Engineering Management Institute

Mike Burns

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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A Sustainable Sales Platform Starts With an Organization’s Values

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This is a guest blog by Mike Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

Sales PlatformAs with every phase of life, beginnings and ends are times for focused reflection on our successes and failures. Individually and as a member of a team, this analysis sets the stage for subsequent growth. This reflective planning rhythm has defined the last 10 years of my life, as I’ve strived to grow from events: the Great Recession, the Arab Spring, AECOM exiting the P3 / DBFM market, and in 2020, COVID-19. With my deepest sympathies for the devastating health and socioeconomic outcomes we’ve collectively faced this year, I remain cognizant of the fact that my privilege and support system have allowed me to navigate these challenges with limited pain. I hope that this brief discussion of my migration into a sales role helps you overcome the naysayers on your path.

sales platform

Whether seeking professional growth or facing the daunting task of finding a new job, there are often a series of devastating no’s before the next empowering yes. For me these included, “you are a developer, not an engineer,” “you’ve never worked overseas, in a corporate role, on a billion dollar program, etc.” Recently, “you’ve never been in a pure business development (BD) role.” Each of these no’s guided my outreach to mentors, discussions with colleagues, and educational desires. I leveraged their collective wisdom to evolve my professional approach, remaining focused on building teams, empowering individuals, and continuous learning; this approach has allowed me to remain engaged, enjoying life as a student and a teacher.

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Leadership Is Not a Title — It Is a Perspective

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This is a guest blog by Mike Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

LeadershipPreviously, we discussed the importance of your voice as an industry and community integrator: Who Knows What You Know? — Your Voice Matters! Taking this guidance an important step further, I encourage you to move from managing people to empowering leadership from every vantage point, as our ability to deliver complex solutions in a timely manner necessitates an artful migration of diverse perspectives into inclusive solutions.

Infrastructure projects are inherently local and therefore unique, necessitating a patient combination of political savvy and technical expertise to move from policy expectations to project implementation. At each step, we must acknowledge, explore, and address ever-changing stakeholder wants and needs. Our ability to artfully migrate these evolving demands into sustainable, resilient, and equitable community solutions requires dispersed leadership. This is a concept that is at the heart of Progressive Design-Build , which seeks to empower robust communications as leadership ebbs and flows across an evolving set of teams.

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Getting Involved in Your Community: Start with Diversity and Inclusion

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This is a guest blog by Mike Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

your communityLast month, we took a broad look at infrastructure from a policy and enabler perspective, acknowledging the inherent complexity associated with delivering sustainable infrastructure and encouraging us to take risks, expose challenges, empathetically listen, and celebrate incremental success as we find win-win scenarios. This month, we are pivoting from macro to micro, hoping to inform our perspective as we progress community solutions. Unfortunately, the topic of community has led to a case of writer’s block.

This writer’s block started with a policy challenge from my Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Implementing Public Policy course. As I am learning in this course, an action-learning environment starts by defining points of entry. So my first action is to acknowledge that community is a term I’ve struggled with in recent years. Community as a point of entry exposes a polarity in my life. While my strong parents, warm community, and loving wife and children allowed me, with reasonable human errors, to successfully navigate the first three steps of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: physiologic, safety, love and belonging, the last 10 years have not been spent mindfully addressing esteem and self-actualization.

The last 10 years have been a series of tests: The Great Recession, The Arab Spring, corporate integrated delivery failures, and now COVID19. Supported by my family and benefiting from a commitment to education, we have weathered these continuous storms. Acknowledging this privilege, empathizing with so many who have and are truly suffering, I have no regrets. Yet, I often find myself dwelling on incremental loss of connectivity with my community, my roots.

your community

I yearn for the ease of a childhood where familiar faces at every turn created a sense of belonging. I yearn for the camaraderie of a team, suffering together through the ups and downs of a season. I yearn for the dynamic pressures of my early career, where every day wins and losses affected our development and profitability. I yearn for my expat days, where utter uncertainty created a deeply meaningful network of need for our clients and teams.

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Find Win-Win Scenarios

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This is a guest blog by Mike Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

Win-Win ScenariosLast month we discussed How AEC Professionals Can Approach Their Roles as Integrators. This role is critical as communities across the globe cautiously move from healthcare pandemic responses to economic recovery. In the United States, our rapidly evolving monetary and fiscal response has a significant infrastructure investment component, including the Federal Reserves’ Municipal Liquidity Facility, the CARES Act, and pending action in Congress as recent headlines note (e.g., House approves $1.5T plan to fix crumbling infrastructure). In our inherently complex industry, we must build on our integrator role to expose and promote local wins aligned to broader policy objectives.

The Legislative Outline for Infrastructure in America , developed with inputs from across the political spectrum, frames our policy emphasis:

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How AEC Industry Professionals Can Approach Their Roles as Integrators

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This is a guest blog by Mike Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

AEC Industry ProfessionalsLast month we discussed the collective value of our voices: Speak Up, Take a Chance, Your Voice Matters! Today, as we see unrest in our streets, it is more apparent than ever that we actively seek platforms where holistic, inclusive discussions can be leveraged to solve our challenges. Discussions that start with a sense of belonging for everyone in our communities. Discussions that accept that there is not one single path for the next phase of our solutions. Discussions that lead to policies and programs whose governance and investments sustain a shared vision. This month’s blog is far from an answer to this existential crisis. It is simply a personal reflection on how we, as members of our communities and AEC industry professionals, can approach our roles as integrators.  

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Continuous Learning: Providing Coaching and Accountability

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 This is a guest blog by Mike Burns

Continuous LearningLast month’s blog discussed Embracing a Risk-Intelligent Approach. The guidance stated that we shouldn’t be paralyzed by unknown unknowns, allowing a risk-intelligent culture to support sustainable growth. In these uncertain times, as we respond to broad human suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d like to expand on mitigating unknown unknowns as an introduction to our continuous learning discussion.

A risk-intelligent approach creates a culture where teachers, students – leaders, managers, and staff thrive in a continuous learning environment. As this culture matures; mitigating inherent risks and exploring opportunities becomes a natural output of our sustained discussions. Concurrently, these discussions will surface strategic risks, informed by our trajectory and influenced by systemic threats, e.g.financial crisis, geopolitical events, and pandemics.

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