Episode 116: Guest Brian Walch - The 3 Stages of Career Growth: What Engineers Need and Managers ...

Welcome to the Impactful Engineer Project. I'm Steve Maxey and with my co host and brother Jake, we are here to bring you guidance, fresh ideas and the tools to help you become an impactful engineer.

Welcome to the Impactful Engineer. Our mission is to help you grow your engineering career and inspire you to pursue your full potential not just as an engineering professional, but as a member of your greater community. I'm Jake Maxey. I own and operate NLS Engineering and Electrical Engineering partner in the AEC industry. My brother Steve is a mechanical engineering manager in new product development. Steve, why don't you tell us the episode types that we have here for our listeners?

Yeah, sure. So first off is our typical episode type, which is Jake and I. We get on here and we present a topic where we introduce the why and the how around that concept and we aim to give some actionable tips to inspire you to get some growth in your career. Occasionally we do have quick solo episodes that immediately get down to a point and share an idea that is critical to growing your career. And these can be high level concepts that change your thinking and mindsets to more detailed topics to inspire specific actions. And finally, like today, about once a month or maybe twice a month, we have a long format guest episode where we bring in experts in a particular field to share their perspective, mindset and actionable tips around their area of genius.

Yeah, so today's one of those episodes like Steve said and we're going to turn it over because this guy's got a lot of experience and there's going to be a lot of good stuff for us to take away today. So just introducing Brian Walsh to the show and take it away Brian, and happy to have you here, man.

Thanks. Excited, excited to be here. Excited to talk to you both and your audience. My name is Brian Walsh. I'm the owner of Shift Focus Coaching and Consulting, based in Anchorage, Alaska. I started this business after about 30 years in the software development arena. That's where I started my career. I spent 25 years at a software and GIS consulting firm that started here in Anchorage. We started when I started, we had 20, 25 employees. Over my time there, we grew to over 200 employees. We had seven offices at the peak and as you might imagine in a growing firm there was just a huge set of opportunities. I filled a really diverse set of roles. So in addition to software development, technical project management, I did business development and led an office for a little bit for 20 years. I ran a recruiting program, led HR for many years. I was a Shareholder. And so I got to be on the board of directors and participate at that level. So it was great. It was really an awesome career. One wonderful. I love consulting, but you get to a certain point in your career where you're kind of like thinking what, what do I want to do for the rest of my life? Where do I really want to make an impact? And for me, kind of reflecting on my experiences and, and kind of where I, how I changed over that. That whole time I, I knew I wanted to work with, with people more directly, not just through technology, but with them directly and not just as a job function. So that's, that's kind of what led me to start my own practice. And so now I really focus my work on working with managers and trying to empower managers. Excited to talk to your audience about it because I know a lot of your audience are kind of early in their careers and I did, you know, I ran recruiting that had a pretty extensive campus recruiting program. And so I worked with a lot of students, a lot of people early in their career. And a lot of those lessons that I'm trying to help. Managers are lessons that if you learn early in your career, help you have a longer, more successful, more fulfilled career and, and ideally they become managers that are really good managers because as we all know, managers have huge impact, really an outsized impact on our careers and you know, the success of businesses. I did, you know, we're a consulting company, so we'd go into businesses and implement new software, implement new systems and all these projects. I did, you could tie the success to, of the project to the manager. You know, we had a good manager, great project, not so good manager, not so good project.

That's right.

So yeah, you've seen it and we all know it. And then if you think about yourself as an employee that you know that manager has a big influence on your career. And more importantly and really what kind of drives me in terms of like aspirational vision for my company is, you know, I think about managers, they have the biggest influence on how we feel about work. And when we, when we leave work, we go home and we go and we interact with our friends and our family and how we're feeling about how our work and our contribution to society is going to impact those relationships and it goes, impacts the community. And so if we can, if we can somehow make people feel better about work and then they go home and they have more energy and you know, more self awareness and all the things that make them great at work and they Take that home and they take that in their communities.

We.

We can change the world. And so that's, you know, that's my big, grand ambition and the kind of the impact I want to make in the world.

And can you see why we brought them on people? Yeah. If you turn this off now, this is the biggest disservice you'll ever do to yourself.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was thinking when you're going through all that is managers are a lot like teachers. Right. If you, if you think about when you're in school, you. You had teachers on every grade, and each one of those are so memorable, for better or worse. Right. If you had a bad teacher or a really fantastic teacher and they had such a large impact on your life for that entire school year. And so I think managers are very similar because they, they directly influence how your life is. Right. In general for. For the duration of that you're working for them.

Yeah. So many people could recall, like, oh, the good manager that influenced me or the bad manager that I, That I survived. Yep, you're exactly right.

You know, what's great about our industry is you bring that up and then your managers will say, leave home at home and leave work at work. And it's like, I've always misunderstood. Like, I've always just pushed back on that. I'm like, as. As much as you try. Because I try. And I even probably gave some advice a long time ago about, hey, when you leave work, you gotta get good at just flipping the switch. Well, not everybody can do that. Okay. Including myself. And so what I loved about your message the most was that, hey, if we can prepare people to be happy at work, we can prepare them to have a greater likelihood of being happier at home and then spreading that happiness and joy throughout their family, too. And then they're just happy and joyful at home, and then they come to work, and it's not this huge missing cohesion of incongruence that you have to fight every day to get back to joy.

