A climbing kit for ambitious engineers

SENIOR MANAGEMENT zyxwvut Many people believe that to reach the pinnacle in the cut and thrust world of top level management you need to be an accountant or at least have an in-depth knowledge of accountancy practices. Engineers tend to remain engineers or, if they do progress into the management sphere, become technical managers, marketing managers but very rarely managing directors and/or chief executives. Fortunately for the vast majority of ambitious engineers in the world today, however, these beliefs are entirely false, as recent research has proven. ngineers have a much greater chance of climbing the mountain than any other ‘professionals, with over three times as many engineers achieving a top chief executive slot in UK manufacturing companies than accountants. Also, according to Dr. Alan Rudge, formerly of BT and now chairman of WS Atkins, research carried out at Manchester University has shown that as an engineer one’s chances of reaching the top are up to 30% better than those of an accountant and 70% better than applicants with any other degree level qualification, while approximately 15% of current UK university vice chancellors are engineers compared with only 6% in the total university population. Given this high level of success it may be pertinent, therefore, to ask just how these highflying engineers reach the top in business when the expectations of many of their colleagues often assign them permanently to the technical sphere. According to a recent IEE forum on ‘Climbing the management mountain’, a variety of skills are needed, including flexibility, persistence and a natural tendency to volunteer for things, particularly those that no one else wants to do. Better background As Jean Dewar, head of process and quality systems at Rolls-Royce, points out: ‘Unfortunately I never planned my career, it has always been opportunistic but despite that I believe that engineering skills are an essential background for almost any job and that the approach they give you does provide a better background for going into management than anything else. ‘However, I had to be continually persistent, flexible and mobile and take my chances as and when they arose often by volunteering for jobs that others did not want. This gave me a breadth of experience which ultimately has held me in good stead. If you sit back and wait for jobs to be offered to you, however, you will often wait a long time and that makes it very difficult to gain the relevant experience to become the obvious choice when a high-level job finally comes up’. She adds: ‘You do not become the obvious choice unless you work at it, have been persistent and made people aware of who you are, where you are, what you can do and that you are keen to take on new opportunities’. Dr. Alan Rudge also failed to make a great zyxwvu 164 zyxwvutsr ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT JOURNAL AUGUST 1998 SENIOR MANAGEMENT strategic plan when he .started out on the long road to engineering and management success. As he says: ‘My own belief is that you are more likely to succeed by being hardworking, flexible, responsive and responsive to opportunities than by working to some prescribed script. It probably helps if you are born into a great family with plenty of money and influence, but as an alternative for the rest of us education is critical even if it means going back to studying as a imature student to reDair anv shortfalls. ‘Without a good educational platform from which to work, you are at a definite disadvantage’, he adds, ‘although it does not mean that you cannot succeed’. Having qualified as an engineer, Dr. Rudge recommends that all prospective managers practice the profession at least for a while. He says: ‘It almost doles not matter which area of engineering you choose because the lessons you draw frorn all areas can hone your analytical skills and problem-solving skills and provide you with the confidence in your own abilities which could play an enormous part in your ultimately being successful. ‘Also’, he adds, ‘it is important to be able to see even the times when things are not going too well as a learning experience and to nurture a basic enthusiasm and selfmotivation. If you can wake up in the morning and say “Never mind what yesterday was like, let’s get back to it”, with some enthusiasm, then potentially you are a high flyer’. then you will almost certainly be noticed’. Dr. Gaskell also feels that it is very important to keep your networks alive. ‘Contacts I have made through the IEE and through other industry bodies have always been valuable in terms of business’, he states. ‘You never know when you will want to find somebody with a particular area of experience’. This networking theme is also echoed by Gordon Stewart, Chief Executive of Beaufort Management Consultants, who states that the concept of networking is a fundamental one, while Dr. Rudge feels that taking a bigger role in the engineering profession can help in this respect. He says: ‘Being part of an institution and taking part in a professional life can be of enormous benefit to you in the development of your career. Within the institutional life you network across other companies and with people who are at all levels of their careers. This can be extremely valuable as these people can get to know you as a competent individual who is well balanced, can crack problems, keep calm and can do many different things outside of the direct working environment’. zyxw As an engineer you are well equipped and well armed Alan Rudge zy Management education When it comes to management education, however, opinions tend to vary with some successful engineers recommending MBAs and others preferring to rely solely on experience gained from doing the job. Colin Gaskell, for example, feels that to put prospective managers through formal ‘talk and chalk‘ training can be a complete waste of time. As he says: ‘Admittedly that may be a slight exaggeration but, in my experience, that type of training only works when you are trying to teach certain types of skills, such as how to read balance sheets. To my mind in order to