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12.10

Management Books Offer Tips for Engineers

Two books by the Jeffrey Pfeffer —  What Were They Thinking?  Unconventional Wisdom About Management and Power — Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t — have impressed me with their tips on management and career growth.  The advice is wide-ranging, from traits that will help you climb the ladder of success to social interaction and posture.  Problems that can deter you also get scrutiny.

Corporate communications

Often there is a disconnect between upper management and the workers who implement their directives.  Some large corporations formerly ran training programs for future managers, giving them experience in many facets of the enterprise.  This may have gone away about the same time that mentoring by middle managers ended, with the stripping out of that level of management in many enterprises.

One problem is the desire to “sanitize” reports up the chain, so that upper management hears only what is pleasing to them.  But that can increase dissatisfaction among the rank-and-file workers who deal with the same problems daily.  Owning up to mistakes can be good for morale (“we are all in this together”).

The need for honest communication up the chain continues to exist, while programs that improve performance should be sold throughout the organization. Both General Electric and Motorola have found that total quality management pays big dividends.  Both have adopted the six-sigma quality standard, to reduce rework on the production line. On average, this reduces defects from 2,700 per million items produced to 3.4 defects — a significant saving in cost of rework.

Interacting with customers

Pfeffer advocates that members of management should spend some time on the “front lines” facing customers to better understand issues faced by their organizations (Ref. 1).  Two examples he cites are a kidney dialysis center and airline scheduling.  In both cases, managers benefited from time spent with customers learning details of the services their organizations provide.   Management can issue edicts, but without feedback won’t know whether they help or hinder the daily operation of the company.  For example, bunching up flight arrival times from overseas at one hub caused more missed connections for ongoing travel, increasing the stress on employees who daily have to deal with irate customers who miss connections (set up by the airline) because they can’t retrieve their bags from Customs quickly enough.  Managers dealing with the congestion personally soon appreciated the need for better scheduling of connecting flights.

A corollary is the scheduling of aircraft departures in a narrow time-slot window, because that is the time preferred by the customers.  But the customers fume upon finding that their aircraft is 25^th in line for takeoff. This has recently been mitigated by penalties imposed for very late flight performance, and publication of on-time performance scores.

A current example of not consulting the customers is the pushback of travelers against the mandatory use of either backscatter X-radiation or aggressive pat-downs for security screenings of airline passengers.  Both are considered intrusive by travelers who question whether they could eliminate the need for shoe removal going through security as promised by some.  Pilots are concerned that the radiation dosage is cumulative and that they could be at risk of injurious, long-term health effects. Pilots in uniform, with credentials, were later exempted from the requirement, but flight attendants, who undergo the same background investigations as pilots, were not.  Apparently, use of focus groups of flyers prior to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) edict could have shown the adverse consequences.  A former secretary of DHS has links to a company selling body scanners, raising questions of conflict of interest (although he was consulting, had done no lobbying, and had been a long-term advocate of the use of body scanners).

Critics say that mandatory shoe removal followed the apprehension of the ‘shoe bomber,’ and restrictions on liquids came after attempted use of explosive liquids.  Defenders say that the underwear bomber last Christmas would have been detected by a full-body scanner.

The Transportation Security Administration has grown to 67,000 government employees, but there is an opt-out provision for airports to hire private screeners. Concerns over potential liability may deter them from doing that.

Engineers benefit from power precepts

Power (in the management sense) is generally believed to be of more interest to business majors than to engineers, but engineers will benefit, too, from this book (Ref. 2). Again, numerous examples are cited.  One common thread is the need to build social networks, and to project the image you want others to have of you.

 Personal traits for success

It’s not enough to be competent at what you do, to deliver world-class skills in your job.  Your boss and others higher up in your company have to notice you.  You have to tell them what you are doing and how it is important to the company’s bottom line.  Pfeffer follows this tip with seven important personal qualities that will help you in your quest for success (Ref. 2).

• Ambition – drive to get ahead

• Energy – working long hours separates you from your 9-to-5 colleagues

• Focus – placing priority on the most important aspects of the job

• Self-knowledge – learn to use your previous interactions to map future goals

• Confidence –  be assertive; ask for what you want

• Empathy with others – understand where they are coming from

• Capacity to tolerate conflict – stand up for yourself and your views

Each of these traits — all of which can be learned — is discussed in depth.

People tend to overestimate others’ reluctance to cooperate with them.  Asking to borrow a cell phone from a stranger for a call, for example, is usually successful thirty percent of the time, not the ten percent estimated before actually trying it.

Building social networks is covered in another chapter of Power.  There are many opportunities, from eating or exercising with others, to sending notes or Christmas letters to keep contacts alive.  One example involved the use of multiple birthday parties in different cities, involving friends who were eager to assist in the celebrations.

Networking correlates with good performance evaluations, and with achieved salary and organizational level, aiding in career satisfaction.

Dress and posture are seen as indicators of confidence, adding to the impression others have of you. You are least likely to be laid off by a manager who hired you in the first place.

While Pfeffer covers organization behavior in a variety of business settings, engineers will find a lot to like and take to heart in his books.

Pfeffer is professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University’s graduate school of business.  One who practices what he preaches, he travels widely and cites numerous examples to support his conclusions.

References

Jeffrey Pfeffer, What were they thinking?  Unconventional wisdom about management, Harvard Business School Press, 2007

Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power — why some people have it and others don’t,  Harper Business, 2010

George F. McClure is Technology Policy editor for IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society's representative to IEEE-USA's Committee on Transportation and Aerospace policy.

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.