Yeah.

Rather, that's what I love about it. Yeah.

Rather than pushing a pendulum back and forth between happy and unhappy. Right. You're just building momentum of happiness going in one direction. So.

And it'll make your business better and

it'll make more money.

There's also that.

Yeah, totally. Right.

So if. If you were to jump into a team and you're going to consult, you're going to. You're going to get the lay of the land is happiness. And how do you determine if these people Are joyful at work? Is it obvious to you or do you have a system to where you kind of jump in and figure out where do I start?

Well, the, if you think about managers, like I said, just kind of thinking about managers, I think defining what makes a great manager. And I came up with a simple definition really borrowed from Russell. He wrote a great book called when they win, you win, and he simplified it and I use that and just expanded a little bit. But I define a great manager as three things. One, they got to have a fulfilled career. They got to feel good about where they're going and how they're doing. So that's kind of one of the basic things we work on. You know, if you're always focused on external and not thinking about yourself and being fulfilled, that's not going to be, that's not going to lead to greatness. So number two, successful employees, that's the job of a manager is to enable the success of their employees and then three, deliver an aligned result to the, to the business. So that, that really that simple. And Russell Arroway kind of simplified that and that added a lot of clarity to me. It was like, that's how we're going to define what, what a great manager is. And we can put some metrics around those for the organization that we're at. The individual can self assess and kind of find ways to determine am I fulfilled? Am I on the right path for myself now at this stage of my life? So anyway, that's the, that's the definition we work toward.

Hmm. Is it tough to quantify or put a qualitative criteria on the fulfillment aspect? Because it seems to be like the gateway to, and it makes sense to me being fulfilled, like when I'm not and I'm misaligned and I'm at work, I'm not being the greatest that I can be with everybody else and doing that, the team wins and then tying that to an outcome to the business, like where do you start with the fulfillment piece? Hey, my fellow impactful engineers, if there's one thing that you could do to help out this community is to keep listening to the podcast, but also if you found value in it, to share it with one person, give us a five star review or even leave a text review. It only take a few seconds of your time. Find that person that you think could enjoy some of this or learn from it and pass on the good word. Now back to the show.

Yeah, so when you think about like developing your career and how do I, how do I fulfill that the, there was some great research and we can, we can talk more about it, but there's some great research called and was documented in the book called the Progress Principle. And one of the key findings they came out with was the most important contributor or the biggest contributor to how you feel about your work life is making progress on meaningful goals. And so if an engineer can line out, what am I working toward and why is this meaningful to me? Make progress, see that progress, then they have a chance of being fulfilled. You know, there is kind of a, you got to just self assess. I can't put a measure and say if you're happy or not. You got to do a little bit of that. So what I do is I give them four areas to talk about or to outline and think about. And those four areas, I call them the riser. So it's the, the acronym for these four areas, but also is like a nice, like this is what helps you rise. And those four areas are relationships and influence. That's number one. So for your particular stage in your career, where you're at, what are the relationships that you need? What are the quality and the type of relationships you need? What sort of influence do you need to have? The second one is skills and experience. So what are the skills that you are trying to achieve and what are you going to do do with those skills? And then experiences, you know, like there's certain experiences we need to get at certain times in our career. So skills and experience results. What are the, how is success measured? That's when you talk about like aligning to the business. So many times people aren't clear of what, what are the results. I'm trying to, I should be focused

on to most of the time.

Yeah, like we're, we're, we're, we're like I'm doing all this work over here and you know, the manager's like, yeah, but this is what we need to do to move the business forward. So that's just a huge area. But anyway, results. And then the last one is systems. What are the systems I need? Whether it's the technical systems that my department or my organization uses, the operational systems, like the, you know, the procurement process or the sales process, those sorts of things or your personal systems, like the things you need to do to kind of personally develop. And what I found is that breaking that up and having that framework and then sitting and going through each of those and looking ahead and saying not what is the like grand scope, but just in my, like my purview of What I can see right now, what are the things I need in each of those four areas and kind of outlining a little bit of a map and then saying, what am I going to work on this week? Just one goal. One thing I'm going to do. I'm going to go improve the relationship with my boss. I'm going to. I'm going to try to, you know, figure out how am I going to move the needle on project success or number of hires or whatever, you know, whatever the result is.

Just.

Just one thing. And kind of get a weekly cadence of what's my goal focus this week? One thing. How did I do and use that matrix to track it a their, you know, doing some work to figure out what does the organization need, what do people around me need and what do I want to do? Like what. What skill do I want to work on? That's important to me, and what am I going to do with that? To see some success in that skill and. And then they document it so they can see their progress. Because, you know, we all. We all do it like we're moving forward, we're. We're moving ahead, and we forget to stop and just go, oh, look, look how far I came. Look, look what I did. And so that's the, you know, that's. So that's. Anyway, that's the kind of the. The framework and how you put it in place to actually start feeling like I. I'm fulfilled. If we're making progress on things, we're going to be fulfilled.

I think a lot. I think a lot of that is right. And I know, Steve, you probably got some really good stuff, but I want to make just one point because there's so many things in there that I could talk for five hours, but. But the one thing I wanted to point out was that so. So just really to go back real quick, but it's relationships influence skills and experiences, right?

