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Hey everyone. My name is Henry Surya, we
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Hello, again, my friends and my listeners.
Welcome to the tekhelet journal podcast the show where you can
learn about technical leadership and Excellence from my
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Today we are covering about the engineering career, I'm sure
many of you are working as an engineer or are thinking of
becoming an engineer. Have you ever thought through
how you can optimize your career as an engineer or maybe weather
engineering itself is the right career for you.
Also, what? Let's do some of us is that
after becoming an engineer for a number of years, we do not feel
the same enjoyment and fulfillment as we started in the
beginning and then comes up the question of what's next that I
should do? How can I navigate my career and
even potentially make career transitions?
If these are some of the thoughts that you have in mind
that, I hope today's episode will be worth a listen for you.
My guest for today's episode is Jeff Perry.
Jeff is an engineering coach, the founder of modern other than
engineering and the co-host of the engineering career coach
podcast in this episode. Jeff shared the important role
of a coach or Mentor in our engineering career.
Especially when faced with all the questions that are mentioned
earlier, we first discussed Jeff's engineering career
Clarity checklist. And why it is truly important to
find the clarity in our career Journey, Jeff then share the
role of an engineering career coach.
How a coach can help us navigate our career.
And the difference between a coach And a mentor throughout
our discussion. We also touch on a few other
topics such as the great resignation Trend and what are
some of the things behind it making intentional career
transitions taking lessons from what Jeff has done in his career
transitioning to a leadership role and the power of
accountability. I enjoyed my conversation with
Jeff discussing about the role of an engineering career coach
or mentor and also the engineering career polarity
checklist and I like the way Jeff explained that we A shooter
navigate, our career Journey alone.
There are people and resources available out there who can help
us make better decision, especially for something as
important as our career. If you also enjoyed this
episode, please share it with your friends and colleagues who
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Once you receive any of those threats, hello everyone.
Welcome back to another episode of the technology on our podcast
today. I have with me, I guess who is
also a host of a podcast, the engine nearing career coach
podcast, which has been around for more years than me today.
My guest is Jeff Perry. So he's actually the engineering
career coach and also leadership Coach Jeff actually came from
the engineering background, not just software engineering, also
mechanical, and also manufacturing.
So it's really interesting how you can combine all these
engineering later. Maybe you can discuss about
that. I'm actually very excited today
to talk about engineering Korea, and coaching, and leadership in
general. So, hope to have this great
Position with you today. Jeff absolutely.
I'm excited about this, Henry. Thanks for having me.
Normally, I would start by asking my guests, to share his,
or her story may be telling us more about your highlights or
career turning points. Yeah, so as you know, that I've
kind of taken a Winding Road through a lot of different
technical disciplines and different things started.
When I was a kid, I really gravitated towards science and
math, and things like that, like many Engineers did because there
is like certainty. And a lot of the Things that I
was doing. They're always really loved
being right and having right answered from an early age, I
think there's ninth graders like I'm going to be a mechanical
engineer, that's what I was going to do and so I never
wavered from that, I went to school didn't mechanical
engineering, it was great, then I got into some research during
my undergraduate degree and I was connecting some of the
software pieces of mechanical design and 3D CAD systems and
things like this through that guy connected with an automotive
company that wanted to do more of that work, there was a In
research that we were doing and so ended up with a job writing
code, even though I'd only had two software courses in school.
Most of my stuff was on the mechanical and physical Hardware
side here. I was writing code every day
when it only take a couple of software courses.
So I felt kind of like a fish out of water, but I really tried
to look at that as an opportunity for you to learn and
different sort of industry and really dive into that.
So I really enjoyed learning about software Frameworks, apis,
agile, methodologies and more in that world.
There's a lot of things that I learned in.
At perspectives when I was doing that.
But I also realize that, hey, for me personally, writing code
all day, every day, wasn't what I wanted to do.
It's not where I found a lot of Joy.
So I actually had an opportunity to go to a smaller company and
dive into my first leadership experience and they wanted me
because it also done some like entrepreneurship side projects
that had in mechanical and the software aptitude and I could
really bring a lot of these disciplines together and really
kind of almost became a product owner over a technology I trying
to Newmarket. Utilizing existing Technologies
and find a road map for new technologies for the company
where they were doing a physical sensor service Hardware
capabilities. We're working with electrical
and mechanical engineers and we had to manufacture these things.