be a successful manager inter-personal skills are probably the most important and those are either with you from birth or can be picked up on the job by actually managing people and by working your way up through various management ranks. ‘My main argument with MBAs’, he adds, ‘is that you will not suddenly pick someone out and turn him or her into a manager by putting them through a couple of years of detailed training courses. They also have to have a great deal of “hands-on experience”’. zyxwvutsrqp v Sideways moves Many engineers, (despite a basic enthusiasm for the job arid a yearning to try different things, tend, however, to feel that a job is not worth applying for unless it results in an upwards progression, but Dr. Colin Gaskell, formerly of Marconi Instruments and The 600 Group and now Honorary Treasurer of the IEE, believes that to ignore sideways moves could turn out to be a big mistake. ‘I have found’, he says, ‘that you have to grab every opportunity. Some may appear to be giant sideways leaps, but you have to be prepared to look for change, both technically and in terms of your job, and take the chances when they arise. There is a considerable amount of luck involved but if you show that you are willing to have a go and do sornething quite different Engineering skills are an essential background for any management job Jean Dewar ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT JOURNAL AUGUST 1998 v zyx 165 SENIOR MANAGEMENT zyxwvut One way of gaining this hands-on experience is by becoming involved in project management. As Dr. Rudge says: ‘The natural way for an engineer to hone management skills is through project management. Within a project team there is a learning phase where you have to deliver your element of the project, but you are also in a position to observe how a good, or bad, project manager operates. You should also seek the opportunity to run a project yourself even if it means volunteering. Your behaviour within that team will then enable you to build a reputation as someone who is solid and willing to have a go’. David Jefferies feels, therefore, that, in order to overcome this type of culture, engineers should try to comprehend the nature of business and to recognise that, if you are only prepared to listen you will learn something new every single day. ‘I cannot overemphasise the need to listen to both your colleagues and your staff‘, he says, ‘You can learn something from everybody, no matter what walk of life they are in or what kind of job they are doing’. ‘Also, managers need to be able to use the right kind of language for each occasion. Messages should be adapted to suit different staff levels and it is vital to understand this so that ultimately everyone within the organisation feels that they know what is going on and that they can contribute to it’. zyxwvuts zy Standard practice Some management skills, however, should be an integral part of standard engineering practice. David Jefferies, the current IEE President and Chairman of the National Grid Company, for one, believes that many basic management skills should be practised from the beginning of one’s career. ‘Certain parts of what I might describe as management’, he states, ‘ought to be practised almost from day one. Every engineer and manager needs to be able to talk to his or her colleagues, to make it clear what they are looking for and to be able to write reports. A lot of this can be learnt simply by observing the behaviour of others and trying to pick out those people on whose methods you would like to model some part of your actions, but you should also never be afraid to ask questions. Too many people float on the surface and never really fully understand the fundamentals because they never had the courage to go and ask in depth‘. Given the level of skills required within the profession, therefore, it is all too clear to these and many other successful managers that engineers should strive to reach the top. As Dr. Rudge says: ‘It is much easier to teach an engineer how to be an accountant than it is to teach an accountant to be an engineer. And a company which is too accountant-driven is usually not very innovative. It may be well run but it will often lack that spark which takes an idea through to fruition. ‘The trouble is’, he adds, ‘that many companies have developed a culture whereby the people who do the engineering are divorced from the commercial side. Engineering has always been about time and money, and it is vital to bring those together to good effect’. 166 zyxw you have to be fairly thick skinned and prepared to take risks Colin Gaskell Everyone should feel that they know what is going on and that they can contribute to it David Jefferies Real world management When it finally comes down to real world management, however, most chief executives and managing directors would agree that it can be a lonely place at the top and, therefore, it does not suit everybody. Each individual engineer has to decide not only whether or not they have, or can acquire, the skills required but also whether they have the temperament. As Colin Gaskell says:‘You have to be fairly thick skinned, be capable of delegating a job and then watching someone else to it less well than you know you could have done it yourself and be prepared to take risks. Management also involves keeping a great many balls in the air at one time, so if you cannot do that, maybe its a good idea to stick to engineering’. If you can do all these things and are still keen, the message, however, is to go for it. As Dr. Rudge says: ‘Opportunities and climbing are all about seeing the breaks, being there because you are always there, being there because you are capable and being there because when anybody asks you to do something you respond with a smile and a “Yes, I can do it, I will fix it, don’t worry”. As an engineer you are well equipped and well armed and, hence, ultimately there is not great mystery to success. It is just a matter of being on top of things and being confident enough to know that you can really do it’. zyx 0IEE: 1998 Glenis Moore is a freelance writer. ENGINEERIT\TG MANAGEMENT JOURNAL AUGUST 1998