That's kind of relationship, influence, skills, experience, results and systems.

Yep. Results and systems. There you go, Riser. So the one thing I want to hammer in this episode is that you notice that it's making small wins, stacking progress, seeing the progress, and then the fulfillment meter goes up. And it's something that I teach or, or say, and I'm not a teacher or a coach, but I blast it into the universe with my face noise is I say, you won't know what you're fulfilled in until you start getting better at something. And I really think that's one of the biggest levers you can Pull is get better at something. So just take small wins and stack them, and I guarantee you that you're going to start going, well, hey, I'm actually having a little bit of fun here because I'm getting better at this. I built some relationships. I have some influence. The next task is a little easier. These people know what I'm going to ask for from them. We're gelling a little better. And it's like, man, we can get 5 of X projects out a week now or a month when we used to struggle with one, and it was terrible. Now I'm having some fun. So then you can start building that fulfillment meter, I think. But Steve, go ahead. I know you got something locked in there.

Well, one thing I did want to. Want to point out is if you want to couple your, your fulfillment with career progression, align what your personal goals are with the goals of the organization that you're in. Right. And then because you're going to be excited to, to accomplish those goals and the company is going to see like, wow, they are moving hard towards, towards these, these goals. And it's, it's going to be like a, a copacetic ecosystem of just success. Right. Because you're going to be fulfilled and then they're going to see you and want to keep moving you upward as well.

Yeah. And you both kind of reacted to the results and that not being clear. And what I've seen is managers of employees and managers of managers. They're not clear about the results. So when you start having that conversation, it takes some time for both parties to say, hey, this is what you should be focused on. And those conversations can be very energizing. They can be, you know, that clarity when your manager is like, oh, I've never really been clear about what drives success. Now I've got this person working on something that is directly aligned to the business. Wow. I see potential. I see, you know, I see we can do things. So it isn't always just people. The employee is unclear. Sometimes the manager's unclear. And so having that discussion and bringing that out. Right. Really can be a service to the company.

Yeah. And as someone who's had the opportunity to promote direct reports myself, when I have the documented results and I see the alignment to the company and the goals that they're accomplishing, it's much easier to advocate for them to upper leadership to promote. Right. So that's why it's really important to focus on the results that you can record and document. And because I see them as a manager and I can go, yes, I can bring these guys up, you know, and it's much easier for me to, to really rally for them.

Yeah. And it's why it's on top of my mind so much is that the company that I just left, this was like the biggest theme because one of my direct reports had like the hardest time just being okay with being a good engineer. Like they would beat themselves up, which is really good quality to work with, I have to admit. But when you just sat down and said, but don't you realize what you've accomplished in the last year? And oh, by the way, let me tell you, because I've been tracking it. You used to be here, now you're here. You used to be able to do this skill. Now you can do this skill. Didn't you notice all these people coming to you now for this specialty system? I, I do. You're getting recruited without even knowing it and they go, oh wow. Yeah, you're right. Like, so just, just reinforcing what you just said, Brian, is that just having the conversation and is, is one of the biggest inlock unlocks that I saw. And that has nothing to do with technical ability work. Like it's just. Just let me lay this story out for you, you know, so sometimes a manager is just a really good storyteller and collector of evidence, you know, for sure. So we talked a while ago about the spiral development matrix and I think it's a good place to go because I think it takes the action, it puts the action piece in here. So we've been talking kind of about theory and systems and why, but did a good direction for us to go and, and is that actionable?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I, so that, that risers is part of it. So it's a great place to kind of, kind of think more about. So, you know, I did recruiting for 20 years, like I said, and I would go into, to classes and talk to students. And one thing I always say, like I just try to impress on, on everybody as they were thinking about when I start a career is when you go and start a job you want to think about and I would just say like, you got to plan at least three years because you're going to need a year just to figure out what does this job really entail, how does the organization work, you know, what's involved and you're going to figure that out and then you're going to need a year to get good at your job. And, and once you get good, then you need to do Something special. Like, then you need to like, kind of make your mark and because, you know, I just saw so many people when I do these interviews and look at resumes, so many people, they, they get good at their job and then they'd go, oh, I gotta get, I gotta get promoted or I gotta go to a different company. And, and they would end up plateauing a lot earlier in their career because they didn't get, you know, the experiences that you can only get at certain stages in your career. Or they, they went a different direction and then they realized, I didn't, I don't like it. So anyway, so I, I said, okay, for everybody, you know, this is universally applicable for everybody. When you get into a new job or a new role, there's, there's three stages you, you go through. And I call them the three Ps of progression. And so it's practice, perform, pioneer, and practice stage is just that, getting good at your job. And this is an important distinction for managers because when managers get promoted out of individual contributor roles, they've been great, they've been doing really good work and they get into a management role. And especially in smaller companies where there's not formal training, it's like everybody thinks, oh, you're just going to be a great manager too. And they think, oh, I'm supposed to be a great manager. And their employees think, oh, now they've got the title, they know how to manage and it doesn't go well. So like saying you need a practice stage, you're going to have to learn how to do it. And making that explicit and visible to everyone can help kind of ease that transition. But regardless, you get into a new role, new job, that's practice stage. At some point you're like, I got this figured out. And you get, you get good at your role and perform stage. And then the pioneer stage is really, like I said, a lot of times we don't think about it, but it's an opportunity to either try out a new role. So somebody that is thinking like, do I want to go into management or do I want to take on this role? If the organization can figure out how to give them an opportunity to try that out, or they can take an opportunity to try that out. And the analogy I use for this is if you've ever gotten into a kayak, kayaks are super unstable. If you ever gotten into a kayak, that's a tough thing. And so you put one foot in and it's like, ah, it's stable and you're holding onto the dock and then you get your other foot in and you sit down and it's like, oh man, this is shaky. And you try to paddle and you're pretty nervously paddling and eventually you get it. Well, you know what, what you don't want is like one foot on the dock, one foot on the kayak, and, and you're not wondering which way to go. And you know what happens? Kayak goes away and you end up in the drink. And so like, can we give people an opportunity in this pioneer stage to try something out? Take the kayak out, try it, come back and then say, what'd you think? Is this, is this an area you want to go in? Or, or, or not? Some people also don't want to be promoted, but they don't. They, they want to have a bigger impact, you know, so can we give them a special project? Can we, can we give them a role within the company to, to move something forward that's not a maybe, you know, not a management role or not a role because some people don't want to go back to that practice stage. They like being the, the expert. And, and so so anyway, I encourage people to think about these three stages for themselves and for managers and really the firm leaders to think about these three stages and really using that pioneer stage for a growing organization, helping to understand how can we build this company in ways around the people we have. Anyway, so now I put that all together. I know it's a lot here and I'll stop in just a minute, but I put that all together. Like you think about these three stages, you think about these four areas, the risers, and that's what I call the spiral development matrix. And the spiral development comes from software development. We do these iterative processes where it's like in software we learned long ago. I went through it where the waterfall methodology was like, set this ambition up here, build this big project plan to get this done. And once you get there, everything's changed and it's no longer relevant and it's not successful. And so we've moved to an agile methodology where it's like do a bunch of iterations, build momentum, learn along the way, adjust as the environment and things adjust and build this progress and this resiliency to move forward. And so that's a lot more how we develop our careers. Right? It's not a linear, it's kind of circle around, circle around this and we progress, but spiral. So anyway, that's the spiral development matrix framework and just concept work, work in