Plus the software side data acquisition systems and things
like this, in the cloud or on-premise, depending on how we
were doing that at the time. And so it was a lot of different
things going on there trying to bring all this together.
So, I did that for a while. Then I shifted again towards
operations and It was more process-oriented using
technology to simplify enhance operations.
Make sure we're collecting the right data really take that
continuous Improvement methodology and approach and
different initiatives. So those are kind of the big
shifts in the corporate world and obviously we can talk more
about what I do now eventually got to a career Plateau.
Where I knew that, what I was doing wasn't a perfect fit for
me or the company anymore. And so had some tough
conversations and even got to a point where I said, hey if we
can find an I meant the really is a fit for me.
We happy to explore that with you, but if things stay the way
they are, then it's probably best for me to leave.
Like I had recognized that where I was not really giving my best
work for the company and also wasn't great for me.
And so had those tough conversations we explored some
things, nothing really felt like a great fit but I was okay if it
was time to go and it actually was then, it was like, okay,
what's next? I didn't actually have anything
lined up for me. I wouldn't always recommend that
for people, but it's what I needed to do.
So I spent a lot of time getting Clarity and what I really wanted
and the end kind of breath together this entrepreneurship
bug that I'd had wanting to stay close to Technology and
Engineering but also over the course of time recognize that
helping people grow and developing people with something
that was really important to me, I had opportunities to do that.
I found, that's where I really lit up and found joy in my work.
So that was kind of where I have found.
My own kind of Genius Zone, put it all together and doing what
I'm doing. Now is a leadership and career
coach. So that's may be long and short
of the story for me. Hearing your story.
I can see so many transitions in your career.
One of the topics that we'll be talking about is about career
transitions but I think before we went there, one of the things
that I also see in your career is that there are many facets.
Right? You started from maybe doing
engineering, mechanical software, and keeps on
continuously, improving and exploring.
This not just fitting into one particular role but actually
moving into multiple facets and seeing where you can grow
further, although eventually it met the plateau.
But I think now you are entrepreneurial and you started
this company called more than engineering.
So tell us more. What is more than engineering
thus? Yeah, so more than engineering
is the name I put for what I do is leadership and career coach
specifically for engineers in technology professionals.
And the more than peace is this idea by?
Okay, engineering might be this professional identity that you
might have as an engineer technology professional.
But want to look at the whole person.
Who are you? What are you trying to become
Beyond just building your technical skills which it's
absolutely important. But what about in leadership
personal development? What do you want to do when your
community or otherwise you want to give and support?
Like who do you want to become? This is really trying to take
this larger holistic approach to personal development but coming
from, hey, I've got this broad range of experience in the
engineering and Technology world, but I've also now
developed a very wide tool belt of things that we can do to look
at where you're at. And where do you want to get to?
How do we make that happen? A lot of that is around Career
Development people. Trying to say, hey, I'm not
really happy with where I'm at right now.
How do I do that? Or I'm trying to grow in my
leadership approach building a new team trying to grow these
certain skills. How do we do that in a
sustainable way? Instead of just prescribing
behaviors things to do, okay? Try this.
Try this, trying to look at. How do we make?
That is actually a transformational experience.
For you. And so that's really the essence
of what we're trying to do. One of the thing, when I went to
your website, you have this career checklist, you call it
engineering careers checklist. It's very interesting to me
because I didn't have that checklist know that I thought
about having a checklist before I went into engineering.
So tell us more. Why do you have this career
checklist? And what's the purpose?
How does it help someone to decide where the engineering is
the career for them? Yeah, so I called the
engineering career Clarity checklist.
What this This is really designed for is those people who
were at those points were saying you know, I wonder if there's
more to what my career could look like, rather than just
showing up getting a paycheck, and going home and watching
Netflix or staying home and watching Netflix, if you're
working from home, because engineers and Technology
professionals have a huge amount of Versatility.
I mean, I'm an example of that of like all the different areas
but done, when I've talked to so many Engineers who have done so
many different things across different Ecology disciplines
across different roles. They played.
They can stay. They can go deep in Tech that
can stay bra. They could work priced products
that can work across projects, large programs, leading, large
teams, whatever that turns into. But there are plenty of people
who are, like, I know something needs to change but I don't know
what that actually is. How do I find alignment in that?
