The Strong, Silent Type

A few weeks ago, I offered suggestions for how to handle extraverts in the work place: Dealing With "Chatty Cathies." I promised to give some insight into the introverts. That's today's topic.

Many of you know this joke, but I'll repeat it here because it is so fitting.

"How do you tell the extraverted engineer from the introverted engineer?"
"The extraverted engineer is looking at your shoes." (The introverted is looking at his own.)

Joke-telling is definitely not my forte, but I have a lot of experience with introverts. There are extraverted engineers out there, but they are the minority. The bulk of engineers I've met are introverts, and some are what I call raging introverts.

CHARACTERISTICS OF INTROVERTS

Introverts
* keep their energy and ideas inside, thus making it hard to get to know them
* may avoid (or run from) interaction with others
* hesitate before speaking
* thrive on alone time
* go deep on one or two areas of interest
* proceed cautiously in making decisions
* need to be asked for their opinion and input
* don't give much away through facial expressions

HELP FOR INTROVERTS

"The introvert is pressured daily, almost from the moment of awakening, to respond and conform to the outer world," according to Otto Kroeger and Janet Thuesen in their book "Type Talk." If you are working with introverts, here is how you help them be more comfortable in a typical business situation.

* Give them questions and agendas ahead of meetings so they can think about the issues ahead of time. Do NOT ask an introvert a question and expect an immediate answer.

* Help them learn to interrupt others. This sounds very strange to extraverts, who interrupt all the time so that they can get their thoughts out. One introverted client, who is very smart, has been thought of as "not real bright" by an executive in her firm. He wants her to interrupt him, and she simply isn't going to do that. I suggested she let him know that about her. She will wait until he is finished, then she will talk.

* Give them lots of prep time before any presentation. One introvert told me he was OK doing presentations, as long as he felt that he was fully prepared and knew what he was going to do. His version of fully prepared was much more extensive than an extravert's version of fully prepared.

* Since introverts have to interact with others, suggest an introvert select a couple of topics that they are comfortable talking about in social settings or networking events. Again, give them time to prepare and to get comfortable with sharing. For men, this topic often involves sports.

* Allow introverts their alone time. If they don't get this, they will stress out. If you are an introverted manager, close your office door. Let people know when you will take questions and when you want to be left alone.

For lots more great insight and information on introverts, read "The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extravert World" by Marti Olsen Laney.

A SMALL REQUEST

I'm hearing from lots of you that you find these weekly missives helpful and thought-provoking. That is certainly my intent.

You can help us by spreading the word. If you found info in today's piece that was helpful to you, please forward the original email to ONE friend or colleague.

Just ONE. Help spread the word.

Not Everyone Thinks Like You

I don’t need to tell you guys this, but I will say it for those who aren’t engineers: Engineers are problem solvers. They see a problem. They want to fix it. And they tell you how to fix it if you don’t let them do it themselves.

That “fix it now” mentality popped up last week with a client. Here is what happened and how it could have been handled differently. Read, learn, and definitely share with others, particularly young engineers who haven’t learned the lesson yet.

Situation

Tom, a well-meaning principal, saw a problem and told June, the office manager, to deal with it. When Tom came in the next day, the problem hadn’t been fixed. He wanted to know why. That didn’t go over well with June, who now resents Tom and is unlikely to help him in the future.

A Better Way

Tom needs to remember that not everyone thinks like he does. And not everyone is comfortable confronting a situation head on. Tom says he apologized, sort of. I doubt that June would agree.

By telling her what to do, Tom “dissed” her, and June likely feels he doesn’t think she knows how to do her job. She probably also took the “deal with the problem” command as an insult to her intelligence.

Had they had a conversation about the situation, June would have had a chance to admit that she knew the problem existed (saving face) and that she was prepared to address it. She could have offered her solution, which may have been the same as Tom’s. Even if her solution was different, they could have talked it out. She would have felt more respected and probably would work well with Tom in the future.

What’s to Be Done Now?

Bob, the managing partner, needs to sit down with Tom and June. He can educate them about what really happened.

Tom is a problem solver, and he takes action when he sees action is needed. His style is direct and can offend others unintentionally.

June, being female, has a 66% likelihood of being a Feeler, using personality type language. She puts great stock in being respected and considering others’ feelings. Feelers also want to avoid conflict and will take comments personally.

Tom didn’t mean to offend June and didn’t realize how his style would affect her. June also needs to accept Tom’s need to solve problems when he sees them and not take comments so personally.

It’s going to be tough on each of them to change their thinking. Share this article with them to help out. Focus on Communication Styles To Reduce Misunderstanding.html

Characteristics of Leadership

I could use your help identifying the characteristics of leadership. I am presenting at the summer conference for ACEC Georgia next month. The title of my presentation is Identifying and Developing Your Future Leaders.

While I could create the presentation on my own, I thought I would ask my friends (that’s you) for your ideas on leadership. What do you consider the key characteristics of leadership to be? How do you identify your leaders? What makes you a leader?