the spiral development matrix. But don't spiral while you're in the spiral.

Yeah, okay.

Spiraling is bad. I was just. I was just thinking about, you know, the thought that you, you know, you make your career, you know, your career doesn't make you. And if you can kind of take that mindset and latch onto this spiral development system, you're going to be doing a lot of things and you're going to have to communicate it and you have to try out some stuff. You have to put the foot in the kayak and then you have to have somebody there to watch you. Like, hey, we don't want to straddle it for too long. We want to give you some practice. So you might want to get in so you can get the shakies and move around and do that stuff. But we'll be here. You come right back. But it's going to be. It's not going to be safe and comfy, right? And it's not going to be something that's super easy, but it's going to be well worth it. And it's. And coaching is a great option. I have had coaches in the past and that is such a great way to have someone looking over, you know, looking. They have your back. They're reading the label on the bottle that you're inside and you can't see yourself. So they're advising you on what they're seeing, right? So that's a great opportunity. If you find a great manager ahead of you that can do all that for you, you'll figure it out. If you can communicate well, if they're an excellent superior, like manager, then they'll pull the stuff out of you. They will ask you the questions and they will invite that communication. But don't. So I guess my overall theme is you own it. Don't be in a silo, don't keep things to yourself and like, take these ideas and then go like, oh, I'm going to strategically try to figure this out. You gotta open up the idea to the whole team and your manager and do it on purpose. And when you run into a roadblock, don't start spiraling and say, that didn't work and this didn't work and so it'll never work. Like, keep going, keep going. That's part of the process. So failing and getting stuck is part of the whole process?

Yeah. No, no, no, you go ahead. We're still on that thought.

Well, I just that the spiral, you know, I'm private pilot and if you've heard of the Death spiral in flying. It's when a, a pilot that's relatively inexperienced gets into conditions where they don't have visual references. And the plane, you know, they're just relying on their inner senses. And, and the plane gets into a slight bank, they don't recognize it. And so it starts descending, accelerating, and they forgo, oh, we're descending. They feel it, they pull back, spiral gets tighter, they descent increases, they pull back tighter and tighter and eventually spirals down. And I think to your point of, you gotta have, you know, you gotta have some outside references because you're you. When you step into new roles, you don't have the skills and everything you need to navigate that. And if you just rely on inner senses, you risk going into a death spiral. And that's exactly right. We want to avoid that. So I think it's a really important point of open this up to people, open this up to friends. Managers. Get some input on it, but own it.

Yeah. You said something earlier in your explanation about people who, you see people who get to the practice and then perform and then they'll leave a company or have issues with or trying to get promoted and they can't. And that's something I've seen firsthand in not just my current organization, but previous ones as well, is that you'll have an engineer learn the role and then they start getting good at the role, but then their expectation is to get promoted instantly to the next level. But what you really need to do is you need to start pioneering before that next jump to the next level. You start taking on the harder projects, you start taking on, you know, maybe some mentorship things. If you're going the leadership route and you're showcasing your ability to go beyond your current expectations and then that's when you really get the eyes of leadership to want to bring you to the next level.

