Engineering Management Institute

UPCOMING WEBINAR

TCEP 089: Why Civil Engineering CEOs Need to Focus on People with Nick DeNichilo

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In episode 89 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I talk with Nicholas (Nick) DeNichilo P.E., President and CEO of Mott MacDonald North America. Our conversation focused mostly on why civil engineering CEOs need to focus on people and the effect that doing so can have on you in your career and life.

Here are some of the questions I ask Nick about his journey and his work as CEO:

  • How did you decide that you wanted to go into engineering?
  • What are some of the things that civil engineers can do in preparation to become a CEO of a civil engineering firm?
  • How big is the Mott Macdonald “family”?
  • What is the hardest part of being a CEO?
  • How do you decide what work you should focus on each day?
  • As a CEO of a company, how do you maintain a work-life balance?

Engineering Quotes:

Civil Engineering CEOs

Civil Engineering CEOs

Here are some key points discussed in this episode:

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Getting an Engineering Job after a Hiatus – Engineering Career TV Ep. 26

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Q: How can I get an engineering job after a hiatus?

Welcome to Episode #26 of Engineering Career TV. The topic for this episode is getting an engineering job after a hiatus. 

I spend most of the Engineering Career TV episodes answering questions that have been submitted from engineers around the world on how to rapidly advance their careers and live the lives they want to live.

You can submit questions for the show by clicking here.

Let’s jump into today’s topic: getting an engineering job after a hiatus, which is based on a question from Matt, who asks the following:
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TECC 146: How to Spark Leadership in your Engineering Career

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Spark Leadership

In this episode, Chris Knutson, PE interviews Angie Morgan from Lead Star on how to spark leadership in your engineering career. Angie touches on the importance of credibility, character and service-based leadership and how you can use these to build a career of success as in engineering.

Engineering Quotes:

Here are the key points on how to spark leadership in your Engineering Career:

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Your Life Is A Program, So Manage It Like One

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BalanceAfter a decade-plus of leading and managing programs, there’s one thing I don’t recall ever saying – or hearing someone else say: “gee, I need to find balance in my projects.”  I didn’t philosophically, or physically, sit down to figure out how to balance my time, my focus, and my energy between the various projects I was running.

Why?  Because that’s not how someone manages a program.  You collect key information components about the program’s elements, such as cost, schedule, and scope, and then you execute.  That might mean a lot of work in some periods of the year, a little less at other times.  You delegate less important tasks to others and look for efficiencies to optimize schedule and keep on budget.

If ever I did fret about balance between projects in my portfolio, it was because of one of them going off schedule or budget.  Or maybe because of the contractor executing the project or some other stakeholder that was creating friction.

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5 Ways to Protect Yourself from Other People’s Stress

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stress

It’s a fact for every engineer, in either an academic or professional setting, that stress will be present.  Because this is the case, you can either view it as a horrific pollutant or accept it as fact and design a way to mitigate or absorb it.  I suggest the later approach.  Remove any negative or positive connotation around stress and let’s develop a way to manage it effectively in our engineering career.

Designing and utilizing a system for how you will handle both self-inflicted and external stressors is essential.  It’s going to be a main determinant in your ability to advance professionally and it’s going to play a key component in how fulfilled and happy you are with life in general.

Professionally, advancement goes to those who have the ability to manage increasing levels and complexity of responsibility.  With responsibility comes stress:  finding new business opportunities, making payroll, handling personnel problems, fulfilling expectations of demanding clients.  If you do not have a means for effectively mitigating or absorbing stress, then the further you move along the professional advancement trajectory, the more likely it is that you’ll eventually hit a brick wall that will result in unintended consequences.  What do these look like?  Negative attitude; curt and unprofessional responses to colleagues and clients; and generally being cancerous in communicating and working with teams or subordinates.

TBStress

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TECC 31: The Engineering Career Coach Podcast – Seven Keys to Developing Work-Life Balance in Your Engineering Career

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work-life balance

In this session of The Engineering Career Coach Podcast, I discuss work-life balance, a topic that I am very passionate about. My guest is Julie Cohen, author of Your Work, Your Life …Your Way and an expert on this topic.