So that I'm actually really enjoying?
Cuz I know what I want is to actually wake up and feel
excited about work. We're right now.
I'm feeling like an being drained.
And not excited about that at all.
So it career Clarity ideas like okay how do we find that two
analogies are use as ways of thinking either clarity like a
Northstar like the things that you really want to get to that
kind of keeps you aligned with where you're going or maybe
another way to look at it as a set of filters of things like
what's really important to you. So those opportunities or
things, come your way, how do you run this through your
filters and see if they meet criteria that are right for you?
If so let's continue to explore if not then.
Waste any more time on there because you already identified
those things and most important to you through the number of
different tools within that, it's a checklist of activities
and exercises, you can use to really do some introspective
work and identify that Northstar those set of filter that you
need to use, so you can get the clarity with where you want to
go. So some of the things that you
Advocate into checklist is finding the Y, maybe many of us,
get to work to get paycheck and go on with our lives.
I'm not sure why the all Engineers really have a clear
goal in mind. Before it is like the career.
So, tell us more about. Why do we need to find the
white? And what are some of the wise
that engineering should think about by becoming an engineer?
Yeah. And this could be becoming an
engineer or a certain type of engineer or engaging like in a
certain industry or something that's really important to you.
This comes from a tool that I use when I was in manufacturing,
where a lot of times, there was a problem on the manufacturing
line or something we need to dive into the root cause of it.
We use a tool that's pretty common called the 5y as the
diamond, the root cause analysis and saying.
Okay you initially look at what the problem is that you think is
the problem. And then you keep asking, why is
that? Why is Is that you keep going
deeper and deeper? We use the same tool these five
wise. You can go more than five and
say, okay, what's the goal? You have something you want to
get to, but then what we're trying to do is unlock, what's
the deeper level of intrinsic motivation?
What's really the driver for you.
That's pushing you to want to make this goal and I've had
people have all sorts of different answers to this in the
end from hey I really want to find something that's exciting
for me in my career because I I watched my parents, both hate
their careers through their lives.
And I grew up with that and I hated that, and I don't want
that to be how I end up for the rest of my career.
And so, I want to find this alignment.
That's one type of answer. Another person said, you know
what, I want to find my happy place in my career.
I don't know what that is, what I'm trying to figure that out.
Another person who is really passionate about sustainable
energy and things like that. And so they were making the move
from medical devices over to Green energy and building.
And things like that because they recognize that's an
industry. That was very important to them
that they wanted to be actively involved in, are the people want
to work on certain types of products or things like this or
other people want to get involved in scale or it's really
about their opportunities for personal growth and different
opportunities are going to help them do that because I don't
want to feel stagnant. So it can be all sorts of
things. But the question is, like, what
is it for you? That really drives you to want
to get up and go and do things in your career?
And so, Finding that deeper level y, can be really powerful.
They are so many things that you mentioned, just now that people
look for in their jobs. So, I think the key here is to
find intrinsic motivation, how to align that with your career,
is not just some job that you need to do to get paycheck, but
to get that fulfillment as well. Another thing that you mentioned
in the checklist is that we need to find our genius Zone.
Tell us more. What is this genius Zone?
And how do we use that? You have?
So put simply the genius. Iran is where you do your best.
Twerk. Okay.
Couple different ways to look at this and also recognize that
your Genius Zone can evolve to as you go through different
experiences. If you would have asked me five
years ago about me hey can I do leadership and career coaching
for engineers? Like that wouldn't have been
that because it took me a few years of getting experience of
doing training and kind of internal coaching and
development inside of the company that I was at for a
while and kind of unlocking that piece of me.
And then also having more experience in the technical side
to have Broader range of things that allowed me to feel like,
hey, I had the confidence that I can do this and I can put that
together. So that's one way to look at is
like these combinations of things that you're really good
at. So you may be good at one
particular type of software application, or product
development or leadership. You can look at those as
separate things, but when you combine them the combination,
then create something that's quite unique and different
because you have certain insights into financial
institutions, if you're in fintech or something like like
that or other types of Industries.
And so, it's industry, its passions its skills.
