I've just completed another technology management class at University of California, Santa Barbara, in their Technology Management Program.  And once again it was a fantastic class with a fantastic group of young people.  They're all ready to go out in the world and make things happen.  Some are a little confused and some are not.

The interesting thing is that when I meet engineers who have been out of school and in industry for five to ten years, they are mostly confused.  Confused about what to do with their careers.  What steps to take; what to do next; what the right career decisions might be?

And then there are the older, career engineers or engineering managers and executives who we would consider to be "seasoned veterans".  Some may even be retired.  Often, many (not all.. but many) are disappointed with their careers.  "It didn't go as I had planned".  "If I had only known, when I was a young engineer or manager, where my decisions would have taken me, I would have made different choices".

While no one has a crystal ball, there is a "life-cycle" to the career of engineers.  There is an evolution that most never quite understand until the end of their careers, if then.  In the next few e-Zines I'm going to give you a look at the typical engineer's career and what it takes to make useful decisions along the way.  That is the main topic of my next few e-Zines.  But I should warn you...it will be bumpy ride... so strap yourself in and hold on!

P.S.  I know this is a long e-Zine.  But frankly, you are not going to get anything useful from a one-minute paragraph on how to be a manager.  It does not matter how long your attention span is, or how much time you do or don't have to read this e-Zine.  This isn't a video game where the game developers are trying to give you instant gratification to keep you interested.  Your career isn't a game.  It's your life.  And success, change, and excellence takes time and it takes knowledge, and you won't find it in little "bites" of information that you can digest in between everything else you want to do at the same time.  So, in my humble opinion, what you'll find here is a lot of good information that can have a very positive impact on you and your career.  So read carefully.... and the next several e-Zines will become an e-Book, so you are getting a preview.

Note:  If you have missed my previous e-Zines/newsletters you can find them archived at:  Archived e-Zines/Newsletters

 As I stated above, many young engineers are ready to take on the world.  Once in the organization, they often become confused and by the time they are ready to retire, some are happy with their careers, but many are disillusioned and unhappy with how their career turned out.  Whether they remained engineers or went into engineering management, or achieved the highest levels of executive status, they thought it would be different.

The major challenge, of course, is that we can't know with much certainty where the choices we make will ultimately take us.  The choices we make along the path of our career may seem to take us to point "A" but instead, ultimately take us to point "Q".  So short of having a crystal ball, how are we to make sense of the twists and turns of our career?  By what processes can we best make our career decisions? 

That is the question I want to address:  "By what processes can we best make our engineering and engineering management career decisions?"

The answer is not in the stars.

The answer is not "blowing in the wind" either.
The answer to a happy and fulfilling engineering career or engineering management career rests in two factors of course, you and the environment within which you work.  By environment I mean the organizations, the business culture, and the company in which you ply your trade as an engineer or engineering manager/executive.

Plenty of people can tell you how to deal with the "environment", the company.  They can tell you how to ask for a raise.  They can tell you how to give a presentation.  They can even tell you how to conduct a performance review.  They can tell you what to DO in certain situations.

Few however, are willing to delve into that world that ultimately determines your satisfaction and happiness with your career, YOU.  Your true motivations.  Your true desires.  Your true expectations.  Your true sense of who you are.  As you will see, these factors are not the same as your "personality" or your "style".  I am going to take you down a very different road.

I know this sounds like something out of the 1960s but if you want a happy and fulfilling engineering or engineering management career, you had better know who you are.  First and foremost.

I know CEOs and high level executives who don't have decent relationships with their spouses or their children.  They work very hard, they make a lot of money, and yet their personal lives are examples of dysfunction.

I know of engineers who just want to do their engineering work but they are asked to manage.  They get tangled in the web of expectations brought about by their organization and they become unhappy and disillusioned with their work.

Now, I know... you can point to an example of someone who is happy for everyone I list as unhappy.  That doesn't matter.  My job is not to tell you that there are happy and unhappy, successful and unsuccessful engineers and engineering managers in the world.  My job is to show you how to make career choices so you are one of the successful and happy ones!

A very new subject.
I want to introduce you to a very new subject... and here it is.  The subject is your way of "being".

In my last e-Zine I introduced you to the topic of:

BEING--> DOING--> HAVING

I explained it this way: "our way of being leads to the process of doing which in turn leads to the process of having.  The arrows leading from Being to Doing to Having are very important.

How most people do this.
Most people decide what they want to have as their first step.  This message is everywhere in our environment.  "Have this, have that".  "I want to have a new car."  "I want to have a bigger house."  "I want to have a career in xyz".  "I want, I want, I want."

Starting your strategy at Having reverses the direction of the arrows. This "reversed process" leads us to ask important decision-making questions this way:  "In order to have xyz, what do I need to be doing?"

The source of final evaluation of your career.
Working the Being-->Doing-->Having process "backwards" is what ultimately leads people to be unhappy with their careers.  They mistakenly set up what they want to "have" ahead of who they want to "be".  Who they are is "driven" by what they want to have.  The result is often a forced way of being that is not aligned with who you are at you "core".  (More on this later).

Now imagine it the other way.

The price you pay.
There is a price to pay for everything we do.  Everything has consequences.  The price we pay for running Being-->Doing-->Having backwards is that we often sacrifice who we are for what we want to have.

They may be your colleagues.
"Who are these people you ask?"  If you listen to people who are truly happy with their careers, you will hear in their stories that they made certain decisions that were "right" for them.  In fact, you will often hear them say things like, "Everyone was telling me not to do this, but I just felt it was right for me."

Or you will hear them say, "I was going down this path but I just didn't feel it was right and so I changed.  I ended up swimming against the current, but I was OK with it."

Or you will hear them say, "I came to this crossroad in my career, and everyone was telling me to 'go right' and I just felt I wanted to 'go left'. And so I did and I haven't regretted it a bit.  But it's been different from what everyone else said I should do."

The keys to the kingdom.
For those of you who truly grasp, understand, hear, and see what I have presented to you here, you know that I have just given you the "keys to the kingdom".  Whether you are an engineer, an engineering manager, or an executive, when you master this decision-making process, when you get to the end, the real end, you will be able to look back on your career and say, "It was just as I wanted it to be.  It could have been no other way."