Patrick Sweet

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

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.

How to Network as an Engineer while Providing Value

September 26, 2017 By EMI

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

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 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.

Recognizing the Time for Change in your Engineering Career

July 18, 2017 By EMI

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

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.

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

The Importance of Knowing Your “Why”

July 4, 2017 By EMI

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

I’ve worked with thousands of engineers throughout the world, and a common theme has emerged throughout that work: engineers want to see progress in their careers.

We want to climb the corporate ladder faster. We want to get more done. We want to be happier and more successful. We want to improve.

I think this is a noble and worthy thing to pursue. The trouble is that most engineers don’t know where to start with respect to their pursuit of progress.

Today, I’m going to talk about why understanding your “Why” is the single most important thing you can do to kick start your path towards being a better you.

Why Professional Development never Ends for Engineers

June 20, 2017 By EMI

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

I recently presented a half-day leadership seminar to a group of engineers in Mississippi. The seminar covered the basics of the most important business skills engineers should have namely: communications, productivity, leadership, and professional development.

Thankfully, the seminar was well received. The feedback I got after the talk was very positive. As is often the case, however, one negative comment out of all the good ones stuck with me. One of the participants suggested that the session on professional development really didn’t apply to experienced engineers.

As much as it can be disheartening to receive negative feedback, what really bugged me about this comment was that this particular participant either didn’t buy into my main message for that session or didn’t understand it. My message for professional development is simple: professional development should be part of every engineer’s career from start to finish, regardless of your level of experience.

Why should experienced engineers care about professional development?

What Bricklayers can Teach us About our Engineering Careers

May 23, 2017 By EMI

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

I was recently reminded of a parable I had heard many years ago. In the story, there are three bricklayers working on a wall for a church. Someone asks the first bricklayer what he’s doing. He says, “I’m building a wall.” The second bricklayer is asked the same question and replies, “I’m building a church.” Finally, the third bricklayer is asked what he’s doing, and he says, “I’m building the house of God.”

What do the three men’s answers tell us about how they perceive their work? The first bricklayer’s answer is focused on the task and nothing more. He sees bricklaying as a job. The second bricklayer sees the bigger picture and knows he’s making an important contribution to the project as a whole. He sees his occupation as a career. The third bricklayer sees his work as being integral to changing people’s lives for the better. He sees his work as a calling.

All three men are doing the same work from an outsider’s perspective, but their internal dispositions are all very different.

Why your internal disposition matters…

One Small Trick for Making Big Decisions

May 9, 2017 By EMI

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

Making Big Decisions

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like it was impossible to make a decision? Or have you ever gone all-in on a big decision just to find out you made a huge mistake?

I’ve done both, and I’m sure I’m in good company. Paralysis by analysis is a terrible state to be in – especially when you realize you’re in that state and can’t seem to do anything about it. It’s even worse to realize you made a terrible big decision – there’s no turning back the clock, and you’re stuck with the situation you’re in.

Luckily, there’s some simple advice that we can use to avoid either situation in the future. In his book Great by Choice, management expert Jim Collins explains what great companies do to make smart decisions. Great companies fire bullets first, then cannonballs. I believe that you can take the same advice and apply it to your engineering career and life.

Experiment first

The Secret to Becoming an Innovative Design Engineer

April 25, 2017 By EMI

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

I was recently listening to an interview with Ben Brenton, the Chief Innovation Officer of Snap-on Tools on the Everyday Innovator Podcast. During the interview, he said something quite profound about the way he spent his time. He said that he spends approximately four days a week on things related to customer interaction. That means 80% of his time is focused on his customers. He attributed this focus on the customer to being a major contributor to Snap-on’s success in developing new, innovative products.

I think there’s a very important lesson here for engineers: more often than not, innovation is sparked not from individual brilliance or “Eureka!” moments, but from a keen awareness of the problems, pains and fears of the people you are designing for.

Patrick Sweet

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

Focusing on the Problem

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

Don’t ask permission

Networking 101

Why should experienced engineers care about professional development?

Why your internal disposition matters…

Experiment first

Focusing on the customer leads to innovation