If you are a manager, how do you select your next candidate for management or leadership?  How do you select your next task or team leader?

If you are like most engineering managers, you choose the best engineer in your group.   Most managers assume that if an engineer can do the engineering work well they can obviously manage other engineers doing the same work.  And anyway, if you do this with enough engineers, the "cream will rise to the top".  Also, "trial by fire" may be the best way to see "who's got the right stuff".  Makes sense doesn't it?

If you are an engineer, how do you know when you are ready for a management or leadership position? 

For most engineers the approach is the following:  you do your engineering work well and when your manager asks you to manage or lead a project or team, that is the sign that you must be ready.  Besides, you will "prove your worth".  "Just give me a chance boss, I'll show you I can step up to the plate".  This makes sense too doesn't it?

Nonsense.  It is pure nonsense.

Do I have an opportunity for you.
I have a proposition for you.  Imagine this scenario.

Imagine you are a software engineer.  You write the software that controls the Boeing 777 jetliner.  You understand all the mechanical and aerodynamic forces.  You know how the software translates flight information and the pilot's actions into future actions and aerodynamic forces.  There is no doubt that few people understand the workings of the command and control and communication structure within a 777 aircraft as well as you.

Therefore, I have decided that I would like you to pilot a 777 from San Francisco to Hawaii.  I'm sure you can do it.  You obviously understand the workings of the aircraft.  Now just get into the left seat and fly that thing!  And I am sure we can find passengers who will pay to fly with you.  By the way, we have a philosophy at our company that the "cream rises to the top" and that "trial by fire" is the best way to find our next generation of pilots.

If you are like most people you will probably say... "You're nuts!"   However, this is how many engineers are selected for their first management job.  "Sure, I'll prove that I'm worth the company's trust".  "I'll step up to the plate".

I know
I know, I know... you can argue that I am a little over the top with this example.  In many everyday cases of management and leadership, life and death do not lie in the balance.  Well, maybe they do and maybe they do not.

The real question is "Why do we promote engineers to management so casually?" 

I would guess that the answer is that the stakes do not seem so high.

Actually, I am not so sure that the stakes are really much lower, they are  just different.  How many engineers do you know who have attempted management and have failed once or twice only to end up bitter engineers who feel anything having to do with management is repugnant?  How many careers have been ruined because people have been promoted without adequate training and too early?  How many "fast track programs"  just continue to lead around the track?

Sometimes fast-tracks work no better.
Over the course of my coaching and mentoring I sometimes work with young engineers who are what we would call "on the fast track" to management and leadership. 

In fact, I recently worked with a young engineer at a large engineering firm.  He was being considered for a two-year fast track "management and leadership program".  As I asked questions and got more and more information on this "fast-track program" it sounded more and more like a great opportunity.  Then I asked THE QUESTION.  I usually get to THE QUESTION.  I do not have it when I begin my coaching/mentoring with someone but after 30 minutes or so into a session I begin to get a clear picture of what the person is telling me and what the person is not telling me... and then THE QUESTION appears in my head.  In this case, THE QUESTION was "How many of the current managers, executives, and high level directors in the company have been through this program".  He knew the answer.  "In the last 15 years, which is how long the program has been in existence, no one in the executive or high level management ranks or even in mid-level management has been through the program.  They seem to go through the program and go back to their departments as senior engineers."

So how does this company pick it's future managers and leaders?  Apparently they do not train them.

Like many other companies this company apparently selects its managers through trial by fire.  When you have been "tested" inside the company or at another company, "trial by fire", "the cream rises to the top" and "prove your metal" are the real training regimes.  And as I said before, I think it is nonsense.

The usual process.
The usual scenario is that you are the best engineer on the team.  Your manager comes to you and says, "Jane, you are doing a great job.  We have been watching you and we have decided that you are ready for a step up in our organization.  We want to promote you to management and we want you to lead team XYZ on project ABC.  What do you think?"

Well Jane would have to be nuts to turn down such an offer.  And so she accepts the position.  

Now notice, I have not mentioned any training or coaching or mentoring for Jane.  And in the majority of the real-world cases, Jane will not receive much if any coaching or mentoring or training before the promotion (although she may be trained in corporate policies and procedures).  "Just get in the left seat and fly this thing".

So they get promoted.  What happens next.
So Jane is promoted and maybe, if she is lucky things go well for a while.  (Yes, she can taxi the airplane and maybe even get it off the ground.  But then she is in the air!)  So Jane is doing her best at managing the team.  Jane is working hard and things are actually going fairly well.  Jane's manager is impressed.   The organization is impressed.

Then "they" give Jane more responsibility.  It is as if someone in power is saying, "Let's see.  We have given Jane this new management job and she has done pretty well.  Lets give her more responsibility and see how she handles it."  It is the old "trial by fire" thing.  It is the old, "Cream rises to the top".  It is the old "May the best person win".  And yes it is stupid.  And it occurs far too often.

In light of this common situation, I have decided to provide mentoring to younger engineers and technical professionals who might get themselves caught in this pickle and to their managers.  There is certain information, that if you know it "before" you accept your first management position, will help you to be successful.  That is, there is certain information that, if you know it "before" you start the airplane, will help you have a successful flight. 

Rather than pushing new managers to the brink of failure so they can be "tested", how about training, coaching, and mentoring them so they can be successful?

I'm starting eGold; for engineers and engineering managers.
I'm starting a monthly on-line mentoring program the first week of September that will address just these issues.  It is specifically designed for the engineers and technical people who have graduated in the last 10 years.  The program is called eGold which is an abbreviation for (the electronic version of) Graduates Of the Last Decade.  This is also a program for managers who are managing people who graduated in the last ten years.

I call this a mentoring program instead of a coaching program because I view mentoring and coaching as significantly different.  Coaching is often defined as "personal development" in which the coach helps you be more of "yourself".  You come to answers on your own.  You come to your own conclusions.

Well, this program is not that.  It is not about letting you come to your own conclusions by stumbling and making mistakes.  If you could come to the right conclusions on your own you would not need this program! 

What many young engineers and technical professionals lack is experience.  They lack the knowledge that comes from making those mistakes.  You know, the ones that you would rather make in a flight simulator; the mistakes you want to know how to avoid rather than actually experience.

On-line mentoring.
Instead, this on-line mentoring program is designed to give you specific information that you would not be able to obtain other than by going through a 20-year career as an engineer, engineering manager, and executive.

For those of you who are graduates of the last decade, this will give you head start in your career without as much time in the trenches.  Isn't that what mentoring is supposed to do?

For those of you who are currently managers and are managing graduates of the last decade, this program will give you a different perspective to help you manage your direct reports more effectively.

My goal
My goal is to turn the old approaches of "Trial by fire", "The cream rises to the top",  and "Lets see if she can do this job" on their heads.  My intention is to give young engineers and managers of young engineers what they need to build successful teams and successful careers faster, better, and with fewer costly mistakes.

The biggest challenge
The biggest detriment to a successful career is not raw engineering talent, it is the preparation of that raw engineering talent to be effective in contributing to the organizational environment.  Just ask any engineering manager.  His or her biggest challenge is getting the raw engineering talent smoothly and effectively integrated into the organization.  If you are an engineer you want to prepare yourself.  If you are a manager you want to help prepare your direct reports.

Since you would not want to be put in the pilot's seat without training, why would you accept a management position without training and mentoring?  And why would  you want to be the manager responsible for putting someone in the left seat without adequate preparation, FIRST?

More details coming in next week's eZine.   Keep a look out.