Yeah. And when I'm talking to managers and they're thinking about their employees, I'm working it from the other angle, which as a manager, you know, I call it like the zone of complacency. Because what happens is like that person's good at their role. They're getting good feedback and kudos. They feel, you know, they feel like they're accomplishing things. So they're, they're generally happy and they're like, I'm thinking, what's next? The manager's happy. Like, this is a low maintenance employee. I don't have to deal with much. The business is happy, they're making money and you know, and then something Happens like they talking, they're talking to a friend and the friend goes like, ah, you should check this out. And I mean, I've been on the recruiting side. I know when we start those conversations of like, hey, you know, it's a long, long process. But you start talking to them, right? That's what happens. They start talking to somebody, next thing you know, they're interviewing. Next thing you know they're taking a job. And those are the people that are like, when you lose them in your firm, it just is the highest cost of replacement. You know, the impact is so great. And so if a manager is not also thinking, what does this person want? And how can I start having conversations not about just what's your next step, but what are your grand visions? Where do you want to go in your career? What do you want out of life five years from now? How can we help you achieve that? And one of the things managers are so wired to be afraid of is like, oh, what if you leave? You know, and we all know the expression like, you know, what if I train my people and they leave? And it's like, well, what if, what if you don't train them and they

stay and they stay.

Right? But, but, but we still, managers still get that like instinctive like oh no, I got to. And, and so I say, you know, like, you really have to have this philosophy of it's not how long can you keep them, it's, it's how far can you take them. And, and you're trying to align, you know, what they want with your business needs for as long as possible until it, until it diverges. And, and then when it does, great, like send them off, you know, with, with a parade or whatever. So they refer people back to you, they become your client. They, all those things, you know.

Yeah.

So anyway, so yeah, I think, Steve, to your, to your point, it's like, yeah, it has to be worked from both angles. The ploy needs to, to own it and advocate. But managers really need to think when people are reaching that upper end of the perform stage, they need to be thinking, how can I co create a pioneer stage that really attracts and engages this employee for long term?

Yeah, yeah. I mean every time I bring a new employee on the team, you know, one of the first conversations is, you know, where do you want to be in five years? You know, where, like where is your career trajectory that you want to take? You know, and then we talk about it and then it's. The next follow up is how are we going to get you there, you know, what, what is it going to take to get you there? And then we'll talk about those, those actionable items, and then we'll just start on day one, like, all right, you know, this is the first step. You know, learn the systems of the company because you just joined. You know, that's step one. Step two, get, you know, super proficient in your role, and then, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, based on, on where they want to go. And, you know, I totally agree. It's, it's making sure that you are in their corner and a constant advocate for their growth, even if it's beyond where you are. Right. If you're comfortable where you are and you don't have a lot of aspirations. I have a lot of aspirations, but, you know, some managers want to just kind of hang out. You want to have your team have the ambition to keep going exactly where they want to go, no matter how high it is, and then you are there to advocate for them.

Yeah, yeah. And you do not want to stall. Yeah.

And, and, you know, and, and like consulting engineering firms, it's all about people. And you get, you get some really talented people. They have exponential impact in the growth of the company, which creates more opportunities. So, you know, everybody, everybody should be aligned with. Like, how can we keep the best people here and keep them, keep them progressing, even if that means they, they rise above me? That's. That's okay because it's going to be good for me. Yeah.

And for the managers out there listening, it's like, train your people to replace you, of course. Give them as many skills as you humanly possibly can, aligned with where they want to go. And if they leave, be very proud that you have set them on that trajectory. You were the rocket booster that got them into orbit. And they get to do a lot of things now instead of being stuck and wasted three years of their lives somewhere and came out with no skills. And the argument of, what if we don't train them and they. And they stay? You know, what if we train them and they leave? Like that ethos make that a challenge and a discussion for the company. When people leave because they're so good, that's a different discussion. The problem wasn't that we poured all these resources into somebody and they left. The problem is we poured all these resources into somebody and then we didn't have a place to put them. And their dream wasn't big enough. You know, our company vision wasn't big enough to encompass their vision. Right. And so they had nowhere to go. So of course they just took off, you know, somewhere. And I've had people do that with me because I wasn't the owner of the company, but I train people. I want people to be better than me as soon as humanly possible. And so I've had people get so good within a very short order and be very attractive to other people. They nail the interview and they're gone. That's because they had no place to go because the company wasn't moving fast enough. Now the company doesn't need to be moving fast enough to accommodate that. I was, that's just me and how I operate. Right. So there's strategy, misalignment, there's, there's things just misaligned. So I'm just like ejecting people out into the, into the world and instead of the company. And it's not necessarily the company's fault. I just want to make the point that it's the common denominator is always be developing your people. If you're a manager to the best of your ability.

Yeah, and I'd make, I'd make one other expand and one other point or thought you had, there is people. And just because I, I talk to companies and talk about how, you know, investing and what it takes to develop people and you know, you think like, oh, I put a bunch of money into this person and then they left. It's a sunk cost or whatever. But how, how do you measure that investment? Well, think about all the other people that saw that the company was willing to invest. Think about the reputation now that you have as a manager in an organization that enables people to have careers, you know, really successful or highly visible careers. You know, think of, think about the impact that person had and the talent they shared as they were going through those development programs. So like the return on investment on those dollars is not just measured in that, that one person. It's it, it is far reaching. And I, you know, I tell people, I'm like, just invest in your managers. There, there will be a return. Like there is almost. I, I don't see any way if you put a dollar in to people, you don't get that dollar back easily. And it's usually it's like four to five times what, what you get. And you know, when I'm talking to businesses, we're looking for like a 10x return. Like how can we, how can we pour money in and, and try to realize a 10x return on that investment? And when you think about it, the exponential impact of people. It's. It's pretty easy. So anyway, I just, just, just to kind of expand the thinking of, like, what. When we invest in people, what do we really see as the return? And it's pretty, pretty extensive.

