This is a guest blog by Steve Soldati, P.E.
Picture this: It’s 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, you’re thinking about where to go for lunch, but you are still waiting for a response from your project team member. You had requested this information via email three weeks ago and every few days you get a, “You should have it soon.” You sent an email earlier that morning asking for an update on the project designs and calculations to incorporate into your plan set, which is due in just one week, but still no word. You go off to lunch, steaming and upset about the lack of urgency and communication of your colleagues.
When you arrive back at the office, you open your inbox to see an email from your team member with the requested design and calculations. “Yes, finally!” you shout out loud. But when you open the email, the design is incomplete, and your team member has additional questions that should have been asked much earlier. You storm over to their desk to chew them out and tell them how poorly they performed. You tell them they need to communicate better, learn to design properly, and take responsibility for their work. Then you head back to your desk to rework the design, spending many additional hours to get it ready for the upcoming deadline. And you grow even more frustrated and stressed because there is still so much on your plate that needs to be done, but you are now worried that won’t happen. This causes you to become even more uneasy, cranky, and unpleasant to be around.
In episode 094 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, which is 4th episode in our 5-part series on infrastructure, Chris Knutson interviews Kate Harris, President, and CEO of Stanley Consultants about harnessing innovation in engineering leadership. Kate gets into future trends of the industry and how we can prepare for them. She also discusses public- and private partnerships, an important aspect of infrastructure projects.
nmental, and construction services at over 30 offices worldwide. Founded in 1913, the firm has completed engagements in all 50 states and 110 countries, and is ranked among the largest engineering companies in the United States – very impressive.
Engineering is the most common undergraduate degree of the Fortune 500 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). It has been for some time. Approximately one third of CEOs majored in engineering and only 11% graduated from business school. The Harvard Business Review has a list of the 100 best-performing CEOs on the planet.
In this episode, I talk with Jane Sidebottom who is the President/Owner of Applied Marketing Knowledge about the power of passion for your profession. We discuss a framework focused on 7 questions to help you find the work you are passionate about. The questions we discuss are from an article by Robert S. Kaplan’s in the Harvard Business Review: Two Ways to Clarify Your Professional Passions, March 30, 2015
