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Patrick Sweet

The Power of a Personal Brand for Engineering Managers

May 9, 2022 By EMI

This is a guest post by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA, PMP, CSEP

BrandWhether 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 is not so much whether you have a brand but rather what it is, whether you’re managing it, and whether you’re taking advantage of it in your career.

Back to Basics: What Is a Brand?

The best way to think of a brand is that it’s a summary of who you are, what you do, and what you believe in. In other words, your brand is the shorthand way the world thinks about you.

personal brand

In the business world, brands are manicured and managed with precision. Volvo, for instance, prides itself on making some of the safest cars in the world, and they promote that fact about themselves. They want to be known as the “safe car” company in the minds of their customers and potential customers. Walmart, on the other hand, has a strong brand tied to saving people money. Both are very different, but very strong brands.

To help brands stick in the minds of their customers, companies use things like logos, slogans, jingles, color pallets, fonts, and many other devices to communicate their brand.

Branding is incredibly important when it comes to positioning a company. It makes it easier for a customer to link an organization or product to a need they have. The easier it is to make that link, the more likely the customer will chose a particular solution.

The Power of Branding for Individuals

[Read more…] about The Power of a Personal Brand for Engineering Managers

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership/Management Tagged With: Branding for Individuals, Engineering Manager, go-to people, managing your personal brand, Patrick Sweet, personal brand, Personal Brand for Engineering Managers, Power of a Personal Brand, providing real value, recognized as being great at something, summary of who you are, you and your brand, your personal brand as a leader, your role in an organization

Four Skills Engineers Can Learn From Entrepreneurs

March 14, 2022 By EMI

This is a guest post by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA, PMP, CSEP

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 fields.

Here Are Four Skills That Engineers Would Do Well to Adopt:

1. Entrepreneurs See Opportunity

Entrepreneurs see the world in terms of opportunities. They are able to identify problems and pain points that, if solved, would create incredible value for people. Where many people see problems and are content simply to complain about them, entrepreneurs are able to see a world where that problem is actually solved and take strides to make that world a reality.

[Read more…] about Four Skills Engineers Can Learn From Entrepreneurs

Filed Under: Blog, Personal Development and Professionalism Tagged With: creative, designs, engineers, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, growing a new business, learning from entrepreneurs, manage risk, Mindset, opportunity, Pat Sweet, Patrick Sweet, skills

Healthy Conflict: How Disagreements Spur Innovation

August 13, 2021 By EMI

This is a guest post by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA, PMP, CSEP

Healthy ConflictFor 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 processes are the result of conflicts at work.

This leads us to two questions. Why is it that conflict is so important for innovation, and how can you approach conflict in a healthy way? In today’s article, I’ll tackle both important questions.

Why Is Conflict Important for Innovation?

[Read more…] about Healthy Conflict: How Disagreements Spur Innovation

Filed Under: Blog, Career Goals and Challenges Tagged With: conflict at work, Conflict with others, Disagreements Spur Innovation, healthy conflict, innovate, innovation, Innovative ideas, Keep Conflict Healthy, new ideas, office challenges, Pat Sweet, Patrick Sweet

How to Get a Group of Engineers to Actually Make Decisions

June 25, 2021 By EMI

This is a guest blog by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA, PMP, CSEP

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 actually making decisions within engineering teams. We’ve all been part of meetings where problems were discussed, positions were defended, and at the end, no real decision was made. For many (myself included), it can be one of the most frustrating parts of working in engineering.

In this post, I’ll offer some concrete strategies on how to bring a group of engineers together and actually make decisions.

Make Sure Everyone Knows That a Decision Needs To Be Made Beforehand

[Read more…] about How to Get a Group of Engineers to Actually Make Decisions

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership/Management Tagged With: anchoring the discussion, Avoid Consensus, broaden a group’s thinking, decision making, decision on a topic, discuss a decision, Group of Engineers, leading to groupthink, Make Decisions, making decisions, participating in decision-making, Patrick Sweet, people with authority, relevant information, stakeholders, vote on a proposition

5 Ways to Establish Yourself as an Expert in Your Field

May 31, 2021 By EMI

This is a guest blog by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA, PMP, CSEP

Yourself as an ExpertNo 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 given subject is not only incredibly gratifying, it also provides excellent job security and flexibility.  

Yourself as an Expert
While it may be clear that becoming an expert is extremely valuable, it’s less clear how to go about becoming an expert.
 

In this post, I’ll offer five concrete strategies you can use to establish yourself as an expert in your field. 

