I want to say one word to you.

In the movie The Graduate, a young Dustin Hoffman plays Benjamin, a recent college grad wondering what to make of his life. He’s approached by Mr. McGuire, a friend of his parents:

McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

McGuire: Plastics.

Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?

See the scene at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk

I have similar, one-word advice for engineers: Systems.

Perhaps you’re as confused as Benjamin, or maybe it’s old news. I find that most engineers fail to comprehend how important systems thinking is to good engineering, good policy, good everything. A lack of systems thinking produces unanticipated problems in every field. Systems thinking prevents many problems.

The standard definition is that systems thinking is holistic – it considers not just the component of interest but also the linkages and interactions of all the other components affected by and affecting that component. It recognizes the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

That’s too general to be meaningful, so here’s an example: A dam on a river pools water upstream, flattening the slope and slowing the flow. The flow rates also change downstream, reducing some flows and increasing others, depending on the dam’s operational rules. Sediment deposits in the upstream pool and erodes downstream of the dam, changing the river bed and water surface profile. Those changes propagate upstream and downstream great distances, altering river hydraulics far from the site. Water temperature, residence time, evaporation, and reaeration rates change as the flow is slowed and stored, sometimes changing water quality.  Groundwater rises or falls depending on demand vs supply. Some aquatic species prefer impounded water, others can’t handle it, so the biological community changes. Lakeside properties become desirable home sites, so septic systems, fertilizer and pesticide runoff increase. Construction site erosion contributes faster runoff and more sediment. Increased population increases needed water, highway, school, and other government services, so tax revenue must rise. The effects, both favorable and unfavorable, spread farther and farther from the dam, affecting the physical, biological, economics, and social fabric of an entire region.

A transportation example: The U.S. manages transportation by looking only at one mode at a time instead of a system for moving people and goods. Each mode – highway, railway, airline, waterway and pipeline – has a separate set of practitioners and advocates when they should be viewed as an integrated system of balanced choices. With few exceptions, mass transit is managed as a competitor to personal vehicles instead of a complimentary component of a single system. Politicians rant about subsidizing Amtrak while happily supporting massive subsidies for highways, which encourage urban sprawl, requiring still more highways.

The Corps of Engineers has attempted to address systems effects in water resources with programs like Regional Sediment Management and Engineering with Nature. EPA has long advocated a watershed approach to air and water quality issues. Both run up against hard political boundaries that limit the approach. Some local and state departments of transportation, notably Mississippi’s, demonstrate an enlightened understanding of transportation as a multi-modal system, but the U.S. Congress and Federal DOT wear blinders, seeing only one piece, one project at a time.

What to do? First, teach systems thinking in school, starting with high school and continuing in college and professional schools. Professional societies can organize conferences and encourage systems-oriented papers just as they do case studies, with a separate journal section. They can offer continuing education on systems approaches in various disciplines. They can educate the public, politicians, and agencies. As individuals, we can search out books and short courses to help us open our horizons. A good place to start is the book, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella H. Meadows. We can educate and encourage our elected officials to think in terms of holistic systems.

Are you listening? “Systems.”

Show Me.

Communication 4: Show Me.

I spoke at a public meeting about a proposed coastal project’s salinity effects in a treasured fisheries area. More than 200 people crowded into a cavernous hotel ballroom for the meeting. Proponents and opponents of the diversion applauded or booed the preceding speakers, depending on their point of view. I spoke, trying to be neutral on the project, but the crowds were having none of that.

The crowd’s raucous behavior continued through my usual PowerPoint presentation but at the end one of my colleagues had added a color animation of salinity contours pulsing in and out of the estuary. Projected on the ballroom’s 20-ft-tall ceilings, it looked like an IMAX movie of a human heart, pumping in and out bands of vibrant red, yellow, green, and blue. That room full of shouters suddenly became quiet and sat open-mouthed, mesmerized by the rich colors and majestic movement. When it finished, there were no boos, just applause and questions about how we had made the great animation. Graphics tamed the raging beast of partisanship in that hotel ballroom.

There is a specific field, info-graphics, devoted to creating compelling graphics. Color, size, texture, and orientation of objects can display the rich detail of data sets, particularly those derived from “big data” as it is now known. This cylinder plot from the U.S. Congressional Budget Office presents Federal spending in a much more understandable way than a tabular listing and it’s a very simple info-graphic. It’s better than a pie chart, which tends to over-emphasize large numbers. Its use of muted colors diminishes the impact somewhat.