“Thinking about work as a day job has made a big difference in the way I approach what I do. It also helped me not to confuse who I am with what I do.” – Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

The Take Action Today segment of the show will help you start to develop work-life balance, both personally and professionally.

On today’s show, I interview Julie Cohen, PCC. In 15 years as a career and leadership coach, Julie has worked with hundreds of clients to clarify and achieve their professional and personal goals. Almost all of her coaching clients wanted to enhance their work-life balance, whether they wanted a promotion, better communication skills, more meaning and satisfaction from their work, or improved leadership capabilities. This led Julie to develop the 7 Keys to Work-Life Balance: a program that gives participants tools to identify, clarify and rectify the work-life balance challenges they may be facing. Her book, Your Work, Your Life …Your Way: 7 Keys to Work-Life Balance, provides readers with a process to evaluate their current balance and make real and sustainable changes for greater work and life satisfaction.

Listen to this session and learn: [Read more…]

TECC 022: The Engineering Career Coach Podcast – How to Identify Burnout in Your Engineering Career Before It Happens and What to Do to Get Back on Track

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Engineering Management Institute

In this session of The Engineering Career Coach Podcast, I interview Stephanie Cook, an environmental engineer who now helps professionals avoid burnout in their careers by improving their diet and exercise habits.

Engineering Management InstituteStephanie discusses five signs that you’re headed for trouble and gives eight strategies for avoiding burnout or getting back on track if you’ve already gone too far.

“I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth diminishing your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.” – Steve Maraboli

The career-changing tip at the end of the show will provide you with one simple thing that you can do every day to reduce your stress levels dramatically.

Listen to this session and learn: [Read more…]

Be Thankful for Your Loved Ones and Cherish Every Minute With Them

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Okay, so this post is not really related to engineering career development, but it’s Thanksgiving week and I wanted to write about something more family related. Work–life balance has been a major topic of discussion in much of my work with motivated engineers. The question of how to have a successful career in engineering but still have time to enjoy your family has been a hot topic on several Institute for Engineering Career Development calls as of late.

As we embark upon this Thanksgiving week, I would ask all of my readers to really be thankful for and enjoy the company of your loved ones—spouses, children, parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws, and so on. We often take the time we spend with them for granted and don’t fully enjoy it.

I know at times in my own life, I rush through things with my kids to try to get back to work. For example, maybe I rush through their bedtime routine so I can get back to doing work in the evening. Then, every so often, I read articles like this or listen to a moving song that drives home how lucky some of us are to be able to spend so much time with our loved ones.

The moving song I referred to is called “I Drive Your Truck,” which is about a young man who was killed while serving in the US military and how his father still drives his truck every day to remind him of his son. It’s a moving song that you can read about or listen to through the video below. I hope it serves to remind us all of how valuable the time spent with our loved ones really is. I am thankful for every minute of it.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Warning: Too Much Internet Use May Reduce Your Productivity and Negatively Affect Your Work-Life Balance

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In my engineering career, I have always tried to be as productive as possible.  That’s what we are taught as engineers – always optimize!

Recently I have been doing a lot of traveling for my Engineer Your Own Success (EYOS) book tour and it has helped me to realize how much the internet can really hamper your productivity.  On a recent flight from the east to west coast, I was able to spend a solid 4 hours on my laptop and get so much accomplished. The main reason for this productivity was because there was no access to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or e-mail to pull me away from what I was doing.

I certainly may not be telling you something here that you weren’t already aware of as I know most of you have at one time or another experienced time loss due to participating in social media postings etc. I realized a while ago that while the Internet is an amazing source of information, it can really take your focus off of your main tasks for the day. I’ve known this for a long time myself, but I still struggle with refraining from being active on the Internet when I know with jut one click of my mouse I’m in. However, on the airplane, I knew I couldn’t get online, so my focus remained laser sharp on the tasks I was tackling and what a difference it made in the level of my work performance for that time period. I easily did in 4 hours what I normally would have accomplished in a full day at the office. [Read more…]