"How to be a star engineer" 2

[dav363]

About 4 years ago I read an article entitled "How to be a star engineer" which described the best approach to the engineering workplace for a new or graduate engineer to make the best impression. It went into some detail about the qualities of a "star" engineer, who is not necessarily the person with the best qualifications or the most studious, but is often the person who is the most actively involved with anything and everything in the company, from big projects to team outings, giving the engineer the oppertunity to build a name and reputation for himself/herself. It made quite an impression om me and changed the way I approched my job (for the better!)

Anyway, the copy I read was printed out and I never took a copy of it at the time, it looked like it had been copied from a magazine. The colleague I borrowed it from has now lost it, and I can't seem to get my hands on it anywhere else. I would love to get hold of the article again and I was wondering if anyone here had ever come across it or has a copy they would be able to send me. There's a couple of new angineers here who I think would really benefit from it, and I'm sure there would be other people interested in reading it too so if I do get a copy I'd be happy to send it around, it's well worth a read. Perhaps not for the more established engineer, but certainy for anyone starting out.

If anyone can help please post a reply.

Thanks
Dave

 

[PEDARRIN2]

http://caffeine.ieee.org/spectrum/oct99/features/engi.html

If that doesn't work, try putting "star engineer" into google.

 

[GregLocock]

Every star engineer I know uses google.

Kelley, Robert E. How to be a star engineer. IEEE Spectrum (October 1999), 51-58.
Good description of the skills that are needed to excel at work, which go beyond sheer technical skills


try

http://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/Research/Advice/star_engineer.pdf

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[dav363]

Got it, thanks. Apparently I need to read it again!!

 

[jmw]

Nice read.
A lot of effort in the study.
Hard work for the genuine wannabe star but the big drawback is the success of the brown-noser who, if they find this document, will be able to cherry pick the key functions; the "what gets you noticed and credited as a star" without actually performing.

Networking? It's all corruptible by the dedicated brown-noser and they can be more single minded than any other worker.
What the study did say was there was a difference in the lists between the worker's list of stars and the management's list of stars. It didn't quantify if the management list was filed with brown-nosers. It might just be that what they have identified as key for wannabe stars to make it onto the management lists is indistinguishable from brown-nosing.

A problem with this kind of study is that it depends on both workers and management recognising what makes a genuine star performer and continuously applying all the right metrics. In the end, if management are lax/stupid/gullable etc then the brown-nosers can always win through. Let's face it, how many schemes start out with all the best intentions and managers love these kinds of initiatives for their own "show and tell" to their bosses but they have short attention spans.
Maybe I'm a cynic but having seen so many initiatives start well then founder (remember "Investing in People"?) I am not so sure that there is any universal solution but rather it depends on circumstances, management and co-workers.

Management will love the idea of increased productivity and worry about juniors with too much initiative.

This is also the sort of study that does well in large companies but how well does it apply to small companies or sub divisions? All too often the wrong KPI's are chosen misinterpreted or otherwise corrupted.

I went on a customer services training program once and it illustrated for me just how badly such schemes can be implemented. The key factor there and here is alignment. That is the match up between management and workers response to such schemes.

If it is all too easy to apply the wrong measures to customer service then how easy to apply the wrong measures to "star engineers"?

For example, one KPI for customer service is delivery. How well does the company meet its delivery objectives? What many companies end up doing is measuring how well their actual deliveries meet the acknowledged deliveries. Naturally then everyone works toward offering deliveries they knwo they can meet.
Unfortunately, if they asked the customers what they think they are likely to discover that while it is important that deliveries happen when they are promised to happen what they really want is companies who will deliver goods when the client wants them.

One company I worked at has such metrics. They were pretty self satisfied. Then they moved the factory. A lot of planning went into this including building up stocks to cover the expected order levels.

The problem was that once they had product in stock, it sold like hotcakes. This built up an unwarranted expectation from the clients and come the actual move there was no stock to cover the down time in production. Deliveries went out of the window.

Guess what; when production was restored they went back to their usual quoting of long lead times. They never learned that what they measured was the wrong thing.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[csd72]

jmw,

I think these are good things to know, but I wouldnt give it to one of my junior engineers (when I have some again) as it may be used as a 'cheat sheet' for them to look better than they are.

From my point of view it is best to know about their flaws and develop them accordingly.

 

[epoisses]

well looking good is more than sufficient in the corporate jungle, there is no need to BE good really :-D

 

[csd72]

epoisses,

Yes, in the corporate jungle, management has no idea what an engineer does anyway!

I 100% agree with your second statement also, that was what I was trying to get at.

 

[HgTX]

I didn't read the paper as advocating brown-nosing. What they advocated was doing more than you need to do, but in a way that it will be noticed, not hidden in your cube--playing well with others, as they say in the daycare. They advocated networking and interacting with others not to schmooze but rather to increase your available resources.

My greatest professional successes have been exactly in these ways--largely because my first boss pointed me in that direction. He got me involved in a lot of national technical committees very early on, and I carried that onward to the extent that I will fund myself to go to meetings even if my employer doesn't have the budget for it, and the result is that everyone knows that even if I can't come up with the answer on the spur of the moment, I can get a good answer in very short order. My employers don't necessarily know that this is because I worked very hard to build up my network of contacts. They just know I am the person to ask for a particular category of answers.