When you combine them, do you have a unique value that you can
bring where you can really deliver exceptional work where
you can do your best work. So that's one way to look at
genius Zone. Another way is to look at it
like okay. When do you feel like you kind
of get in the zone or in a state of flow?
If people are familiar with this, the idea of flow comes
from a researcher by the name of Me.
Hide csikszentmihalyi, I think he passed away a few months ago.
Been quoted extensively on industry, search and flow.
And it's like this combination of Challenge and the skills that
you bring to the table, you can kind of get in the Flow State.
But what is that for you? It's almost that time or those
experiences are those things you work on your hardly feel time
passing? But you're just really in that
zone because you're excited about things and what is it that
you're doing that? Unlocks that for you can we find
ways to do more of that because that's something that you've got
some natural inclinations but also Oh some skills that you've
developed that really allow you to do some amazing work.
When you're in that space, how can we do more of that so you
can really deliver your best value so we can identify that.
Then maybe we can find a role or an opportunity that can align
and give you more opportunities to do your best work in that
way. So I find that these two
questions, really really important especially as you go
along your career, right? Maybe 5-10 years it's not like
in the beginning. I think these two questions can
help people who will feel stuck or feel.
The motivated or didn't get the sense of fulfillment.
Also, people who want to explore new areas of growth.
It could be new role, new career, new industry and all
that you seem to have lots of experience at doing career,
transitions part of this exercise.
I believe that people will make career Transitions and jumps
into different areas which they may have not explored before but
this is something that they are good at.
So tell us more. How can we make this more
intentional career transition maybe after you do this
exercise, how do you navigate that?
At. Yeah.
So that's a perfect question and you said the right word that's
really important. To me is like being intentional
Baptists. Okay.
Because I talk to so many people and they're like hey I know I
want to make a move or something but usually initially or often
initially what they're motivated by I don't like what I'm doing
and so we're just trying to move away from where they're at right
now because they know what they're doing right now is in
great. What we want to do is not just
find a new opportunity or job or But the right opportunity in
situation for them, it's about being proactive.
Not reactive, like, saying, I want to identify what I want,
what's important to me, and then I want to go through a strategic
process to go find it and make that a reality.
So it's about moving towards what you want to do and become
rather than moving away from something, you don't want.
That's just a much more powerful way of going about.
Any changes that you're trying to make in your life is thinking
about a positively framed approach to Audi.
You move towards what's important what you want rather
than moving away from something that you don't.
So I've designed a whole approach in program to this
called the engineering career accelerator, that's really
designed to help Engineers move through this intentional career
transition and get into that right opportunity and situation.
It's been my pleasure to help a lot of people.
And I get that opportunity to kind of have that front row seat
to working with people through this process and helping them
grow to get where they want. But also again, we Trend Design
This in a way that trying to be a transformational experience.
we're not just successful in landing the opportunity but they
see that there's benefits and changes they've made that are
going to help them as they continue forward throughout
their career and actually what it's designed to do, So again
you emphasize the key word intentional or deliberate here.
It really struck me when you said that many people want to
make career transitions because they just think they don't want
to do whatever they're doing now, it's more about moving away
or running away from their situation but towards where
maybe they are not sure about. So this is something that
probably is critical, right? When I hear about great
resignation, or maybe during pandemic, people are not
fulfilled or suffering with their career.
So maybe this is also partly why that many people are resigning.
I don't know whether In your coaching or maybe in your
training session, you have this study case about great
recognition, is there some kind of things that you want to give
insights where the people are making the right transitions
during this time or actually still the same kind of problem?
Yeah so I mean we've gotten the whole gamut throughout the
pandemic and the great resignation experience from.
Hey there's layoffs upon layoffs, across the world
because the pandemic to now we're in a place where
Employment really low and it's really hard for companies to
find. People are trying to grow like
crazy and maybe there's some long tail effects of that of
some people who left the workforce for a longer period of
time and are coming back. I think we're still trying to
sit through some of the data around that but there was some
significant data around like 20 21.
So we were already through kind of the first year of the
pandemic in the US. There was the highest quick rate
that we've had in decades, that was significant.
I think there's just a lot of people Going through that
process and kind of stepping back and trying to figure out.