An even better infographic example is this one of the electoral college votes in the 2016 U.S. election. Each state’s size is proportional to its number of electors, and the color indicates which candidate won that state’s votes. It conveys a huge amount of information in a single glance and invites a more detailed examination for more detail.

Source: By Ali Zifan - Cartogram—2012 Electoral Vote.svg by Kelvinsong, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48100982

Infographics can also show connections not readily discernible from ordinary displays. I made this connection diagram showing researchers (blue circles) and funding institutions (orange boxes) for proposals with the keyword “water.”  The blue circle size indicates the relative total funding amounts proposed by that researcher for water-related projects. Another version of this chart showed collaborations among the researchers but made the chart too busy to readily comprehend. That’s perhaps the most common failing of graphical displays.

Try infographics. They are best created by specialized software, particularly when the data sets are large but even PowerPoint offers the capability to construct them. You may find the services of an infographic expert to be useful.

Books and articles on speaking and writing offer great ideas on how to properly prepare ordinary graphics – adequate font sizes, uncrowded slides/figures, and such. I commend them to everyone. Some other tips for graphics accompanying your talk:

·       Don’t cram too much information into your presentation. As one expert put it, “Leave out anything but the pauses.” Your audience has to have time to think.

·       Don’t use too many slides. More than one per minute, on average, is too many unless it’s a travelogue.

·       Minimize the number of words per slide. Avoid complete sentences.

·       Always explain the axes and units of any X-Y plots. Make the labels large enough to read from a distance.

·       Use color but use it carefully, too many colors or too garish a combination distracts from the message.

·       Remove the X-Y plot internal grid lines unless they are essential to your message.

·       Increase the thickness (weight) of your lines.

·       Plot observed data as points, computed data as lines.

·       Remember that slides look different on your monitor then they do when projected. Test on a real screen for fonts and colors.

 Do you have a communication or miscommunication story? Share it with me.

Communication 3: Prove it!

Engineers write in two formal modes – detailed instructions on how to do something, as in plans and specifications, and documenting what has been done, as in analysis and design memos and articles for publication. Engineers’ formal documents must be precise and correct and are best understood when they are also easily readable. Informal writing includes the emails, memos, and texts that are common to all professions.

Like speaking, writing well is the subject of many books and how-to articles and I commend them to you for the basics. Here are some additional tips:

·       Look to your organization’s or intended publication’s completed documents for format and style examples. Follow them unless there’s good reason not to do so.

·       Make a deliberate decision about the intended audience and write for that audience.

·       Remember the “so what?” admonition from the prior blog and make it clear near the front what the document is about and why the reader should care.

·       Separate facts from opinions.

·       Understand “significant figures” and don’t show inappropriate precision in your results.

·       Understand uncertainty and be sure that your document expresses the inherent uncertainty in your results clearly.

·       Be certain that your conclusions are supported by the data and analyses you present.

·       Ask someone who knows language well to proof your writing for grammar and spelling.

·       Ask a fellow engineer to look for errors of fact, logic, or omission in the completed document. Done properly, this step takes significant time and effort, so be prepared to reciprocate in some way.

Even if you dislike writing, do it anyway. Do it to protect your rear end, if nothing else. It may be the only way to prove a point. On multiple occasions my hide has been saved by producing nominal “progress reports” which documented events and decisions made by others. One example: An anonymous caller warned me that a certain Army General had boasted that he was going to have my head on a platter because I had delayed his pet project. When he arrived, I had a 3-year stack of progress reports to his office showing that every delay had been caused by them changing plans and delaying funding. For a tense 40 minutes the General read through the stack, stood and said, “I’m been misinformed. Thank you for your time.” 

Communication 2: Speak or Die?

We’ve all seen the surveys showing that many people fear public speaking even more than dying. Well, maybe.

Public speaking is difficult and doing it well requires knowledge and skills. Successful speakers know their subject, know the audience, and know the best practices for oral communication. Engineers usually know their subject well and readers of my earlier “So What?” blog have been exposed to how to know their audience.

