Note from Art: It’s always fun when a post strikes a chord and compels someone to comment or even put hands to keyboard and crank out a guest post. Last week’s “Leadership Lessons Learned In a Crane and Sitting on a 5 Gallon Pail” drew upon some of my own early career memories and the formative lessons learned the hard way and served as inspiration for some interesting comments and today’s guest post.
Joe Zurawski is back with us today serving up a nice post on one of the early career experiences that shaped his own leadership development. You may recall that Joe joined us here a few months ago with his take on “Things I Wish I Knew When I Became a Leader.” Joe, welcome back and thanks for sharing!
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Why I’ve Vowed Not to Be Like Glen, by Joe Zurawski
How does this sound for your first job out of college: starting salary above most of your friends, five weeks vacation plus 15 holidays, 8:00-4:30 days with 90 minute lunches, and a 2:1 matching 401(k)! Why would anyone ever leave?!
As a newly minted, 21 year old mechanical engineer out of Marquette University, I was ready to go conquer mechanical stuff. This job at a U.S. Department of Energy research facility, where physicists were making new discoveries every year, seemed liked the perfect place to put my education to the test.
My first real assignment was to work with visiting professor from Cornell University to design and build a new type of device to support his research. It had everything an “engi-nerd” could want: an all-new device with gears, motors, lots of stainless steel, and some extreme environmental conditions. Also, I would have the chance to learn from the most senior person in the group (“Glen”) who had worked at the facility since it was a pristine prairie with no buildings nearly two decades earlier. He literally built the facility from ground up and knew every piece of equipment inside and out.
You can maybe guess what happened. Instead of being coached on how to design my first machine, I was handed a stack of machine design magazines and told to read them (and to take my time…). Not being the patient type, I plunged ahead and created my design by talking to lots of people, asking for help, and just taking my best shot. Glen did not want to be bothered by a junior know-nothing.
As the design took shape, I had my college textbooks spread out on the table and diligently worked calculations and triple checked the math. When I thought it was ready, I presented to Glen, ready to hear how great it was. Instead, he quickly said it wouldn’t work and I should design it like so. When I asked him why, he said that because of all his experience doing these things, he knew a key area of my design just wouldn’t work right.
Crushed, I went back to my table and went back through all my calculations again. It had to work – everything that could go wrong was accounted for in the design. With the blessing of the department manager, I moved ahead on my approach. Glen wiped his hands of the project and blew me off.
During this time, I had made a point of getting to know the factory fabricator guys and asking their perspective on how to build the device. It turns out they didn’t care for Glen and were eager to help me show him up. Glen never asked for their help; he just told them how it had to be.
When the device was finally installed, I had a few nervous days as the Cornell professor tested it. The results were in: it worked perfectly! As for Glen, he literally never said a word about it to me.
The Bottom Line
I have carried that lesson with me my entire career. A super experienced engineer was completely closed to the perspective that a young kid could have a good idea. He was closed to learning and displayed an attitude that there was nothing that I could teach him. As I am now the older person in the room, every time I get the sense of “I’ve been there and done that and know the answer,” I force myself to pause and remember not to be like Glen.
- There is always something to be learned from everyone, including the most junior associates
- As a leader, get good at asking challenging questions to help your associates consider the unexpected and see how they answer. Have they really thought through it?
- Don’t miss the chance to have a positive impact on a young professional by actively coaching and mentoring. They will learn more, and you just might learn more.
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About Joe Zurawski: Joe is a strategy and innovation executive with a career that has spanned strategy development and execution, whole lifecycle product innovation and management, demand generation marketing, and global alliances. He has worked in electronics companies (including Motorola), software (Firstlogic/Business Objects, SPSS), and spent several years in management consulting at Ernst & Young. You can reach Joe at [email protected].
Another great post,
“None of us are as smart as all of us” is a quote I have used for years.
I also blogged about the importance of being mentored and becoming a mentor http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/12-mentor-moments-to-help-leaders-grow-their-businesses-profitably/
Thank you!
Mark Allen Roberts
Joe,
What a great experience and thanks for sharing it. Managers and supervisors like Glen are, unfortunately, still prevalent in too many companies and industries (hello, Detroit!). I’d like to toss in one more bullet point-the simple fact that go-getters like you are viewed as “threat” to the established corporate hierarchy, and to managers like Glen you heighten their paranoia and threaten their existence instead of using the moment as a learning opportunity to share and mentor.
Art, thanks for sharing you blogspace with Joe. Looking forward to your next posting!
Great post! “We’ve always done it this way” is a terrible curse for many organizations. A nice reminder to ensure we’re helping new team members and those from other departments bring new ideas to the table.
Great story and it couldn’t be more true! It always seems to me that being put in a position like that is very hard to overcome and it usually never works out. Sounds like it was a good thing that it worked out in this case. This is a great reminder that there is always “more than one way to skin a cat”. This is also a great reminder to leaders to always have an open mind. It never hurts to try and learn something new even if it is from the “Younger Generation.”
It never hurts to ask the right people for the right advice. That story hits very close to home for many people, I’m sure.
Great post! I can relate to the story very well since I am the youngest out of my peers at work. It’s very easy to feel like your ideas are overlooked when you’re surrounded with an older, more experienced group. As I gain more experience over the years and people younger than me starts getting hired, I will definitely try my best to not have the same demeanor. It’s good to learn from someone with a different perspective.
Yet another wonderful example of exclusion to the point of failure. Had Glen seen that your input could have furthered his career as well, the company would have benefited even greater. I have seen this happen over and over again. I don’t understand why management is so afraid of including the junior staff or front line in the conversation. Ask us! There is nothing to be so afraid of.
Why is this? Is the ego that fragile? Are they afraid that the Top Brass will make fun, degrade, demote or fire the manager? It just doesn’t make sense me to me.
I’ve experienced this across various industries: retail, food service, high tech manufacturing, publishing, etc. This “I know best” attitude is everywhere.
Thanks.
Elaine
Mark, Bill, Penny, Nick, George, Cirel, and Elaine – thank you very much for your follow-on comments! I’m glad the story resonates and that it is a good reminder for all of us.
Some follow on ideas…ask tough questions across all levels, listen, use your leader experience and intuition, then make the call. Everyone might not like the decision, but they will have had the chance to participate and will know why you’re headed in that direction.
Joe
Joe
Great story, it really helps keep things in perspective for me as I went through a very similar experience at my previous job. I think its interesting how smart people can get in there own way with this one dimensional thinking and not being open to outside perspectives. How would you recommend I encourage my junior employees to ask questions and take initiative to succeed?
Elijah,
I appreciate the question. One way I’ve used to get junior employees to take initiative is to explicitly encourage them to think through the problem, take their best shot at a solution, and test or prototype to see how it works. They should also ask for input from others to gain additional perspective. Then, have a review and ask the probing, tough questions to see if they thought through everything.
I would also explain that it’s expected, and acceptable, to miss some things. That’s how we all learn (just don’t miss it multiple times…). The key is to be upfront and open with your expectations on how they should go about developing solutions. Then follow through to help them learn and improve. And if you have a sharp person, YOU might actually learn something from their novel approach!
Joe