Hi Lew, glad to see you were able to reply.

Lew Hodgett wrote:

Engineers tend to forget to ask the basic question, "Why are we here?"

Some do. Some don't. I've seen the same trend in all areas including
Marketing, Finance, Sales, Manufacturing, etc. The generalization
isn't necessarily valid for any single group. Having spent many years
as an advocate for customer needs, I've seen just about every single
discipline exhibit complete neglect for this question.

They are to busy getting lost in the details.

Many are. But, this is what they get paid for. You don't want
Engineers who can't tolerate the tedious details. Leave the "big
picture" to the project managers.

I have found that Business types at least try to think along these lines.

Not sure I follow. I've observed a lot of "Business types" who think
only about stuffing their own pockets and promoting their own agenda.
Like a parasite, they don't look far enough into the future to realize
that they will kill the business they feed on. I wouldn't say this is
characteristic of all "Business types" or even a majority. Such
generalizations would be absurdly simplistic and completely invalid.

Basic reason I got out of pure engineering and into sales/application
engineering. Chased details to death.

Some people are detail orientated. They are very comfortable and
successful in situations where every detail is extremely significant.
But, it inhibits them from getting their heads around large and complex
systems or situations. Some people are very frustrated by details and
need to see the big picture. Like you, they are much more comfortable
(and successful) in environments where details are few and
insignificant. Both types of people are needed in a successful
business. Two clichés come to mind:

"The devil is in the details"
"Can't see the forest for the trees"

The challenge is to learn how to appreciate both types of people and
apply their skills so that they excell at what they do. Their efforts
should compliment eachother, not clash. That's what a good management
team is supposed to be doing.

As a sales engineer, probably got to do more creative engineering in a
month than most engineers get to do in a year.

I've been on the receiving end of many such efforts. Trust me, the
details often matter a great deal.

The first question you ask as a sales engineer is, "Is this project
funded?"

If it is, it now becomes a fight about money between you and your
competitors. That requires being creative and quickly finding the
right solution.

If it isn't funded, be polite and move on and come back when it is funded.

Perhaps there is more here than appears. It sounds a lot like the
simple example you used in your first reply.

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.

That is a management failure to show the way to the goal, IMHO.

Nobody asked "WHY".

A lot of these problems are management issues. Unfortunately, a lot of
what passes for management in the US corporate environment has become
nothing more than politics. Organization and control of the business
is often completely neglected.

Had a district manager who used the following sorting system for all
incoming mail. (This was long before the internet)

1) Checks.
2) New Orders
3) Change orders to existing orders
4) RFQ's

Everything else went in the circular file.

When asked if he might not be throwing something important away, he
answered, "If it's that important, they'll send it again."

He made regional mgr in record time.

Personally, I would say he was lucky. He could have easily been
surprised by a number of extremely important things (like customer
complaints, legal issues, cancellations, regulatory issues, company
policy changes, organizational issues, etc.). I suspect that his rule
wasn't quite so hard and fast as you remember it to be.

Ed Bennett

http://www.ts-aligner.com