Continuing Education for Technical Professionals

   THE LEARNING PROFESSIONAL^TM

           Project Performance and Career Advancement Tips

                                                                                                      Volume 5, Issue 6

In This Issue:

AuxTips^TM

What Every Engineer Needs to Know About Leadership and Management

Continuously developing leadership and management skills should be a high priority for all engineers.

What Coaching Can Do

Don't overlook one of the most effective opportunities to quickly improve results.

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AuxTips^TM

Quick tips you can start implementing immediately.

Taking Charge of Your Career Development

Alisa Blum, MSW

How often do you work day in and day out without thinking about what you like or don’t like about your job? Are you working in areas that maximize your strengths, develop your skills, and ultimately lead you to your goals?

Here are some tips to evaluate your career development needs:

• At the end of each day, make a list of what you liked and didn’t like about your job. After one month, read your daily lists and look for common themes. Brainstorm how you can do more of what you like and less of what you don’t like to do.

• Ask yourself the following: In what areas do I feel the most successful? What am I naturally drawn to do? What activities make me feel the most satisfied? Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

• Envision what you want to be doing in the next 5-10 years. What can you start doing now to move toward your goals for the future?

After completing this self-evaluation, meet with your manager to discuss how your career goals fit with your organization’s vision and mission. How can you do more of what you want to do while helping your organization become more successful?

What Every Engineer Needs to Know About Leadership and Management
Gary C. Hinkle
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Eric’s first week on the job as an engineer after graduating from college was full of leadership and management challenges – but he didn’t realize this at the time.  He was just getting the work done that he was told to do.  Just ordinary work for an entry-level engineer.

On the surface, Eric’s assignment didn’t seem very challenging.  He was asked to assist the lead engineer with the testing of a new product.  A breakdown of Eric’s tasks that first week, however, reveals the aspects of engineering work that are very much leadership and management oriented.

Click here to read the entire article.
 

What Coaching Can Do
Dan DeLapp
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Every day, in every work location, in every organization, leaders and individual contributors are seeking opportunities to add to their professional success and contribute to a successful enterprise. However, many of these opportunities aren’t maximized to the fullest or are missed altogether. These missed opportunities could play out in a number of ways:

• An idea that might have boosted results for the function or enterprise doesn't get implemented because the champion failed to build a coalition of support.

• A key player in the organization isn’t getting cooperation from those around him or her because the interpersonal style is perceived as cold and arrogant.

• A new system change that would have increased productivity and cut down time has not been utilized because the leader failed to engage all of those affected by the change and didn’t plan for early quick wins.

• A project that would have meant a tremendous improvement was behind schedule and over budget because the project team members couldn’t come to an agreement on critical issues such as who was in charge, how to measure success, assigning work or how to make decisions.

• A team that had once been at its peak under the previous leader now is sputtering along about half speed. All because the new leader holds control over every decision and doesn’t communicate necessary information.

• Good results that come from having top performing team members aren’t being realized. Some of those employees are leaving while others have lost their motivation to do well. Neither the boss nor the coworkers have been willing to deal with relationship problems that have resulted in bad feelings within the group.

Do any of these situations sound familiar? It’s mind boggling to think of all the losses that occur when these kind of situations arise. Did you know that it’s possible to calculate these losses? Likewise, its also possible to calculate how much could have been gained had those situations had positive outcomes.