The Power of a Personal Brand for Engineering Managers
Whether you realize it or not, you have a brand. This may come as a surprise to you. After all, you’re an engineering manager, and not some sort of company or a product. But it’s true. In fact, everyone has a brand. Everyone is known for something among their friends and colleagues. The real question […]
Four Skills Engineers Can Learn From Entrepreneurs
Whether you plan to launch a business or work within an existing organization, approaching the world from an entrepreneur’s perspective can be incredibly valuable for engineers. At their core, both engineers and entrepreneurs are problem-solvers. By approaching the world from the mindset of an entrepreneur, engineers of all disciplines can become stronger in their […]
Healthy Conflict: How Disagreements Spur Innovation
For most engineers, conflict at work is something to be avoided. It’s about as desirable as spilling coffee on your pants before a big presentation or dealing with (yet another) paper jam. There’s an important difference, however, between conflict and most other office challenges: conflict is incredibly important. In fact, almost all innovative products and […]
How to Get a Group of Engineers to Actually Make Decisions
Engineering, much like other kinds of knowledge work, is fundamentally about making decisions. While factories produce physical devices, engineering teams produce decisions — decisions on how products and services will be designed, implemented, maintained, and retired. Decision-making is at the very core of what we do. It’s surprising, then, that we have so much trouble […]
5 Ways to Establish Yourself as an Expert in Your Field
No matter what your particular engineering discipline or industry, there is immense value in establishing yourself as an expert. In both Seth Godin’s “Linchpin” and Cal Newport’s “So Good They Can’t Ignore You,” very compelling cases are made for why someone should strive to become an expert in their field. To be the go-to person for a […]
Seeing the World With an Entrepreneurial Point of View
When I was an undergraduate engineering student, my favorite professor was a brilliant man named Dr. Peter Gregson. While I would never call him eccentric, he definitely stood out from the rest of the faculty. He was one of the few professors in the department who actually made things. He had developed products and built […]
How to Cultivate Excellent Professional Relationships
Professional relationships are key to success in any profession. Engineering is no exception. Success is fueled as much by who you know as it is by what you know. While this may seem unfair, there’s a perfectly logical reason for this: people do business with people they know, like, and trust. And how do […]
You Are an Expert, and It’s Time to Own It
In the world of knowledge work, expertise is everything. Gone are the days of the master builder who knew every trade and could do it all. Employers look for people with more and more experience in smaller and smaller niches. Experts are linchpins in their organizations in every industry. Needless to say, being able to […]
How to Network as an Engineer while Providing Value
You’ve likely heard in the past that growing your network as an engineer is key to career success, and that getting ahead is as much about who you know and what you know. That’s all well and good. It makes sense. The more relationships you have, and the stronger those relationships, the more opportunity […]
Recognizing the Time for Change in your Engineering Career
How do you know when it’s time to move on from your engineering job? It’s something that most of us have asked ourselves at some point in our careers, or will at some time in the future. Earlier this week, a coaching client asked me what I thought. Honestly, I didn’t have a solid answer right […]
