Mentoring advice 2

[bencraddock]

I have recently been assigned to mentor two EIT's fresh out of college and was wondering if anyone had any tips for mentoring young engineers. We do civil site and land development, so I would be especially interested to hear from those within the same discipline. Any stories (good or bad) from your own experiences as you were being mentored would also be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Ben

 

[UcfSE]

In general, I would try to teach them how to fish, instead of giving them a fish, so to speak. Many people say this or something like it, and then get too impatient to follow through with it.

 

[francesca]

My first mentor said "You're an engineer now; act like one." The next day he left to go overseas for a month and left me acting residential engineer on a construction project. I learned a lot that month; mostly how to shut up and listen and find the right people to ask questions of.

 

[GrumpyG]

The enthusiasm and energy associated with young engineers will reinvigorate your office. You will gain a window onto different perspectives and lifestyles you may have forgotten.

It is difficult, however, to schedule enough time to properly train young people and get your own work done. When a young engineer has a question no matter how unimportant, they will appear at you door with a quiet knock. Your thought process is disrupted. 5 minutes turns into 10. The young engineer will appreciate your experience and attention. Therefore, they will want to linger.

I suggest setting up several meeting times during the day to answer questions. Sometimes, an entire day may be required for instruction. Schedule accordingly.
If a young engineer(or anyone else for that matter) lingers in your office, pick up your coffee, water, tea cup, etc. and slowly make your way to the kitchen. Typically, this will break their momentum, and the person will head back to their work station without you having to imply that you do not have time for them.

Also, let them know that there may be some down time for them until they learn to become more independent. Additionally, some policies may not make sense to them, especially regarding technology. Assure them the technological policies are beyond their control, and they must simply follow the rules. The rules are in place to protect everyone's work including theirs. They may ask "why do we do it this way, rather than the way we learned it?". Let them know that some methods that seem odd to them have been tested over time and have made the company the success it is today.

 

[whyun]

I like the way UcfSE put it. My version is "Do not spoonfeed them". Provide them "clues" to get to the right references to derive the right solutions, not tutor them with step by step. Give them some history lessons on whys, not just hows. Encourage them to ask the right questions.

 

[cvg]

step 1) have them watch you do it
step 2) have them do it themselves
step 3) have them teach someone else how

 

[Lion06]

Let me provide the perspective of a mentee.
I typically ask questions about where exactly to find something. However, I only do this after searching on my own and have extremely specific questions (i.e. where in ASCE 7 is the minimum interior 5psf load on vertical surfaces? - I spend 30 minutes searching for this one time to be sure this didn't apply to horizontal surfaces as well). I would never go to another engineer and say, "How do you design this member?", or "What dead load should I use here?"
I always try alone first and ask to have it looked at - i.e. I would design the member (typically an unusual, built-up member subjected to torsion as well as weak and strong axis bending) and then ask another engineer to look it over. I always have my reasoning ready in case I am asked exactly why I did things a certain way.
I would say to expect them to at least try on their own first (provided they aren't spending half of a day doing something that should take a half hour), and then ask you any very specific questions that they have.

 

[BigH]

You might also give them reports/designs that have been done by your office so that they can see how reports and designs are developed. They will also gain an appreciation of the history of your company as well.

When I started with a geo firm in Toronto back in the mid-70s, I devoured the old geotechnical reports - and the knowledge gained in reading and understanding the reports (including how the reports were structured and how the drawings and laboratory test results were presented) and where the company had done business over the years proved extremely valuable. On one later job for example, I knew of three geo reports in near proximity of a proposal we were submitting so I was very clear of the most likely geo conditions to be encountered.

 

[civilatl]

The only thing you can control is the working environment. Make sure that you are around the EI's a lot. I almost share a cubicle with a 63 year old engineer, so It doesn't get much better than that as far as training. And this also works better for him, since he's always aware of what I'm doing and how long It's taking. This is in comparison to my last job, where they only looked at timesheets, and where board meetings were common. Guess which firm makes the most money?

 

[whyun]

I agree with StructuralEIT. Asking the right questions is important but more importantly, a mentee needs to have already researched, have a feel for or an expectation of what the right answer should be. When the mentor concurs you gain confidence, when the mentor disagrees, you learn something new. Not saying the a mentor is right all of the time but a mentee should give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

[bencraddock]

Thanks everyone for the replies. You've brought up some good points that have made me consider my style of mentoring. There is a delicate balance between letting someone figure things out on their own (which takes more time and means loss of billable hours) and providing more direct instruction (which will speed things up, but they might not learn the topic as well.) I'm probably too quick to answer the question directly instead of pointing to the proper reference. In the long run, teaching them to fish should pay bigger dividends...

 

[Rye1]

One of my earlier bosses told me to not come to him with only problems...but rather problems and possible solutions. I think this was the right approach because even if the young engineer doesn't know the right solution, they will have to think through the problem and therefore have a better understanding of how to ask the question.
Rye

 

[fattdad]

Let me provide the perspective of a mentee.

a protégée studies under a mentor.

It's all about moral, ethics, virtue. It's about communication and listening. While you may be above-average or brillient, it's also about tolerance for folks that function at an average level even when showing a good work ethic (not everybody can be above average or brillient, even though you may want that).

The greatest challenge of a ship's captian is to maintain moral. Be nice.

Just a few thoughts. . . .


¡papá gordo ain’t no madre flaca!

 

[lamojai]

When mentoring younger engineers I usually get them on my project team. I give them general information on the end result that I'm looking for, but let them try and figure it out. To me, and what I personally like, is to figure it out on my own. It's really important to develop a process for figuring things out and success in school does not necessarily equate to success in the workplace. For me I don't like someone hovering over me (i.e., micromanagement).

 

[projectinspector]

I didnt read all the posts so this was probably covered multiple times. One post did say, teach them why. This is the most important. as engineers, we are problem solvers, and have to understand why a decision is made, and what factors influenced those decisions. Dont ever think thier education prepared them for the real world. give them the angles you learned the first few years, and theyll take off on thire own. they dont want to be spoonfed, and if they do, you dont want them to work for you.