; and rightfully so – they’ve worked hard to earn that title.  Some have gone through many years of study in colleges and universities, other have done hard time in the school of hard knocks.  All are part of an elite group that society looks to as the ones who “make things happen”.  If you hold the title “engineer” I applaud you for your achievements and am excitedly waiting and watching to see your contributions to society.

Unfortunately, “Engineer” has a dark side.  To some, holding the title “engineer” seems to somehow give them the right to be a complete...   well, let's keep this to a PG-13 rating and say "jerk". 

So take this “am I a jerk of an engineer” quiz:

Rate the following statements based on the scale:

0 = totally disagree
1 = rarely
2 = sometimes
3 = I’m 50-50 on this
4 = most of the time
5 = totally agree

1.       I think that the world is full of idiots.

2.       The world would be a better place if everybody thought as I do.

3.       It doesn’t matter how I look or smell

4.       I don’t have to get input from those below me.

5.       I’m not going to dumb it down for you.  If you can’t understand, it’s your problem.

6.       Management is all stupid.

7.       I don’t care what the customer says.

8.       They’re late.  Even if they are important, I’m going to start without them.

9.       I’m really good at, and enjoy, finding flaws in other people’s work

10.   This test is a waste of time and none of these questions matter.

OK, I’m not going to do the “add up your scores” thing.  You are engineers and you should be able to take an average (especially since there are 10 questions).  So for scoring let’s just say if your average is anything over a 1.25, you need to stop and consider “are you really as effective as you can be?”.  If you are above the 2.0 level, you really need to assess where you are in terms of being a full-out, pain-in-the-butt-to-be-around jerk-o-saurus.

Let me say that again, if you rank high in jerk-icity, chances are you are not going to be effective as an engineer.  And here’s a hint – engineering is about “effectiveness”. 

I’m in the field of metrology – the science of measurement.  Thus to me, the concept of measurement is very important.  As a good engineer you rely on measurement.  Measurement provides data and data is stuff of decision making.  You may have seen the sign:

In God we Trust.  All others must present data.

So how do we measure an engineer?  What are the attributes that matter most?  In 17xx, Lord Kelvin said that which we measure, we can control.  So what attributes would you measure in an engineer and hope to control or improve upon?

Here are some thoughts:

Intelligence.  This is a great attribute for an engineer.  It’s pretty much a prerequisite for being an engineer.  But, intelligence alone doesn’t get stuff done.  In fact an over abundance of intelligence may come along with a bit of arrogance.

Creativity. This is a terrific thing and can help you get “out of the box” when solving problems and designing the next biggest thing.  But artists are creative (don’t get me wrong here – I love the arts), but most artists don’t make good engineers.

An analytical mind.  This is a tool that must be in every engineer’s tool box – the ability to look at things from different angles and perceive different realities and outcomes.  Unfortunately, too much of this can lead to the dreaded “analysis paralysis” and once again nothing gets done.

Thoroughness. This is another admirable trait.  By being thorough a good engineer ensuring that his or her products and projects will be complete, reliable, functional and that no detail will be missed.  Again we find the “too much of a good thing” syndrome when we look at the attribute of thoroughness.  Engineering is often about managing risk to find an optimal solution not an ideal solution.  Ideal solutions don’t generally exist.  Thus an over emphasis on thoroughness could ultimately cripple a project.

I would argue the each of the above traits are important, however they are all subservient to the greater measure of an engineer:

Effectiveness

Every attribute described above can ultimately suffer from the “too much of a good thing” syndrome.  However, effectiveness cannot suffer in this way.  The more effective we are, the better we ultimately are.

While being a jerk, you can attain some level of effectiveness.  However, if you want to see exponential effectiveness results and truly be a rockstar engineer, you need to start thinking outside the box in terms of several areas.  These areas are not related to chemical reactions, physical properties or mathematics.  They are related to human dynamics – something that isn’t generally taught in engineering schools.

Being a jerk means taking the easy way out.  Ignoring people takes less effort than engaging with them.  But just like Newton said – actions equal reactions.  If you invest in people there will, most likely be a reaction.  If you invest in breaking down relational barriers, your effectiveness can be improved through better relationships.  If you invest in your image, your outside perceptions can improve.

I want to challenge you to consider some non-engineering principles in the upcoming posts.  These are principles that can boost your “street cred” and ultimately help you skyrocket into engineering rockstardom.  These aren’t rocket science, but they do make scientific sense.
So let’s get ready to rock…