Engineering Inc. - March/April 2007 - 28

T he pace of business is becoming quicker, and today’s decisions are being made in a global environment. Without substantial leaders, the industry will not be able to sustain itself and will lose to other sources of competition. SCOTT BRALEY BRALEY CONSULTING AND TRAINING Preparing future leaders is crucial if the industry is to avoid becoming a mere commodity supplier, rather than positioning itself to be an integral part of solutions, according to Cindi Polychronis, senior vice president and director of human resources for David Evans and Associates, Inc. in Portland, Ore. “Historically, industries that become commodities eventually died because they couldn’t compete with new technologies or other sources that entered the market and provided customers with the value they were seeking,” she says. Preparing future leaders, therefore, is fundamentally about industry sustainability and the survival of individual engineering or design firms. “The pace of business is becoming quicker, and today’s decisions are being made in a global environment. Without substantial leaders, the industry will not be able to sustain itself and will lose to other sources of competition,” says Scott Braley, president of Braley Consulting and Training in Atlanta, Ga. Additionally, leaders in this changing global environment have to interact with the community in a more complex manner than in the past. “Today’s leaders need 28 ENGINEERING INC. MARCH / APRIL 2007 to be grounded in more than the technical aspects of the industry, with knowledge of environmental law and the ability to be astute, discerning and adroit in handling political and community issues,” adds Sharon Youngblood, president of Tucson, Ariz.–based Youngblood Consulting Inc. According to Kyle Davy, president of Kyle V. Davy Consulting in Berkeley, Calif., the issue of preparing new leaders is important because more and more clients today want leadership from their design professionals, even in addition to their technical expertise. “Clients are recognizing that their projects have become more socially and politically complex, and they require someone on the project team with the leadership skills to achieve their vision and successfully complete the project,” he says. Furthermore, engineering and design firms are facing significant adaptive challenges in the 21st century, challenges that require a company to change fundamentally the way it operates in the marketplace. Addressing these concerns, Davy believes, will require significant new leadership skills, such as the ability to articulate the challenge to employees and then mobilize them to confront the facts of their situation. “Future leaders will be required to be ready, willing and able to guide their firms as they change fundamental norms, practices and behaviors that may have been in place for decades,” he says. Leadership Development and self-knowledge, preparing future leaders requires experiential knowledge. “Future leaders need to have a variety of nontechnical experiences and demo n s t r a t e a willingness to take on new, tough assignments that help grow their strengths,” says Youngblood. Po l yc h r o n i s believes what is needed for leadership development is a complete change in the way the industry practices. “Today, the industry reacts to an RFP for a project. Instead, firms need to become proactive partners in determining solutions,” she says. Leadership training, therefore, needs to offer a broader worldview and demonstrate how to become more effective facilitators and how to use systems thinking in examining the industry as a whole. “Developing effective future leaders is just a part of the overall leadership process,” says Braley. He suggests that firms consider implementing a five-step sequen- oday’s leaders need to be grounded in more than the technical aspects of the industry, with knowledge of environmental law and the ability to be astute, discerning and adroit in handling political and community issues. SHARON YOUNGBLOOD YOUNGBLOOD CONSULTING INC. T To make that a reality, current leaders need to help their employees learn about the world in general, how everything is interrelated and how it affects them and the industry. “Before someone can lead others, he or she has to learn their own strengths and weaknesses and how they fit into the world,” Hoffman says. According to The Extraordinary Leader by John H. Zenger and Joseph Folkman, it is better to focus on developing people’s strengths, however, rather than focusing on fixing weaknesses. And in addition to developing self-awareness

Engineering Inc. - March/April 2007

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