The key to getting ahead is not technical.. 3

[KENAT]

You know exactly what the balance is between soft & technical skills may vary a lot between different sectors of industry, or at least different employers.

My current place has a lot of academically/technically brilliant people, many in fairly senior positions. However, many soft skills are severly lacking.

 

[possumk]

Kenat is absolutely right that the key to getting ahead can vary greatly among industries.

Being employed by an engineering firm, technical skills are a must to move into management, if that's what we call getting ahead. To be "project manager" you must do your time as a staff engineer, then lead engineer, first. Whether you understand budgets, critical paths, work break down structures, and other 'project management' type things appears to be irrelevant. SInce we engineers are sooo brilliant, we can easily learn all that other junk on the job as PM. (I am slightly sarcastic because we have some PMs who are completely baffled by a project schedule. That doesn't work out well when the client's other sub accuses you of delaying their work and the PM doesn't understand enough to defend us appropriately.)

I think that companies who are not solely engineering may give more weight to the soft skills, and 'getting ahead' might mean getting out of engineering all together.

 

[RAH1234]

Engineers do not have to sacrifice their technical skills in order to improve their business and social skills and I wish someone would explain to me the rationale for thinking otherwise.

 

[KENAT]

They may not have to but they often seem to.

I've known people who were reasonable engineers but the further they got into management the less you'd have known it from decisions they made.

Not sure I can give the rationale just anecdotal evidence.

Maybe it’s that they’re trying to look at the bigger picture, not just the technical details. That said they often seem to get caught up on certain points and seem oblivious to others, so maybe not.


KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[HgTX]

I don't see the problem so much as engineers having to sacrifice technical skills but that those who have inferior skills can nevertheless do better than competent engineers, if they make up for it with the other skills.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[prohammy]

Ken,

It's a funny thing that as an engineer begins to climb the greasy pole of the corporate ladder (I think that may be a mixed metaphor), one of the resentments that he/she will begin to experience from the engineers he/she has left behind is based on their idea that he has lost his/her technical knowledge.

I have worked really two sorts of manager (broadly speaking). The first is the type who is only ever looking up (and these guys have no further use for their technical knowledge, the ability to say 'Yes Sir' is far more important) and the second are those who are looking around (these tend to be able to combine both technical and management skills, and after that the better ones are the ones who are able to blend the two streams together most fluidly). No need to say which I have preferred to work with

PS When it comes to being resentful, I am well able to do that should the need arise

Kevin

“Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule” Nietzsche

 

[Maui]

I have heard engineers that I attended school with say that some of the students who couldn't survive in the lower level engineering classes transferred over to the business school. These people who seemed to lack the fundamental technical ability to become engineers eventually became the supervisors and managers for the engineers. Karma can be a tricky thing.

Most of the upper level managers and vice presidents that I have known (with some very specific exceptions) appear to lack the most basic technical skills that I would deem necessary for an undergraduate engineering curriculum. And these are usually the people who get to make the decisions that all of the engineers who work beneath them in the corporate ladder have to learn to live with. Is it any mystery why the decisions made by accountants, marketing professionals, and business majors often don't jibe with the technical requirements of the project?

Maui

 

[csd72]

The problem is that professional managers understand other 'management type' professions such as accounting and marketing. They dont understand engineering. They therefore listen more to the marketing and accounting than they do to the engineering.

If you dont like it, work for a smaller company.

csd

 

[Fenda]

For me 'management type' professions such as accounting and marketing is just like the orientation for a a car while the engineering is the the motivity,both are necessary.
But for a boss ,less speed or wrong orientation,which would be prefered?
undoubtedly,in a company,prompted engineer would choose manager as the future.

We are always available to help each other.

 

[cksh]

I believe that the key to getting ahead has almost nothing to do with technical knowledge in this business. Its who you know and how good you are at getting others to believe you know what you are talking about

During my review in April of 2006 my boss told me I wasn't assertive enough (translated: I wasn't aggresive enough with getting others to go along with my ideas) he would actually make me change designs just to argue even if it wasn't the right way to do it.

So he signed me up for executive leadership training. I actually enjoyed the training and learned alot about my communication skills.

But in the end I knew that I would never get promoted no matter how assertive I was (just based on others who were in similar positions as me). I have since found another job.

 

[dcasto]

RAH1234,

Engineers do not have to sacrifice their technical skills in order to improve their business and social skills.

social and business skills are irrational at best and engineers are trained to be rational. Throw in a couple of lawyers and let legal worries run your buiness and you'll see what counts and it isn't engineering skills. I've seen the least skilled engineers talk to a judge or jury stating opinions that absolutely wrong and they "win".

 

[2dye4]

Get the book "Putts Law"

You will absolutely love it if you work in a "high tech" industry.

Just to whet your appetite.
Putts first law

"All companies eventually undergo a competence inversion where the people who can't do the hard stuff float to the top like the dross, because the living is easier there for them."

"All technology is managed by two groups.
1 Those that understand what they do not manage.
2 Those that manage what they do not understand.
"

The cast of characters include Dr I. M. Sharpe
Its a hoot. And every last word of it true.

 

[RDK]

Technical skills are the foundation that you build your career.

Soft skills, communications, people skills, marketing skills etc ate the superstructure that defines how far you can advance above the foundation.


Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[ExRanger]

I'd love it if more technical people had more people skills. Maybe its just the industry I'm in, but some days I'd swear that somebody is putting steroids into the drinking water at my place of business. The way people fight - its really counterproductive. It makes you feel like you've joined the mafia instead of an engineering firm.

But maybe that's just part of the human condition and "people skills" wouldn't change it. On the other hand, I don't believe neurolinguistic programming has been attempted on any kind of a serious scale - could be worth a go.

 

[JsTyLz]

Survival of the fittest ExRanger... I notice the same thing. The people that let stress bother them try to make other people feel their stress. Quite sad really. I'll admit that everybody gets stress, but some poeple are miserable because they let things bother them and I think the only way they know how to handle it is to bother other people and cry poor me.