And, and where else can you put that money within your company and get a better return? Like, if, if there's a. If there's a place, tell me. And let's do it. Like, we'll have no employees and we'll just keep throwing money into this black box and get a bunch out. Like, that's a great business. Print money. Yes, please. Like, okay. But I want to just, I want to change gears here real quick, if that's all right, because I think we have an opportunity to have some impact, which is the whole purpose of doing this podcast. So I know we touched on a few of the concepts already, but let's just play around in one of the questions that Steve got earlier this week from, from an engineer that actually connected with them and was talking to them. Let's. And if. And if they listen to this show, let's go deep and spend 20 minutes on talking about what they had to say and see if we can help out. Yeah.

So I had an engineer reach out to me just recently, and, you know, they are an individual contributor at the moment, and they are interested in becoming a manager. And I've gotten this question quite often from either direct reports or just other engineers in my company or and of course, outside. So I know it's a common thought. You know, there are a lot of engineers. You're like, should I become a manager and step outside my last 10 years of being a technical expert? And so the question for you is, how do you make that decision? And is it worth the risk?

Is it worth the risk? Is definitely a difficult question. Yeah. And I think right now, I mean, just to acknowledge what's going on in the, you know, in the news and the things you see, I think it's even more risky just because we see all this talk about the great flattening and, you know, AI taking management jobs and, and all those things. And so I think there's, there's, there's risk. And so first, I'm not going to tell you exactly how to make that decision, but we can just kind of. We can kind of brainstorm some, some ideas. I think the first thing is to think about what is the reward you're after. And if it's just money, then you need to think really critically about that. Meaning, you know, like, do the five whys. So it's like, well, I want to take this job because I want a raise. Okay, what does a raise represent? I want, you know, I want. You just go through it.

Why.

Why is that important? Why is that important? Until you get down to, like, because it makes me happy. That's. That's the kind of the five whys, right? Like, why. Why do you want to raise? Because. Because I want to have more freedom to take vacations. Why is that important? Because I want to build relationships with my family. Why is that important? You know, because it makes me happy. So anyway, so that is to think about the reward that you're after. With management comes a different type of reward system.

It's.

It's people and, and when I first stepped into HR and doing management, I didn't really realize that I did it for the business and I didn't really realize how rewarding that was. So you almost don't know until you try a little bit. And that's. So that's. One strategy is try a pioneer stage. Try to do something for a period of time and come back. Come back to the doc.

Yeah.

So that's, that's one. The, the second one is that I would encourage people to do when they're thinking about it is the Stanford professor did. It's called Designing youg Life. And it's applying design thinking to. To career decisions. And one of the big steps in that is if you think this is where you want to go, go talk to a bunch of people that have that job and go, go ask them, like, what do you love? What, what do you hate? What, what makes you successful in this? What, what do you think the future is? What are. What are my risks? I think, to Jake's point, about coaches, that they're great and you have that opportunity. You know, just start going through your LinkedIn profile and say, who's there that I can go talk to? And then. And then the third is like, think about what is the network and the support I have when I take. Take this risk. Like, what are. What are the. You know, what, what is my network that can help me as I make this transition if I decide to do it? If that's really weak, then maybe the risk is higher. So try to try to quantify that. That risk a little bit. So anyway, I'd love. Those are. Those are my thoughts. You know, if I were coaching somebody, those would be the things I would start asking about and exploring. But I'd love to hear what, what you two think.

And I'LL jump, I'll jump in. Steve?

Yep.

Go ahead and, and continue the risk theme. So I, I am actually really risk averse despite just jumping into a business and hoping it works. Because I'll tell you, like my plan, I don't have a plan B. But it, if I was forced into something, I would just go back to work. There's so much demand for an electrical engineer with the experience that I have and to Brian's point, like the network that would not really support me in my new business, but I have a network that would support me in getting a new job relatively quickly. So there's a huge de risk for me there. So like for a management position, it's like, okay, if I get into the management position, I hate it. Is there room for me to go sideways, backwards, do another something, you know, so you can think about that to kind of relieve the, the fear behind it. Maybe another one is if, if you think that the bad or whatever you don't like about your IC roll is gonna disappear when you get into another role, it won't. It will be there waiting for you. So this is the concept of the grass is always greener on the other side. Nope. So your shit will still come follow you to the new place. Uh, so don't use that as a reason. Um, so if you're, you know, do some self assessment there. Um, and then what is your purpose in the new role? So like for me it's always just been pursuit. So it's running that practice, perform and pioneer loop just over and over and over again. It's like, can I keep doing that in my IC role and just keep going and going, going cool. Like I probably just keep going. It might take something else to make me move to a management position. Love of people and paying it back and paying it forward is what took me out of the straight contribute role very early in my career. But for me it's pursuit. So can I pursue excellence in this project management role? Sure. And probably be heavily rewarded for it. But just look for the things that. Okay, what will get in the way of me pursuing. Well, I really don't like to listen to people's problems and I think they're all excuses. Okay, well it's probably going to be a big deal for you because the people are going to have a lot of those things that they're going to need help with. So yeah, think, think about what is the realistic fallback. You know, you're not just going to, if you don't make it as a manager you don't just like, lose your house and lose all your property and your family dies. And like, you know, what is the realistic fallback? I always do that. I'm just so, like, you know, when I get into deep arguments with, with people on just nuancey things, I'm like, you know, if you zoom out far enough, you can't even see the earth. Like, you know, in 60 years we'll be dead, you know, like. So, yeah, just to pile onto that grimness. But yeah, think about those things. I'm belaboring the point. Steve, you got some stuff.

