Looking for Opportunities to Lead ... and More

by Mike Aucoin

Editor's Note: This article was published originally in Today's Engineer, Summer, 1998, Vol. 1, No. 3. In today's volatile work environment, these concepts still apply.

As organizations flatten, opportunities for promotion seem to vanish. However, executives are always looking for eager individuals to solve problems or take on new responsibilities. Success in these areas can lead to formal promotions. Young engineering managers should take on leadership roles whenever the opportunities arise.

The best way to take advantage of opportunities to lead is to stay alert for change events, such as new projects and challenging assignments in their organizations, and to recognize them as opportunities for leadership. You can then exercise leadership by understanding what the event means to key individuals in the organization, and then aligning your objectives with theirs. Use persuasion and negotiation to influence others in the organization to endorse your leadership. Then, sustain your recognized leadership by actively working to achieve these important goals.

Do You Have a Future in Politics?

Technical leaders and would-be leaders can't avoid organizational politics, which are often distasteful to engineers. But Herb Kelleher, co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Southwest Airlines, says that political "... is something everyone should be, because it means learning what motivates people, what concerns people, what scares people, and what inspires people to have them act affirmatively and effectively."

What can an aspiring engineering leader do to develop political savvy? In a Research Technology Management article, Jeffrey K. Pinto suggested that technical success is largely influenced by nurturing political success. Here are some key suggestions for technical leaders to improve their ability to play politics:

• Understand and acknowledge that your organization has a political nature
• Make sure that you understand the concept of "what's in it for me?"
• Learn how to influence and negotiate
• Recognize that conflict is inevitable and beneficial.

Escape to Innovate

Unquestionably, we expect engineers and engineering managers to innovate. But sometimes, in the rush to innovate, organizations inadvertently stifle innovation by forcing individuals into structured methods for improvement.

To truly innovate, we must move outside the mainstream patterns in which our brains operate. Creativity expert Edward de Bono developed one method for doing this called escape provocation, a process which anyone can practice.

First, list some of the things taken for granted about a process or system, and then do away with the assumptions. The provocation is meant to be bold or illogical — it produces a highly unstable concept with which the mind must deal. The mind then tries to restabilize by connecting with other patterns that make some sense of the provocation. For example, one could challenge the assumption that a personal computer (PC) must have a keyboard. To deal with this illogical condition, perhaps the PC can optically follow the finger movements of a user for data entry.

Of course, just generating ideas is not enough. You must develop the ideas into realistic systems. Nevertheless, the power of the method is clear.

References

James Parkin. Choosing to Lead. Journal of Management in Engineering, January/February 1997.

Make Politics Work for You. Research Technology Management, January/February 1997.

Lloyd P. Provost and R. M. Sproul. Creativity and Improvement: A Vital Link. Quality Progress, August 1996.

B. Michael Aucoin is President of Electrical Expert, Inc. in College Station, Texas.