Okay, what do I really want? So some of that people actually
have that time to be introspective because I couldn't
leave their moments for one reason or another or some people
got forced into looking for something else because I got
laid off and others. Especially in particular in the
software space found that because they were more primed
for the remote work opportunities.
And there were a greater need to want to do more Automation and
software pieces. There were a lot of Of
opportunities in front of them. There's been a lot of wage
expansion and compression and things like that.
People like hey I can get a significant raise if I make a
move. Well, I'm going to do that.
So sometimes they're chasing the money, sometimes they actually
did some of that intentional work to try and figure out
what's really right for them in the conversations of I had.
And I've talked to hundreds of people one-on-one, is that I
find that those who were driven by fear, through the process, or
after the ones that kind of lost out on opportunities, it didn't
really make progress. But those who are driven by
opportunity and what's possible and looked for, how can I make
the most of the situation? Those are the ones who found the
opportunities and were able to continue to grow and grass
instead of taking a break and staying stagnant, or maybe
losing ground during the last couple of years.
So currently you are a coach at least in my part of the world.
It's not common to have an engineering coach, engineering
career coach particularly. So tell us more.
Why should engineer think about having a coach?
And how does it differ between Mendes and Coach?
Because these two terms always use sometimes interchangeably,
but maybe you can give us Clarity why an engineer should
look for career coach. Yeah, sure.
I mean, Engineers are notorious for being problem, solvers,
right? And figuring things out.
That's one of the things that Engineers do best there aren't
all that many of us who are coaches specifically for
engineers, but there are few and because I'm in the industry, I
know a number of them, but think about this.
I'm just a huge proponent Moment and believer that when we're
trying to make changes in our lives, we shouldn't change alone
and try and do that alone. We need people in our life to
support us and help us through that process.
What a mentor or coach can do, is really provide that outside
perspective, maybe? See things in you and work.
The problems you're going through and the opportunities
that are in front of you that you might not be able to see
because we all have blind spots whether we like to believe it or
not, we do. And so we, We need that help
mentors and coaches can also help expand your network and
give you access to insights. And people that you might not
otherwise be able to connect to and also just a big opportunity
to give you Frameworks activities may be a community to
be involved in one of the most powerful things is the power of
accountability. You can have that you are
invested in yourself and have someone who is invested in you
trying to help you move through this process because you have
maybe regular meeting. Send situations and things are
trying to report on. Then you've got this extra
motivation, I've got something I gotta deliver.
So there's a lot of benefits. A lot of that when we think
about the difference between a mentor and a coach, maybe the
separations mentors often, kind of someone who would volunteer
to help you. Maybe it's someone in your
workplace often workplace as well have mentoring programs and
things that you can get connected to, or you can just
find someone you want to connect to ask questions and I
semi-regular basis or maybe someone in another community.
Eating you can connect with but they just kind of help and you
connect with them. It's often informal, it can be
formal. It kind of depends on how you
set that relationship going to coaches often.
Paid something that you would invest in their also uniquely
invested, then in your success because they went when you win,
it's how they're set up. So it's often a third party
person outside the perspective of where you're at in your
company and so they don't have any other agenda to keep you in
your company or get you out. Or whatever other than you being
successful. And what's most important to
you, then investment in you through that process can be
really. Again, transformational coaches.
Also, bring often a more intentional framework and are
more proactive in your experience rather than mentors,
they'll often show up in. Like, okay, what questions do
you have for me? And they can be fabulous and
wonderful, but a coach is more like really bringing something
to the experience more often than a mentor would So, you
mention technique, which I find really interesting and also
powerful this power of accountability.
Again, I'm not sure, but I can just look from my personal
experience. Sometimes I don't do this
accountability for my career, so things could be just thinking in
our head or just Consulting with our family members, but the
accountability I think is a very unique angle that people can
explore. Tell us more about, how can we
find an accountability partner. So maybe some kind of
accountability framework for us to navigate our career.
How does this work? And maybe you can give us
examples. How can this accountability help
someone to navigate and make career transitions?
Yeah, so we can use accountability in any area of
your life to put some data to it.
I think the association for standards and training
development. Astd did a study on the power of
accountability from someone who's got a goal that they want
to accomplish. You just have the idea of a goal
is about a 10% chance. You're going to do it if you
like write it down, it increases like 25% movie.
Until someone it gets up to, like, 50 percent.