My Oxford Dictionary defines leadership as a quality of a leader, one who leads. Duh. Among the many definitions of lead (v) are: cause to go with one, especially by guiding or showing the way; direct the actions or opinions of; guide by persuasion, example or argument. I’ll buy those as characteristics of leadership.

How do you define leadership?

But how do you define leadership? What qualities, experience, and skills do you look for in the leaders you follow? And in the leaders you develop?

Please help me out. Take a minute right now and send me an email with your thoughts. Email me to let me know what characteristics of leadership you look for. I will share the results with everyone in a week or two.

You’ll also be helping out by giving me ideas about what to include in our Future Leaders online coaching program, coming up soon. If you haven’t signed up to get details on that, send an email to: futurelead@aweber.com That service sends an email to me to let me know that you want info. You won’t end up on some remote site that sends you tons of spam.

www.WeKnowEngineers.com is live!

I almost forgot: The new website is up! Visit www.WeKnowEngineers.com to see what we have for you. Be sure to check out the Free Stuff page for articles on communication and leadership, historical engineering case studies, and—of course—jokes.

D’oh! I Broke Key Rules

I find it amazing how life reminds us that we are human and subject to the same mistakes other folks make. Please use this example of my own mistakes to help you avoid them in the future.

We recently sent out a 1-question survey to 277 folks, using Survey Monkey, a free online survey site. The response has been fantastic—over 10%—28 of you responded and told us what the two toughest things are that you have had to learn as a CEO or manager. I would love to share the responses with those who responded, but . . .

I was a dummy!

When we set the survey up, I didn’t read the directions. I just ASSUMED I would be able to see who responded. Wrong. You have to format the survey a certain way to capture email addresses of respondents. I didn’t read the directions and ASSUMED things would go the way I thought they would.

KEY RULE: Stop making assumptions!

We all make lots of assumptions every day. And, as I proved, our assumptions are often wrong. Ask questions. Read directions. Get clarity.

So, I’m sitting here with all the great responses we received, and I can’t tell who I need to thank for responding and I can’t share the responses with those who participated. Short of sending another email to 277 people, and we don’t really want to do that. Thus, I broke another key rule of communication.

KEY RULE: If you do a survey, you must share the responses with participants.

You don’t have to share every response, but you do need to tell them collective responses, what percent said what, the response rate, etc. Even if the responses are not what you wanted.

This is actually a key rule for building trust between employers and employees.

If you’re one of the 28 who responded to our survey and are interested in the results, please let us know. Send an email to pam@WeKnowEngineers.com with “Send me survey results” in the subject line.

If you didn’t participate but wish you had, send us an email and we’ll share the results with you as well. But you have to promise to participate next time.

COMING UP

How to get introverts to open up (as promised in last week’s blog).

www.WeKnowEngineers.com is reportedly going live on May 6—my birthday. Check us out.

Watch for news on an online coaching program for your Future Leaders. The survey responses showed a significant need for helping engineers understand the business of the business—how you make money, how you deal with people, and how you market. If you want to be sure you don’t miss news on this program as we pull it together, please email futureleaders@weknowengineers.com and you’ll get the info as soon as we know it.

Whatever form the program takes, it will be very limited in the number who can participate. And it will be on a first come, first serve basis.

Dealing With “Chatty Cathies” and “Flapjaws”

Last week I spent a half day with two of my Future Leader coaching clients. These are the guys the CEO expects will take the helm and lead the firm when the current execs step down very soon.

Ray and William are both extraverts, like me. Extraverts have to talk in order to think. Believe me, the three of us did a lot of talking, and they came up with great ideas and a plan for moving forward. That’s the beauty that comes from extraverts working and talking together.

It’s unlikely they would have made such gains if they had each worked on the problem alone, in their offices.

Ray, William, and I are different from a lot of the engineering population. Statistically, the majority of engineers are introverts. Introverts like working alone. Introverts don’t talk until they have finished their thinking.

Introverts wonder when the extraverts are going to shut up. They call us “Chatty Cathies” and “Flapjaws.”

How do you, as the boss, help these two groups coexist?

FOR THE EXTRAVERTS

Most extraverts don’t realize how much they talk. They also don’t realize how their talking grates on introverts’ nerves. Here’s what you need to do to educate your extraverts.

• Tell them you understand they need to talk to think
• Make them aware that they talk a lot, which is an energy drain for introverts
• Have them identify who they work with, particularly clients, that would appreciate them talking less
• Remind them to ratchet it back, as I told one extravert, before going into meetings with introverts
• Institute the 5-second rule—They have to wait 5 seconds before speaking when someone else finishes.
• Tell them to jot down ideas when they get them, but not to interrupt to share an idea the moment one pops up.. Extraverts are world-class interrupters.

Next week: How to get Introverts to extravert just a bit—and what extraverts call introverts

CAN YOU HELP?

Last week we included a link to a one-question survey we are conducting. If you didn’t have a chance to follow through last week, could you do so now?

Click Here to take survey

We are conducting this simple survey to gather input from you that we are using to design Creating Tomorrow’s Leaders Today, an upcoming Future Leaders online coaching program for engineers. Stay tuned for more details.

Closing Some Communication Gaps

This week’s tale from the human side of business.