Likewise, a specific project triumph of mine, and the reason the head of my agency (5 levels above me) knows my name even though I am officially at the bottom of the food chain, had to do with my recognition that an important but non-engineering aspect of a major project was being neglected by the engineers in charge. Because of my previous life I had the particular skills to handle this, and I expanded my own project task from "little EIT who helps take meeting minutes" to having a major role in putting out a 1000-page document. It was a really big deal and everyone remembers it.

But what it takes to accomplish things like this is recognition by one's employer that employees *should* be taking initiative, that they *should* be allowed to have opportunities for expanding their network beyond the cubicle next door, that they *should* be encouraged to make things better, that they *should* be encouraged to do more than precisely what they are ordered to, "think outside the box" if I may indulge in such a cliche.

If I had started out under my current boss instead of my first boss, I would be keeping my head down and my nose clean like all the other boys and girls. Sure, my file would be a lot cleaner of reprimands, but I wouldn't have anything even resembling the level of recognition I have now, both within my agency and out among others in my field nationwide. It's been worth a couple of slaps on the wrist. But my previous boss wouldn't have slapped me; he would have recognized what I was after and worked with me to get my goals accomplished.

That document isn't just about how to be a star engineer. It should also be about how to recognize and nurture the traits of a star engineer, since what an employer *should* want is more of those stars. Any employer who prefers that employees be placid and manageable and never rock the boat is not going to have as much success in their mission.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[jmw]

Agreed with your opening HgTx, but I suspect brown-nosers will do more damage with the report as their bible than for anyone else.

But there is a sense, for me, that what this report is about may be self-improvement but it may also be about manipulation or about creating an image of ones self that is not oneself or even becoming some one else who is not real self.

Tough call on what you would, should or could do to promote yourself.

If had to do all that to get noticed, I'd give up. I didn't wouldn't and probably couldn't and if I tried there'd be that stench of hypocrisy I couldn't clean off. Sure, there have been some tough times but I've lasted longer than most of the managers I'd have had to show off too.

I'm happier doing my thing my way and to heck with this. I work with a messy desk and bits of dismembered instruments and half finished components littering my office space. I can't throw away old files or records and my hard drive rapidly clogs and my desk is messy. But it works for me.

I'm sorry but somewhere along the line what is suggested passes from showcasing to manipulation or deception.
Just think ho you dislike those slick salespeople with all their clever tricks. That's pretty much what this is, a salesman guide to being an engineer, sorry, appearing to be a good engineer. Not the good salesmen, the ones who will get into the house and stay there all evening till the old folks sign up for time share holidays.

I don't want to put myself ahead of good engineers simply because I'm prepared to lay on the soft soap and they are not. I would be happy to see and use any guide that tells you how to trash a brown noser. I know Heckler and Koch has a good guide but I mean one that gets the job done without going to jail.

I'm not even sure I'd use that (too soft).

Let the world see me as I am. I want to be who I am not someone else. If you can tell me where the line is between being me and and getting noticed and this, let me know.
If management can't see it, too bad.

Well, not really. We all want to do better and I'm happy to learn how to be better at what I do and there is nothing like learning from other peoples experience but I want to be better, not be seen to be better whether I am or I'm not but simply because someone has shown me how that management are suckers for the crown and anchor game (find the pa under the walnut or anything else).

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[HgTX]

One area in which I think I disagree with the authors is that they feel that anyone can be taught what it takes to excel. I think either you have a sense for what really needs to happen, or you don't, and reading a paper about it isn't going to work, because if you need to, for example, force yourself to interact with others, it will come across just as superficial as it really is--something you are doing because you think you're supposed to do it to get ahead, not something you naturally do.

They didn't talk about their "star" engineers' motivation very explicitly in the paper, but I bet what was motivating them wasn't "how can I shine" but "how can I do things well and put myself to effective use". I think using the word "star" is a big problem, because it focuses too much on success in itself, rather than success as a result of doing the kinds of things that are really good for the business and secondarily for one's own prominence. Anyone who thinks "how can I shine" will be seen through by their peers, if not by their pointy-haired bosses.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[GregLocock]

There's obviously a big conflict in the paper from the get go, where there is only a 50% overlap of 'star engineers' as selected by engineers and managers.

I thought some of the Just-So stories were quite hilarious- introducing ISO 9000 by stealth in particular.





Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[MRDPE]

You may also want to take a look at the "Star at Work" book by the same author.

http://theprofessionalengineer.com/book-reviews/star-at-work/

MRDPE

http://TheProfessionalEngineer.com

 

[epoisses]

At the risk of creating "Star Wars" (hah! hah!) at the engineering dept... I do agree with HgTX that there's some sense in it. In highly hierarchical companies where someone at least 3 levels away from you is supposed to judge you and determine your raise, it is simply essential to not make the guy go: "who the heck is this person and what has he/she done lately?". Keeping management in cc from time to time (on good news, preferably) is not only advertisement, it just helps them do their jobs.

 

[csd72]

Here is another article along similar lines that some graduates may find useful:

http://www.modernsteel.com/Uploads/Issues/June_2006/30754_scarlett_web.pdf