But if you get to the point where you have someone who
you're accountable to that, you have a specific date set up to
be accountable and delivered to them on a specific day.
It's like 95% of the time you're going to deliver on that.
So we go from 10% of. I have an idea of something I
want to do to you. I'm accountable to someone, I've
got a specific date tied to that deliverable.
So from 10 percent to 95 percent, you get a frame that so
that's just provide a data perspective that shows.
Real power in the power of accountability, you can find
people in your life. I mean, these can be partners
spouses friends, mentors in personal community and your
family or other things. Just again, like this idea of
not making changes alone, brings a little bit accountability.
You've been sharing with someone that you're trying to do this
rather than holding onto yourself.
Yeah, it feels a little vulnerable, but that can
actually sometimes light a fire and you to, it actually takes an
action but then taking that next level to maybe invest in
yourself, get some Specific help in a coach or something that
could be next level because they're going to be helping you
in different way. Anyway, this accountability area
or principal and just be so powerful to say, I want to do
something, but instead of just thinking about it, actually
going to do something about this, share this with other
people and ask for help. You'd be surprised how many
people are actually willing to help and support you through
that process and many different ways.
It can get some people who are willing to do little check-ins
and things like that with you, if that's what you want.
Because sometimes, especially if you get a full-time job and
other responsibilities, now, you're trying to be something
else would be hard to put in that time in that effort because
we're tired and got a lot of other things on our plate.
But when we have other people supporting us and holding us
accountable, or we feel accountable to and then that can
keep the fire going and controlling their.
So some people also find gave me a vacation as part of
accountability. So maybe use tools to do habits
streak and also some people put some more Stakes like, put
money. So, yeah, I didn't do.
Exile, put some money for you. So I think that kind of like
also works as a accountability technique, I've got a friend
who's wanting to write a book. And so if he doesn't get that
book manuscript submitted by certain time this year, then he
owes me 500 bucks. I think it's gonna light a fire
for him. So just a funny way that works
for him that negative pressure doesn't work for everyone but
that's something that's really pushing him array.
Lemond, that whenever we talk almost every week.
So, whatever works for you, that's what you're trying to
find. So, one of the major Get
transition for engineers is to actually navigate between
individual contributor and to leadership or management in your
career, you also mentioned that you have navigated that process
as part of your career coaching, or I think your training in
general. Is also a leadership aspect, so
tell us more. How can someone have this
mindset transition between individual contributor to more
leadership or management role? Here is a critical transition
for a lot of people if it's the right thing for them and if It's
the right time so we need to recognize the ships.
It's taking place here is an individual contributor.
Your best value and your expectations completely
surrounding around that the technology progress that you
deliver. Whether that's you know, the
code that you're writing, the product that you're working on
and thing that you're developing or designing, whatever that
looks like. It's about.
What are you delivering in that way?
When you make that shift to leadership and management,
that's Where your focus is anymore is in, you delivering
the technology, its you enabling your team to do that, and that's
a shift. And it's really hard for many
people to let go of that direct ownership of this, is the code
that I wrote and I own. And I know it.
A lot of times, you're kind of having to give up your baby, you
were working on it for a long time, especially if you like
staying on the same team and then becoming the leader, that's
really difficult or even if you're shifting things, you just
have to completely let that go and hand that off.
But that impulse to, I don't know.
Exactly. So I'm going to go in and solve
that problem for them. It's not enabling them both to
make the best decision in the moment.
But also to enable them to grow and that doesn't mean that you
shouldn't bring in your technology insights.
Just means that you need to step away recognize that your shift
from you're not going to be writing code or diving into the
details of everything on the technology side and there are so
many challenges. Just two people letting go of
this idea and really delegating, hey, if I don't do this it's not
going to be done or fear of quality going down, or if I
don't do this it'll take longer than any train.
People has all sorts of things but that's really what the shift
is about and really taking the personal approach to how can I
enable them. But also help them grow to
become the people and the professionals that they want to
become. And how do I align their goals
with the company needs? And I work across these various
things and so just deeper level of understanding.
People really need to understand processes and understand higher
level areas of how different pieces of Technologies fit
together and eventually delivered to the whatever the
final product or services in that way.
