Engineering Management Institute

Enlightenment

Is Conflict Always Bad? The Answer May Surprise You

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This is a blog by Jeff Perry, MBA

conflictMost of us, when we think about conflict, consider it a bad thing we should avoid. That’s not exactly true.

The right kind of conflict can actually build trust and increase performance in teams! In fact, I would say that one of the best indicators of a team that trusts each other is the amount of conflict in the team.

Positive, healthy conflict happens when we can challenge each other in real ways, be open and honest, and collaborate more effectively.

conflict

Disagreements Are Normal and Should Be Encouraged

There is no situation or team that is going to sail through all projects and tasks without ever disagreeing with each other. Yet one of the things that can build divisions and trouble in a teams faster than anything is when people don’t feel heard and able to express disagreements, especially with leaders.

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No Moment Is Too Small for a Sincere Thank You

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No Moment Is Too Small for a Sincere Thank You is a
guest blog by Mike Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

thank you

Over the past 12 months, during another painful period of global socio-economic strife, I have thoroughly enjoyed EMI’s support as we’ve discussed AEC industry trends and leadership themes. Last month’s effort, A Sustainable Sales Platform Starts With an Organization’s Values, presented an opportunity to summarize these discussions. This month, as we move into what will certainly be a very trying holiday season for people around the world. I’m taking my cue from the recent Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.

History reminds us that progress is a messy business, fraught with mistakes and unintended human consequences. The work we do, delivering infrastructure improvements for our communities, reminds us that our complex world doesn’t always lend itself to simple solutions. Respecting that current events affect us differently and that our support systems vary widely, I encourage you to celebrate incremental success. Never forget that no moment is too small for a sincere thank you, establishing cultural norms that allow collaboration to thrive.

thank you

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People Disappointment Management 101

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This is a guest blog by Kristi Hoke Mirambell, P.E

disappointment

As I sit to write a blog about People Disappointment Management 101, I hear the song “God Is Great, Beer Is Good, and People Are Crazy” playing on the radio. At first, the song was nothing more than a typical country song about life with a country play on word humor. I heard this song many times, but it wasn’t until this time in my life, which is filled with an abundance of fear and unknowns, that I heard this song differently. I believe this song represents the best way to explain People Disappointment Management 101.

What makes us disappointed in another person?

I believe that our disappointments lie within our expectations of an event or person. When our expectations are not met, we create a narrative that validates that we are “right” and the event/person is “wrong.”

I am an engineer who lives for data points. This model works great for me because I continuously find data to prove my disappointment as accurate. From an ego standpoint, this works very well because all the narratives that I’ve lived by or believed made me “right.” However, what I learned through my 20-plus years of living according to a spreadsheet is that many past relationships ended in my life with the other person walking away defeated. Hey, but I won — or did I?

There was a time in my life that I knew I needed to change the way that I lived — that it no longer served me and I was ready for a “Cool Change” (another great song!). I started on this journey into uncharted territory and found that there was a whole new way of living, and it could help me to create the life I was desperately searching for.

For me, it started with being able to manage my disappointments in people. There are three key standards specific to personal relationships that we choose to live our lives in, and they tie right back to “God Is Great, Beer Is Good, and People Are Crazy.”

disappointment

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Who Are Quantity Surveyors and Why Are They Important?

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This is a guest post by Mike Johnston
Quantity Surveyors

Civil engineering is a discipline many people are not really familiar with. This is a real shame since civil engineering impacts our society so much. Namely, it comprises various professions, including structural, geotechnical, environmental, water resources, construction management, and transportation engineers.

One particularly interesting area is quantity surveying, a profession that blends engineering, construction, and economics. The emphasis is on the last part, albeit there are many other tasks that these experts perform.

Word up

To avoid any confusion, let us just provide a quick clarification of terminology.

Those who live in Canada or the US might have heard the term construction cost estimator.  On the other hand, a quantity surveyor is widely used in countries like UK and Australia. The roles of the two are more or less similar depending on the region. For instance, a construction cost estimator in the US is equivalent to a quantity surveyor in the UK, even though there are some extra requirements for each one.

Sometimes, the terms cost managers and cost consultants get thrown around. But, in this article, we are going to use only quantity surveyor, though in a broader sense that transcends local and project-to-project differences.

What do surveyors do?

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Designing Sustainability into your Engineering Career

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sustainability

Whether you like the “s” word or not, sustainability is here; it’s all around us. As engineer’s, many of the actions we take every day are about managing the myriad of project issues that arise now, today; and managing issues to shape future outcomes and when everything goes right, delivering planned benefits at the end of a project. What many engineers don’t do, however, is recognize how the project they’re working on impacts both the local environment and the larger regional or global environment.

I know that during my career, sustainability wasn’t something that I overtly considered during initiating, planning or executing a project. Sure, when I was leading facility management efforts, I had the design review process include a line item for ensuring maintainability considerations of facility and infrastructure projects. A little later when I was building a house I made sure to use materials — roof tiles and siding for instance – that would result in less maintenance and a longer service life.

But these actions were more a result of experience and a good idea versus a conscious decision to assess a project from initiation through its life cycle for sustainability factors. In the world in which we implement our projects, whether business or public sector, I suggest we develop greater understanding of the challenges the global WE face. We recognize diminishing resources on earth, the long-term impacts of environmental degradation, and the changing weather patterns. When thinking about our future existence, we realize we will have to put in more effort to maintain the same quality of life. Sustainability is not just about human survival; it is about our quality of life – and the quality of life for generations to come – here on earth.

WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY ANYWAY?

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Be Grateful When You Want To, Not When Someone Tells You To

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This is a guest post from Clementina Esposito

be grateful

“Be grateful.” It’s what every trending blog-post, business book, and bystander are telling us we need to do to get where we want to go.

Want to make more money? Be grateful.

Improve a relationship? Be grateful.

Get noticed at work? Be grateful.

What’s that you’re thinking? You don’t always feel grateful.

Of course, you don’t.

Were you hoping this would be a pithy post where I too would tell you to be grateful?

I promise, I won’t tell you how to feel.

I respect you too much for that. [Read more…] about Be Grateful When You Want To, Not When Someone Tells You To

12 Rules of Zen Monks that may Help You Reduce Stress and Improve Quality in Your Engineering Career

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Like many professions today, engineering can be a stressful profession due to the project deadlines, shrinking budgets, and client demands. In this post I want to provide some principles that Zen monks follow, and how you might apply them in your engineering career, to help you reduce some of the day-to-day stresses, and be more engaged and in the moment (or present).

I have to start this post by saying that it was inspired by a wonderful post that I read entitled 12 Essential Rules to Live More Like a Zen Monk by Leo Babuta. Leo Babauta is a simplicity blogger & author. He created Zen Habits, a Top 25 blog (according to TIME magazine) with 200,000 subscribers, mnmlist.com, and the best-selling books Focus, The Power of Less, and Zen To Done (Amazon affiliate links).

I want to give Leo full credit, as I will be using the 12 rules from his post for the basis of this post, however as you will read below I attempt to take these 12 rules and describe how engineers can use them on a daily basis in their engineering career development: [Read more…] about 12 Rules of Zen Monks that may Help You Reduce Stress and Improve Quality in Your Engineering Career