So you are a Graduate Engineer….. And as a Graduate Engineer you are now ready for the challenges ahead in the ‘real world’ of engineering. Saying that, you are still probably hearing those little voices in your head reminding you that:

“I have just climbed the top of one enormous mountain and now you are telling me that it is all about to start again….. To make it worse, I have no idea of the terrain I am about to encounter on this next expedition?!?!”

The reality is that these little voices are the same little voices that have haunted you as you have taken all other steps forward in your life to date…… Let’s think about it for a minute…… Starting high school? Starting University? Your first Grand Final in sport? Your first girlfriend (or boyfriend)? The list goes on….. Each and every time we come up with ways to succeed….. Why? Because we are engineers….. maybe?!? Actually, the only difference is that now you are an engineer and you have become even more logical in your problem solving and how you approach life in general….. Don’t feel too impressed with yourself because this is both a massive STRENGTH and a minor WEAKNESS.

So we are here to play on your logic and enjoyment of mathematics by giving you yet another EQUATION….. This equation could be considered to be the secret of success as you move from graduate engineer to professional engineer.

RESULTS = A x B x C

Where: (A) = Real Work x (B) = Professional Development x (C) = Reflection

What we are saying is that RESULTS is as simple a formula as ABC….. Because results are reliant on 3 distinct components….. But the trick is that without one or more of these components switched on we will set ourselves up for failure.

Yes…… RESULTS = taking action multiplied by continuing to learn new things multiplied by reflecting on our results and being mentored and sharing with other colleagues. All are CRITICAL elements of SUCCESS.

(A) Congratulations you have your first real job as a graduate engineer. But in the same breath please let us remind you that RESULTS is not just about getting out there and DOING. It is about an ongoing dedication to learning and reflecting on what you have DONE.

(B) You may be fortunate enough to have joined an organisation that has resources for professional development (maybe even being part of the Engineers Australia Professional Development Program and combined with supporting professional development resources). Some 344 different Organisations are on an Engineers Australia PDP and most of these also invest in graduates Continuing Professional Development (CPD). This is all of critical importance because an organisation needs to develop engineers of tomorrow to ensure the overall development of capability within their organisation into the future.

Are you one of the engineers of tomorrow? Do you have what it takes to lead the profession and the companies involved into a bright new age? If so then you have no time to waste. You need to seek out what is on offer by way of one of the many development programs in Australia such as The Graduate Program in Engineering delivered by Engineering Education Australia.

(C) Reflection and finding colleagues and mentors is the next part of the equation, because you need to start to find out more about what you are doing right and what you could be doing better as well as what professional development is available to you (first from your organisation and second from outside of your organisation). You’ll never know unless you ask, and once you do an entire world will be opened up to you. Are you prepared for that? Are you ready to make decisions that will shape the world and its future in ways you never could have imagined? If so you’ll need to develop your skills and become the best of the best. The world is waiting for you….. Are you ready to meet it?

Have a look at this ‘Rock in a Hard Place’. Pretty amazing isn’t it!

And now you might like to ask yourself the question? Where is my ‘Rock in a Hard Place’ with my professional development? What is holding me back from getting the results I want to get? Do I need more professional development or do I need to focus on deploying professional development that I have undertaken in the past?

The only way to get rid of a ‘Rock in a Hard Place’ is to gradually chip away at it…..  And our ‘rock’ in the picture above is going to need quite a bit of chipping away at!! (How big is your ‘rock’?).

In professional development terms, how do we chip away at our ‘rock’? Well how about we start with questions? What book should I be reading to get ahead? What relationship should you be building with a client, supplier, mentor or engineering colleague to learn more about what you do? What area of your performance could do with an update on skills and knowledge that you could get at a professional development course? These are the sort of questions that will help you as you continue your quest for better performance.

Yes, it always comes back to you and your professional development! And even more importantly for team leaders……. As you learn you help others to learn too!!

So let us now focus on how parents encourage and enhance learning for their children…… And that is ok, if you are not a parent as you can reflect on your upbringing because chances are that you are in the position that you are in today because of the fine example you were set for the love of learning.

Let us take reading as an example.

Reading is great at any time of the day, however, it is particularly special at bed time. Yes at bed time. Once every day. The frequency is at least once every day. We read to our child. We read they gradually get better. How can they not get better? After all, they do it every day. Same place, same time, same fun of reading a book. But it is not just the same book and same pictures and same words every night. We move onto bigger and more complex books, more comprehensive dialogue, counting objects, remembering names of characters, spotting little details and more. It is continuous learning guided by a loving parent.

By spending precious moments reading with our child we watch our little ones blossom in front of our very eyes.