Yeah. So I wanted to touch on a couple things that you mentioned already. And one of them is seek out other managers and just ask why, you know, they became managers. Ask why they find enjoyment or fulfillment in their roles. And I think a hundred of them. Yeah, that'll instantly open up some perspective. And then the other thing is you really won't know if it's for you if you don't try it. And as we mentioned earlier, there's, you can get into that pioneer stage. You can try some things like, and you can work with your current manager or leader to find those opportunities without becoming a full fledged manager. Right. Is there an intern that you can manage? Is there, is there another junior engineer that you can coach and mentor? Kind of like a smaller aspects of overall management? Is there a project that you can take and manage? Kind of the, the higher level aspects of that project, et cetera, et cetera. So you can, you can try out in, in, in smaller doses there. And then the, the other thing I wanted to touch on is actually a, a story because it kind of illustrates, you know, the process that I went through and, and it touches on some of these things. So when I was working at an LED lighting company, I was an individual contributor for about a year and a half and our manager was promoted into a more, you know, C suite level role. And so they needed another manager and they just took the most senior engineer in the building and made a manager. And, you know, we're all smiling because, because we know how that goes. And within six months he was just like, I hate this. I don't want to be a manager. I just want to work on projects. And so the now C suite leader was like, all right, does anyone else want to be a manager? It's like, straight up, we need someone to manage. And that gave me the opportunity. I was like, sure, I'll manage. I'll give it a shot. Because I loved mentoring the younger engineers. I was a lead engineer at a previous company that I was able to develop someone. And I got a lot of joy out of that, but I didn't know all the aspects of management yet. And so we literally just switched, right? So now I was his manager and he was, you know, my lead technical engineer. And it was like a wave of like, oh, crap. This is a lot of. Lot of stuff that, you know, you have to learn. You have to learn people how to communicate and how to, you know, speak concisely and all this other good stuff. But as I went through that, I. I learned that I really found a lot of fulfillment in developing people, in solving problems, more people problems than just technical problems. And that's when I found I was like, hey, I really just enjoy leadership. And so. And that's the path that I was aiming for for the rest of my career. But as far as the risk thing that we did touch on, that happened just before COVID And so when Covid hit, everyone but one engineer in the whole company got furloughed. And that was just because he was working on a big corporate project that could not be stopped, right? And so I was furloughed. I was still part of the company, but not making any money, just hanging out at home. And I was like, okay, I got to get a job. So I went back to being a technical individual contributor at another company, and I was able to get a job in two weeks. So it's not going to be hard when you have a strong skill set as a technical person to get back in the workforce and kind of just reset yourself. And then within a year and a half, I was back into management, you know, and because I knew that's what I enjoyed. So just kind of a story to illustrate, to try to de risk some of the perceptions, but also illustrate that, you know, sometimes you just have to try it to really understand.

Yeah, I think. I think the whole what's the worst that can happen, you know, thought process is a good one to go through. Like what? What really, like you said, Jake, you're not going to lose your house, you. You're not going to lose your marriage or your relationships. Like, what's the worst that's going to happen? And then, Steve, I totally agree with your point. Like, at some point, back to the kayak analogy, you have to get in and learn how to paddle the kayak and just commit to doing it. And at some point, you may decide it's not for you. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's really, really good. You're example of the person that said, six months in, this isn't for me. I'm happy to go back to a contributor and be managed by somebody else that managers love, that they love. Somebody that has some empathy for the role they're in and will support them, but doesn't want it and will do the things that they need them to do in the technical world. So I think all those are really good points. And the last thing I'd say is we need more great managers. We are short of great managers. And so people that think they want to try it, you don't know. You may be just the person that inspires the next generation. And we need people to step into those, try it out, and if they. If they like it and they excel, great. And if they don't, they, like you said, there's plenty of options to continue your career in other areas.

Yeah, And I like to bring people's fears really close and then just smash them. So one more point you can do is that if you do get some experience in management and you do end up just completely hating it, and then the worst happens, there's no room for you to go back, and then you're stuck kind of in this misaligned role. Like, you can take that experience that you just had to the. To the interviewing circuit, right, and say, look, at the expense of my last company and my career at the time, I learned a lot of stuff. And I learned that I'm not management material. I learned that I really excel working under someone who's xyz, who does these things. And you can be truthful, but also, like, what is a good manager? It's like, so I will just. I'll fit right in as the, as an SME working with this manager. And that's what I love and where I want to be. And there's plenty of room for both. And so it's like when someone hears that you've got a. You've got some alignment, you've had some rough times where you figured some stuff out, and all at the expense of someone else and not them, they're going to love that. And you just bring that up in your interview, you know, among the other things.