[Read more…] about 5 Ways to Establish Yourself as an Expert in Your Field

Filed Under: Blog, Personal Development and Professionalism Tagged With: becoming an expert, Build a Web Presence, establish your expertise, Establish Yourself as an Expert, Establishing yourself as an expert, expert, hands-on experience, Lifelong Learner, opportunities to learn, Patrick Sweet, put that knowledge into practice, start writing, teaching

Seeing the World With an Entrepreneurial Point of View

March 15, 2021 By EMI

This is a guest blog by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA, PMP, CSEP

EntrepreneurialWhen 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 companies to sell those products throughout his career. This gave him, in my mind at least, a lot of credibility as an engineer and as an educator. Unsurprisingly, one of Dr. Gregson’s mantras was on the importance of having an entrepreneurial mindset. Whether you work for yourself or for someone else, seeing the world with an entrepreneurial point of view can have a profound impact on your career as an engineer. Ultimately, engineers who learn to think like entrepreneurs are better innovators, solve bigger problems, and are more productive than their colleagues.

Focusing on the Problem

As engineers, most of us are trained to master “solution space.” In school, we’re handed assignments and asked to solve for x. The problems that need to be solved are literally packaged up and delivered to us.

[Read more…] about Seeing the World With an Entrepreneurial Point of View

Filed Under: Blog, Personal Development and Professionalism Tagged With: adopting an entrepreneur’s mindset, Comfort With Risk, develop a comfort with risk, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurial Point of View, Focusing on the Problem, getting things done, grit is critical, identify the problems, making things happen, Patrick Sweet, problem space, Seeing the World, solution space, solve bigger problems, think like entrepreneurs

How to Cultivate Excellent Professional Relationships

November 28, 2018 By EMI

How to Cultivate Excellent Professional Relationships is a blog post by guest author Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA

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 get people to know, like, and trust you? Through relationships.

Today, I’m going to share five actions you can take to cultivate excellent professional relationships. All of these strategies are simple, and anyone can implement them, regardless of where you are in your career, or what industry you work in. All of them will help others to get to know, like, and trust you.

[Read more…] about How to Cultivate Excellent Professional Relationships

Filed Under: Blog, Networking/Client Relations Tagged With: Be personable, Be thoughtful, commitments, excellence, Give, Patrick Sweet, Professional Relationships

You Are an Expert, and It’s Time to Own It

May 16, 2018 By EMI

You Are an Expert, and It’s Time to Own It is a blog post by guest author Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA

Expert

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 lay claim to any kind of specialty is very valuable in one’s career. It’s something every engineer should be pursuing in one form or another.

Luckily, developing expertise isn’t anywhere near as difficult as most people think. In fact, when you stop and think about it, it can be very easy to develop real expertise quickly and to reap the benefits in your career, even if you’re just getting started. The only trick is to re-frame the way you think of expertise.

Don’t ask permission

The first mistake people make with respect to expertise is that they think they need others to validate them as an expert. That’s nonsense. If you know more about a given subject than 80% of people, you’re an expert. You don’t need to be in the top 1%. You don’t need a PhD. All you need is to know your stuff better than most people.

[Read more…] about You Are an Expert, and It’s Time to Own It

Filed Under: Blog, Personal Development and Professionalism Tagged With: accomplishments, branding yourself, developing expertise, engineers, expert, Expertise, Patrick Sweet, professional development seminars, skills

How to Network as an Engineer while Providing Value

September 26, 2017 By EMI

This is a guest post by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng.

Network as an EngineerYou’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.

Network as an Engineer

That’s all well and good. It makes sense. The more relationships you have, and the stronger those relationships, the more opportunity you’ll have. The trouble is figuring out how to actually grow your network as an engineer. How do you meet new people? What do you do once you have?

Networking 101

There are two basic components to networking. First, meet new people in your field. Second, find ways to provide value to those people. Networking really is that simple.

Let me give you an example.

[Read more…] about How to Network as an Engineer while Providing Value

Filed Under: Blog, Networking/Client Relations Tagged With: How to Network as an Engineer, in-person courses, Meetup.com, Network as an Engineer, Networking 101, Patrick Sweet, provide value, Start-up incubators, Where to go to grow

Recognizing the Time for Change in your Engineering Career

July 18, 2017 By EMI

This is a guest post by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng.

Recognizing the Time for Change
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 away and it has been bugging me ever since.

Recognizing the Time for Change

I believe that recognizing the time for change is a key skill that engineering professionals need in order to progress successfully through their careers. Today, having had a chance to think about it, I’d like to share my thoughts on how to tell it’s time to move on. [Read more…] about Recognizing the Time for Change in your Engineering Career

Filed Under: Blog, Career Goals and Challenges Tagged With: Alignment With Your Goals, careers, Change is the Only Constant, goals, move on from a job, Patrick Sweet, Recognizing Rough Patches, time for change, What to do if you need to move on

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