Best practices are the subject of multiple books and courses and I strongly recommend using those resources to learn them. I also recommend searching for public speaking mentors. Your mentors don’t have to know they are helping you. All you have to do is to regularly watch and hear them speak. Note their best and worst aspects – slides, timing and pacing of remarks, level of detail in explanations, asides, even their jokes. Bad examples work almost as well as good ones. I had a co-worker whose mind was so quick that he anticipated people’s questions from their very first words and began his answer before they finished. A terrible practice, since he sometimes anticipated incorrectly and answered the wrong question and always annoyed the questioner because they didn’t get to have their say. Good examples? One of my mentors, Jim Sale, walked among his audience, engaging them by eye contact and noting their reactions. After answering a difficult question, he focused on the questioner and asked, “Does that address your concern adequately?” I learned so much from him.

Beyond the standard best practices, remember how to get to Carnegie Hall – “prepare, prepare, prepare” and “practice, practice, practice.” Practice giving speeches and solicit feedback.  Toastmasters Clubs provide a wonderful service to everyone wanting to improve their speaking skills. I wish there had been a local club when I was learning. It would have saved me many embarrassing episodes.

Next up: Prove it!

Communication 1: So What?

Many of us dread the required technical communications courses in engineering school, reinforcing the stereotype of engineers as introverted, language-challenged techno-nerds. That’s unfortunate, because good speaking and writing are just as essential to an engineer’s career as solid technical skills.

The proof comes in two forms – complaints from employers that new graduates often lack good communication skills, suggesting that our coursework isn’t producing a lasting improvement; and testimony from practicing engineers like me who have struggled to become good communicators out of necessity. “So what?”: You need good communication skills for a successful career.

Good communication is needed for the obvious situations – giving a presentation or preparing a report – but also when explaining an issue to a supervisor, convincing a client, and giving instructions to a subordinate. Just one example: I set up 10-day continuous experiment that required laboratory technicians to adjust a rheostat hourly to regulate an electric pump’s speed. They all nodded when I explained what to do, read the instruction sheet to them, and explicitly told them to NOT adjust the pipe valve, because that would cause the pump to overheat. My communication must have been flawed, because they burned up three pumps in the first two days. Only after MY boss George shouted, snarled, dangled ruined pumps in front of them, and threatened to fire the next person who screwed up did they follow the instructions. He answered the “so what?” question for them. Lesson learned.

The first rule of good technical communication is to know your audience: who are you speaking to or writing for? It’s obvious that communication with a group of elementary school students during Engineers’ Week will differ from a technical conference audience of our peers, which will differ from a design presentation to a client. You MUST tailor every aspect of communication to your audience. Example: We invited an upper level EPA official to  speak to the Northern Gulf Institute conference and she explained to our engineers and scientists that the southeastern U.S. has water quality problems, patiently telling us that DO was short for dissolved oxygen. Every person in that room knew that, and knew the processes and problems better than she did. We didn’t need or want her naïve views on the challenges we faced. We wanted to hear what EPA was planning to do about those challenges and how it might affect our work.

The second rule is to understand your audience’s “so what?” If all they care about is their personal safety during an earthquake, they won’t care about the innovative structural analysis methods that you are so passionate about. You can inflict some education on them but only if you show them how their interests are affected.

For presentations to audiences of unknown background, such as civic groups, it helps to ask a group representative for advice before you prepare your talk. Then, asking your audience a few questions at the beginning can zero in on their preferences and even their mood. I once gave a speech to a business club and was baffled by their refusal to participate or even pretend to listen. Later I learned that in the business meeting to follow my talk they were going to vote on a power struggle between competing cliques. I could have skipped most of my speech and all of my jokes and no one would have noticed.

Discussions, either one-on-one or in small groups, requires both knowledge of the individuals’ technical background and an understanding of their concerns – their “so what.” I cannot overemphasize the importance of listening, sometimes even Active Listening in which you repeat what the person just said. For example, say, “Do I understand correctly that you believe X?” where the X is a verbatim repetition of what they said. (Not a paraphrase.) Only when you understand their concerns and satisfy their need to be heard can you expect them to give your ideas a fair hearing.

Next up: Speak or Die?

Dress for Staying Alive

Jordan looked good when he showed up for work that morning in 1975. He wore dark blue bell-bottom pants, a fluffy purple shirt, and stacked heel boots. His co-workers complimented him on his modern look. I sent him away.