Let us take time to reflect on this. As parents we adopt a habit of professional development for our children. They love it and we love it. We all see, feel and hear the benefit.

At Engineering Education Australia, we are always discussing our lives and how they relate back to professional development. Yes, it sounds a bit strange but it is true….. So how about you take the time to think about what your equivalent to reading every night to a child is in your professional lives? Are you alive and learning or are you stuck in a rut, or even worse, are you fading?

So no matter where you are with your professional development, today is the day to reflect on how you can apply the simple approach of parenting to your professional development. Give yourself the gift of professional development in the same way that children are given the gift of parents reading to them.

It is all fun, that first experiment….. Yes, that is right, we are now heating a beacon of water to boiling point….. Mr Porchelli keeping a keen eye on you to make sure you didn’t commit the sin of leaving the bunsen burner unattended (and especially not with a non illuminous flame). Oh yes, so much fun…..

But then the real work begins….. Physics….. Just when you thought that mathematics was confined only to the walls of Mathematics Class….. But that is ok, we are talking amongst engineers here and we all have a common love of the fundamentals of Physics.

And now that we are on the topic of Physics, there is no better place to start than Sir Isaac Newton and as always Engineering Education Australia likes to link all things back to professional development. So let us now apply Newton’s First Law of Motion to your professional development.

Now, a bit of a reminder on Newton’s First Las of Motion ……

Newton’s First Law of Motion says that if an object is not pushed or pulled upon, its velocity will naturally remain constant. This means that if an object is moving along, untouched by a force of any kind, it will continue to move along in a perfectly straight line at a constant speed. This also means that if an object is standing still and is not contacted by any forces, it will continue to remain motionless.

And now, let us apply this to professional development by looking at what type of person we are…..

Since 1989 we have discovered that 8 out of every 10 engineers will fit into 1 of the following 2 categories:

(1)   You occasionally undertake professional development. You are in motion, but the friction of the outside world is hurting you….. It is slowing you down and you can feel it and it is hard to break out of this pattern….. Are you up to date? Or are your warning lights on?

OR

(2)   You are long overdue for some professional development….. In fact you are no longer in motion…..  Are you out of date? Are your emergency lights on?

Ok….. Ok…… You are not in the 8 out of every 10 we are talking about here….. No….. You are in the 2 out of every 10 engineers who continually invest in professional development….. You make ongoing deposits into your professional development bank account….. You are in motion and you are counteracting all external forces to make sure that you stay in motion…… You can feel it and this is what is making you the engineer that you want to become……

Regardless of what category you fall into, please take a moment to think about your professional development in the upcoming months. It could be as simple as picking up that book that you have been meaning to read for months, or reading that publication that over the past months has gone from the mail box to the coffee table to the bin without as much as a few glances at the cover, or it may even be attending a conference or a professional development course. You can be sure that Sir Isaac Newton did his fair share of professional development to give him the edge when it came to success. A quality that all successful engineers and professionals share….. But we will save that thought for another conversation.

Sir Isaac Newton, born 4 January 1643 Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire and died 31 March 1727 in London England

Yes, most of us know about the 80-20 rule and have probably gone as far as applying the principle to our every day working lives. In fact we can apply it to many a situation….. Business = 80% of business comes from 20% of clients, Management = 80% of work output comes from 20% of the team, Humour = 80% of laughs come from 20% of jokes told, and we could go on and on with examples.

At Engineering Education Australia we know that the 80-20 rule also applies to professional development. Yes, since 1989, we have discovered that 80% of the results from attending professional development come from 20% of the content……

So what does this mean?

Ok….. Ok…… You are probably thinking just as we did….. How about Enginering Education Australia professional development focus on delivering only the 20% that gives all the value? Actually, that is a good thought and if only it were that simple….. However, the unknown variable is that different people each have a different 20% that delivers them all the value.

What is the lesson in applying the 80-20 rule to your professinal development?

he next book you read, the next conversation you have with your colleague, or the next professional development course you attend…. Think to yourself….. What are the 2 in 10 ideas, thoughts, or learnings that are going to give me the result I am after. It might happen in the first sentence of the conversation, in the middle or even right at the end. Because we never know when we are going to get the 2 in 10 and just like a good fisherman we need to be patient and feel for bites. So how about looking past the 8 in 10 that is not going to help you, but rather focus on the 2 in 10 that will give you all the results.

Applying the 80-20 rule to professional development in this way will significantly increase your results by double or sometimes even triple. Of course there are other ways to improve even further, but we can save this for another conversation.

The Pareto Principle (or 80-20 Rule). Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; he developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.