I was meeting with Sue, a client who is a principal in a pretty large firm. She and her team are working on a high profile project. Another senior engineer, George, had been recruited to help Sue’s team out. George had a big project of his own.

For the second time, George had failed to finish work when he said he would. Sue’s frustration was that George had set an expectation for Sue that he would be done on Monday. When Monday rolled around, he hadn’t completed the work. Sue was livid.

“Why didn’t he tell me he couldn’t get the work done until Tuesday? I could have lived with that,” a frustrated Sue exclaimed. “As it was, I had to tell the boss that the report wasn’t ready for him to take into his Monday meeting with the client. You can imagine how happy he was at that.”

When I asked if George knew the boss needed the report, Sue said, “No, but he would have known if he would come to team meetings, but he doesn’t.”

Several things are at play here.

• George needs to learn the importance of setting realistic expectations. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. He needs to understand the logic behind the deadline.
• Sue needs to let George know that the boss needed George’s report for his Monday meeting with the client. She needed to tell WHY the timing was critical.
• George needs to attend team meetings so he knows what’s going on. Even though he has a big project of his own, he is a critical member of Sue’s team and needs to participate that way.
• Sue needs to have one person take notes in team meetings, then write up and circulate the notes. That way, team members who are on vacation, out sick, or meeting with the client can be kept up to speed on what’s happening.

We need a favor

We are putting together material for an online coaching program for future leaders. We always say we take the mystery out of what they didn’t teach in engineering school. As a favor to us, click on the link below and tell us what the two toughest things are that you have had to learn as an owner, CEO, or manager.

Click Here to take survey

Thanks so much for your help. We will share collective responses in a future posting.

Taking Stock in the Future

The emotions in the comments were almost palpable.

“What is wrong with these guys?” bemoaned the 60-year-old exec. “When I was their age, I worked 60 hours a week, raised my family, and still bought into the company. These guys, though—they aren’t stepping up and buying stock. What’s up with that?”

Thus, the generational issue raises its head again--particularly with Boomers eyeing retirement. They are the primary stockholders in their firms, and the firms need staff to step up and buy company stock so the Boomers can leave.

The Boomers see the issue as one of loyalty. Truth be told, some also want to see that stock price go up so they will take home more when they do cash out.

For the staff, though, it’s a leadership issue. I’ve been hearing this from clients for some time. Now Watson Wyatt, an international consulting firm, has documented it. The data is for Canada, but I think it is significant enough that we can use it here.

Let the data speak

Watson Wyatt put employees in groups according to age: Under 30, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60 and over. Here is what they found.

• No. 1 driver for all age groups except 30-39 is Strategic Direction and Leadership. No. 1 driver for ages 30-39 is Rewards (pay and benefits). That’s hardly surprising since this is the group most likely raising young families.
• No. 2 driver for all groups except 30-39 is Rewards (pay and benefits). For the 30-39 group, it’s Strategic Direction and Leadership.
• No. 3 driver for all three groups is Communication.

The message is clear: If you want staff to buy stock, you have to tell them what future they’re buying into. And you’d better be making a profit.

Strategic Direction and Communication

You, company leaders, need to provide and communicate strategic direction for your firm. Putting together an annual strategic plan and handing out copies is not enough. One firm has a schedule for who is going to communicate what strategy-related message, when, to whom, and by what means. They let staff know what progress they’re making on their goals.

Teach Them What You Had to Learn

You need to identify the folks you want to step into leadership roles and educate them about the job. One 40-something client made this point last week: “They keep calling us the future leaders, but we are leading now.” In his case, he’s right. Just like you, they didn’t learn how to run a company in engineering school. Help them learn what you didn’t know.

Share Your Thinking

Once you identify those leaders, you need to get into the financials and history for your firm. These 40-somethings need to understand why you make the financial decisions that you do. They probably don’t have your decades of experience with the firm, so, for example, they need background on why you got out of a particular market 10 years ago. You have 20, 30, maybe 40 years of knowledge about your firm in your head. You need to share it.

Be Creative in Stock-Buying Plans

The 40-somethings are likely raising a family, looking at ever-looming college costs, and starting to deal with their own aging parents. Taking out a sizable loan to buy stock in the company isn’t going to happen. Thus, you need to get creative in offering ways to buy stock. Some firms are giving stock as a bonus. Others encourage staff to use bonuses as a means to buying stock. Another firm has a payment plan.

ON A SIDE NOTE

The exec in this tale talked about how he and his partners all grew up as a family as they built the firm. Thinking out loud, he said maybe the company should have a cookout or some other get-togethers so folks could get to know each other better. That’s typical Boomer thinking.

When I relayed that comment to a 40-something, he said, “I don’t need to get to know those guys any better. I know them well enough.” That’s typical Gen-Xer thinking.

Boomers need to recognize that Gen-Xers are focused on their families, not the company. In our tight labor market, a top-quality engineer can quit in the morning and find another job before the day is out. Their priority is taking care of their families.

What’s a Boomer exec to do? Provide that Strategic Direction they want, demonstrate leadership and grow new leaders. Be creative in ways for the staff to buy stock.