Jordan’s clothing was perfect for an evening under a disco ball dancing to “Staying Alive.” It would even have been acceptable for a day in the office. However, we were at the dock, about to board small boats for a 12-hour data collection effort in Los Angeles Harbor. His clothes were impractical and even dangerous for the work we were doing.

Yes, this is a “dress for success” discussion. You’ve heard it before. Here’s my version.

Some years ago a group of sociology students ran experiments in which they placed a wallet containing money but no identification in a sidewalk phone booth. They watched until a passerby discovered the wallet, then they sent an accomplice to tell the discoverer that the wallet was theirs. The accomplices got the wallets back 70% more often when they were well-dressed than when they dressed down. Similar experiments have consistently shown that the better dressed stranger is always rated as more intelligent and more honest. Yes, it’s superficial to judge on appearance but the effect is real and if we ignore it, we hurt our career prospects.

You can find lots of books and magazines providing advice on the specifics of dressing for work. I won’t do that. Instead, here are some examples that might help the new engineer.

·       Most work dress decisions affect your career prospects. Some can kill you. Jordan dressed inappropriately for the situation and his clothing could have caused serious injury, even death. Loose clothing can catch in equipment, leather soled shoes slip on wet surfaces, and high heels make balancing difficult. Handling heavy objects? Wear steel-toed work boots with gripping soles.

·       One of my young engineers wore his college ROTC boots, worn at the heels, scuffed and cut, to meetings with clients. Those boots, in combination with a coat and tie business wear, struck a discordant note. Clients noticed. I noticed.

·       At Mississippi State University we instructed engineering seniors in the capstone design course to dress “business formal” when presenting their projects to the review panel. In the 12 years I participated, every female student showed up in perfect dress – business suits with trousers or skirts and sensible shoes. Most of the males wore a sports jacket and tie ensemble. A few of the male students came wearing tees and jeans, work boots, no coat, no tie. Those guys dressed to please themselves, not the reviewers. Their work was usually technically excellent but those few got bad grades for presentation and following instructions. They would do better in their careers if they learned the lesson that day rather than later.

·       My colleague Robert wore a jacket and tie when briefing clients but his shirt and tie choices were a riot of patterns and colors. His ties sometimes bore amusing slogans. He said he was demonstrating his personality. I thought he looked like a circus clown. Given that our bosses and clients were a conservative lot, wearing blues and grays, Robert’s loud ties didn’t inspire confidence. Maybe that’s why he didn’t get promoted as rapidly as his peers.

Lessons: Dress for the situation. Dress to impress your bosses and your clients. Pay attention to details like shoes and ironing. If people thing you’re smarter or more reliable as a result, let them.

Kiss Up and Kick Down

“Jack is a kiss-up and kick-down kind of guy.” The first time I heard this phrase it puzzled me. The meaning wasn’t completely clear. Plus, Jack seemed like a pleasant guy. It wasn’t until I saw him in action that I began to understand him and the phrase.

Jack was nice to anyone in the organization that outranked him or might eventually do so. He laughed at the bosses’ jokes and complimented them on their wise decisions. He did it so smoothly that it didn’t seem like overt kissing-up. Jack was cordial to me and other engineers, even those of us who weren’t in his chain of command. I eventually learned that his behavior, which could have been simply a reflection of an easy-going personality, was calculated, since any one of us might get promoted into a position above him.

It was Jack’s treatment of those he outranked that helped me fully understand what a nasty character he really was. He didn’t see me the day he stalked into the copier room and ordered a technician to stop her work and copy something important for him. I heard her say, “Sure. Just as soon as I’m finished.”

Jack said, “I’m pulling rank on you. Make me a copy or I’ll make sure your supervisor gives you a bad performance rating.”

I was about to intervene when I heard Jeannie, the technician, say, “You’ll have to pull something bigger than rank to get me to stop what I’m doing.” I was proud of her and pleased that she didn’t need my help in squashing Jack. He slunk away.

The incident solidified my low opinion of Jack. It also explained why the secretaries, clerks, and technicians disliked him. He epitomized Kiss-up/Kick-down behavior. I remembered it a couple of years later when I became his boss. I never again trusted his affirmations and always distrusted his motives.