And so it's a big shift because usually is individual
contributor, you're being delivered your tasks and maybe
you have influenced their as your planning and things like
that. What that looks like and moving
through. But then something is a leader.
You're identifying those and Across multiple people and
working across functions. Usually it's a big shift but
it's an important one for people to get, right?
So again, it's a change to make sure you have at least some
mentors to help you through that process.
So you don't have to squat or too much because there are a lot
of lessons learned. There's gonna be a lot of
frustrations, there's imposter syndrome, there's fear and
uncertainty there. You want to make sure you have
some help. As you move through that, you
mentioned that it's very critical to have Mendes.
So when I look back to my career, when I made this
transition, I didn't have meant oppa say so It's more like
winging it maybe maybe reading books or consuming whatever
resources that you could find. But I think having that meant
that could really help accelerate that process, right?
So that you are not stopped in the loop of fear or impostor
syndrome, like you mentioned, or maybe sometimes your school as
what should I do. Because you're dealing with a
totally different kind of a challenge altogether.
And letting go is one part that I think many people who will
transition from Individual contributor to managers suffers
a lot. So maybe is there any specific
technique how can? Be embraced.
This letting go. How can individual contributor
start shifting their mind towards more enabling growing
people. Improving process, and things
like that. Yeah, it's a great question.
So, this is the foundation of a lot of shifts that I try and
Coach people through as identifying like, Okay this not
just the prescription of techniques that we want to give
you like okay. Take these actions but for you
you need to First identify. What are the mindsets are
beliefs that you're hanging onto.
It's almost like an anchor that's kind of weighing you
down. Down.
We need to identify that first from the belief, or mindset side
of things, and then we can move through processes.
There's a really great process that I love from a book that's
called immunity to change by a couple of Harvard psychologists.
And I love the framework in here because it's a process that
Engineers can really understand. Okay, we're identifying a
change. We move through essentially
experiments and tests to identify, okay?
Here's a level of belief that is driving my behavior while I need
to identify and Through some experiments and collect data to
challenge these beliefs, if I can move through that process
and suddenly the power that belief and mindset has on me
starts to diminish because the experiences I'm having, aren't
telling me that what I thought was true isn't actually true.
It diminishes that and suddenly were Shifting the mindset that
driving a new set of behaviors that were trying to have because
the end goal the behavior shift, it's pretty easy to outline what
that looks like. Like in terms of delegate trash,
don't micromanage all that sort of stuff, not that hard to
identify, but how I as an individual moves through that
process, as can be different. Because I may be different
things that I'm struggling with to let go.
Then you would or someone else. The truly identifying that
deeper level minds and belief that this whole he's back,
there's this process between go to the book or surely reach out
to me and we can talk more about what they look like, really
moves process. It's amazing.
And we would do that. Like I had an Cheering leader
that I worked with was kind of notorious for just kind of
taking it all on his own, really struggled with, if I don't do
it, it's not going to be done because he was really closely
connected to customer projects and things with what he was
doing. And so we work together on this
and identified, how to run some experiments and things and hence
and things off because like, you know what, we've started this
new project, and I started it off with someone on my team to
really take ownership of that. Three months ago, I wouldn't
have ever been able to do that. I wouldn't be able to trust and
I wouldn't have had that set up so it was amazing and they're
doing a great job with it. So a huge shift in a freeing up
his time to work on the more strategic areas that are
important to him. And so that's just one example
there when we can make that shift from his beliefs, he's not
tied down by that as much narrower.
And moving on to other things that were working on together,
that sounds really powerful. So first, identifying, your
mindset and belief old mindset and beliefs that you probably
are not productive. In that sense, Rapier stay on
that zone. So I think I seen any Kind of
changes its habit, it's a personal development identifying
mindset first, I think is the key for many kind of
transformative experience. So I think partly by becoming a
more effective leader is also about changing your mindset and
beliefs from I see mode to more management and Leadership role.
If there are some kind of attributes that leaders should
have, maybe if you can give some tips for people here, who just
made that transition or who are still clueless and don't have
members, what will be that attributes?
What Do they need to look at and maybe just practical tips for
them. Yeah.
So from an attribute, one of the things that's really important
to me and something that I've been working on the last few
years since I got into this coaching and training role.
So the idea of seen people is people that sounds really simple
but it's extremely powerful. I first learned it from a group
that did some training called The Arbor injure Institute.
