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J. Clarke

wrote:

Lew, I think you mean to say something other than what you said.

Engineering is all about making decisions. What material to use. What
size. What shape. What weight. How much should it cost. How long
should it last. How should it be made. Etc. And, the process of
making those decisions (which is taught in Engineering schools) is very
rigorous. It involves an exhaustive review of the variables,
parameters and objectives. Perhaps it is the process itself that you
have trouble with. Maybe you misunderstand the systematic approach to
decision making. You probably believe that good decision making "comes
from the gut" and is based on "sound judgment" - not endless
examination of every minute detail. Right?

Without knowing it, I'm sure that you trust countless engineering
decisions every day. I'm sure a person could live without trusting any
of these decisions, but it wouldn't be a very comfortable life. Next
time you drive a car, walk on a floor, live in a house, work in a
building, talk on the phone, type on a computer, surf on the Internet,
or anything else, think about the engineering decisions which made it
all possible.

I'm also sure that a very brief examination of the Fortune 500
companies would reveal that a majority of them were founded by and very
successfully run by people who could apply their engineering skills to
management. HP, Ford, GE, Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Boeing, just to
name a few.

The ones that did really well generally had at least two guys involved, one
the technical guy and the other the business guy. With Apple it was Steve
Wozniak and Steve Jobs--Woz was the technical guy and Jobs the business
guy, and it turned out that Jobs wasn't all that good a manager himself,
which is why Sculley was brought in. With Microsoft it was Bill Gates and
Steve Ballmer. With Intel it was Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce--while both
were engineers it was Noyce that ran the show during the period of rapid
growth. With HP it was William Hewlett and David Packard, but I'm not sure
who was the technical guy and who the business guy. William Boeing was
already a wealthy man in the timber trade when he and Conrad Westervelt
decided that they could improve on the design of a Curtis airplane that
they were trying to repair. Ford seems to be the exception.

I've seen lots of situations where the internal political
environment in a big company makes it difficult for a disciplined
engineering mind to contribute. But, I really don't think that there
is anything inherently deficient in Engineers which makes them
inadequate for upper management positions.

The big problem I see with engineers is a tendency to sneer at the marketing
people and the bean counters and the other non-engineering specialists who
are necessary to actually grow a business instead of filling a warehouse
full of widgets that nobody buys.

On the contrary, these last
several years have seen a number of "non-technical" individuals behind
bars for their mis-deeds in top management positions. Perhaps
something in their decision making process was flawed. ;-)

Ed Bennett

http://www.ts-aligner.com

Lew Hodgett wrote:
wrote:

Hi Lew,

Of course they know when to stop. It's when time and/or money run
out!

Naw, they wait for more money or another project.

Problem with engineers is they are never taught how to make a decision
and move on.

The engineering curriculum is a great tool for teaching a person how
to think, but not necessarily how to make a decision.

One of the basic reasons you don't see more engineers in top management.

Lew

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)