But hopefully that helps somebody 100%. Yep.

All right, we are at Question time. So we sent you the questions, right, Brian?

Hopefully you did.

Otherwise we're just going to put you right on the spot.

No.

So I'm gonna start with mine first. Actually. I'm gonna start with. Yeah, what action can someone take? Like, as soon as they hit pause or stop or get out of their car, if they're driving, like what something they can do right away to fill in the blank, improve their career, take the next step, whatnot.

I thought about this and I, I really, I would invite your listeners to. This would be the action. Go out, find one engineer that is nearing retirement or nearing that age where they're kind of ramping down or you know, you think maybe they're, they're considering kind of moving out of their active career stage and, and go take them out to lunch and just ask them about their story, ask them, you know, what their career was like, what kind of things they went through, how they navigated their career, what they've seen in their career and listen for the things that are, you know, I just call it timeless wisdom because people that have had 30 plus years, 40 years in a career, that they've learned a lot and we don't ask them enough number, number one. But two, I think right now things are changing so fast. We have all this AI coming in. You know, organizations are bringing in new technology and new processes and we need perspective when we're navigating these changes. And especially people early on in their career, they don't have it. And so there's really at risk of just being kind of whipsawed around by all the changes and talking to somebody that's been through changes, that's seen things, that has a lot of perspective, will help you, if you go out and do this, will help you gain perspective and that, that will help you in your career in ways you, you might not be able to understand now. So that would be my invitation to all your listeners. Go out, find somebody that's nearing the end of their active career and take them out to lunch and maybe you'll even make a new friend.

And that, that perspective you're going to gain will answer a lot of the questions that you have a hard time answering yourself right now. Trust me, that's a really good one.

Yeah, I think it's first time we've had that, that answer. That's awesome.

But lunch costs money. Yeah, spend it, spend it to learn

what's 20 bucks, you know, for, for that kind of knowledge. And yeah, that is awesome. So, so my question is a lot more thought provoking and high level and it's really just to you, what makes an impactful engineer?

Well, I'll share this and it's maybe I'll tell you why I kind of gave the invitation to your audience members, but I'll just Tell you a little bit about my dad that, you know, he passed away a couple years ago. But he was a professional, professional engineer. Came up to Alaska in the late 60s and joined a consulting engineer firm, became a partner, very successful firm. So I kind of grew up with him being a, being a consulting engineer. And he was always involved in professional organizations like the local NSPE chapter. And you know, he got involved nationally. He was, he was actually in, it was like 97, 98. He was the national president of NSPE. And then, you know, he, he did some other things. He went into aerial photography for a while. But he was always an engineer. Like I always heard him talking about when I had kids, he talked to them about, this is why you got to be an engineer. This is why you got to think like an engineer. You know, he volunteered for math counts. In his 70s he was on, you know, municipal boards and those kinds of things. In his 80s, he was still working on road designs and road standards and helping people with projects. So always an engineer. And you know, I think that being an impactful engineer is not just the crowning achievement or the big project you do. It's just like sustained, the sustained impact over your life really and trying to make a difference. And I think he was an impactful engineer. It's like that's what I aspire to of having a long term impact through my whole life and hope I inspire others too. So that's, that's what I means to me to be an impactful engineer. Yeah.

I love that. It sounds like he just lived life with a ton of purpose. Yeah. You know, and just created so much impact, you know, beyond just the engineering but in just the community and tons of other people. So that, that's amazing. I love that.

That's a really good answer.

Yeah.

Makes you think, it makes you think like it makes you think really hard about the choices you're going to make.

You know, I talk to people about, like your relationship to your career doesn't just end with retirement. Like you have it, it's a relationship. Just like kids leave the house. Right. They don't live with you, they don't come to you every day. But they're still your kids, they're still your family. Career is the same thing. And I think if we think that way about it, we kind of think more broadly about the impact and then

we start thinking about how important it is to continue to listen to the impactful engineer project. Just kidding. But to take action, man. Take action. There's anything you could ever do, it's just to do it. Just go. Yeah.

And before we sign off, please let our listeners know where they can find you and, you know, if there's anything that, that you can do to support them as well.

Yes. So if, if you're listening to this and you do want to talk about any of these concepts more or, you know, how I can, how I can talk about your career, your, your organization, you can just book a call with me. I have an online scheduling link, so you go to shift focus.com strategy call. So that's, that's number one. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so if anybody wants to connect and I encourage people to build their network on LinkedIn, just send me a note, you heard the show, and I'd be happy to connect. And I try to share things there. And then on my website, you can sign up for, I do almost a weekly email. So you can sign up for an email there and, and stay connected there. So those are kind of the easy ways to stay connected with me.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Brian. I'm going to close it out real quick with, you know, if you learned anything today and I, I know you did, or you think of anyone else who needs to hear Brian's point of view, please share the show. It's the best way we can grow the podcast and continue to create value and impact for the engineering community. Again, Brian, thanks so much for joining us. This was an amazing conversation.

Awesome. Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for the work you're doing. I think podcasts like this are awesome and I hope more people listen to it. So thank you.

Thanks again, Sam.