And they talked about a mindset idea, called the outward mindset
is this idea of we can see people as people whereas the
opposite of that they call in Self-focus where you see people
as objects may be to use them as vehicles or maybe their
obstacles in your way. And so you just need to get them
out of the way or maybe they're just irrelevant.
You don't care about them but it's this idea of like really
seeking to understand what people need was important to
other. People what they're trying to
accomplish their objectives. What the challenges are that
they're being faced with when you can truly understand people.
When you're thinking about from leadership perspective, both on
your team, also the piers, That you're working with and also
thinking maybe up in terms of what do your leaders really need
from you? And really seeking to ask
questions to understand, how do you deliver the greatest impact
these people and seeking to not, just be held accountable to
that. But seeking to be proactively
accountable for you in actively checking in with them.
Hey, how am I actually doing and delivering, am I helping you in
the ways that you need that and always seeking for that growth
opportunity? Feedback then suddenly everyone
around you becomes kind of a mentor in that opportunity to
give you insights and feedback that you might not otherwise be
able to know because sometimes we're so afraid is new leaders
and experienced leaders. Even of what are people thinking
about me. And we're so afraid of our
image, we can let go of that and say, Hey, I want to understand
that because then I can actually deliver better and put myself
out there and be a better professional better person for
them that they need me to be, then we can make those changes.
So from a A fundamental principle standpoint, this idea
of seeing people as people and seeking to understand what they
need from, you will allow you to be the best that you can.
So stay humble and teachable and open to those ideas.
Instead of again, you don't want to be driven by fear.
You want to be driven by how can I continue to improve and grow
and see those gaps that you might have and where you're at
now as opportunities. Rather than knocks on you, we
all have things we can work on. Well, that's an opportunity to
grow and develop in a new way. So, get excited about that.
So I like the way you frame it, sick people as people and also
try to understand them. So, I think some people also
refer this to probably, like seven leaders, your job, is
there to serve people. It's not to give orders is not
to give a high-level goals directions or maybe chasing
people for task. So I think the key is about
serving people, by understanding them.
Hopefully, they can grow and also be more productive and also
create a great team. And a high spirit, I think
that's the message here. So part of your day-to-day is
also hosting Just tell us more about your podcast, what is it
about? And where people can find it and
why they should check it out. Yeah, so the podcast is called
the engineering career coach podcast and this is a podcast
that I am the primary host right now, it's in partnership with a
group called The Engineering Management Institute that I've
been able to partner with, in the podcast itself been around
since I think 2013, but I've been the host for the last
couple of years, put out a couple episodes of months,
typically, across, all sorts of different things, in terms of
engineering, Career opportunities and success from
hanging. How do you deal with things as
an introvert? Talk about mindset principles,
we talk about leadership, would talk about changes in
engineering and Technical education and things like this.
There's all sorts of different things would get to bring in
experienced guests on to provide Insight, but a truly meant to be
General across, engineering disciplines, not specific to a
few. Although there's a lot of people
and things in the software world that people can get insights on
who we try and make things as applicable as we possibly can
across Ross engineering disciplines because everyone has
goals and things that they're trying to do and accomplish in
their careers. And so we want to give people a
resource to help in progress. That's what it's all about.
So in find that on any podcast platform, pretty much and also
YouTube videos as well. So I look at the number of
episodes that plenty of resources.
So if people really want to look at the career coach angle, there
are plenty of episodes that probably you can look at
sometimes when you navigate in a certain situation, when you
don't have mentors is really hard.
So looking at Those previous episodes, I think probably can
help you as well, not to mention that podcast or maybe YouTube
now has become one of the mentors in life.
If you don't know about something search on podcast,
YouTube or books. And then you try to Self Serve
Yourself by having these kind of electronic Mendes.
So Jeff is been a pleasant conversation with you about
career coach leadership career transitions but we need to wrap
up before I let you go, normally I have one last question that I
always ask for all my guests which is this question about
three technical leadership. Wisdom, maybe you can give us
some advice from your experience from your journey.
What will be your tree? Technical leadership?
Wisdom Jeff? Yeah, so the first one that I
would share is to be proactive not reactive.
We've talked about this in terms of being intentional, deliberate
in your career but just like identify what you want to do and
go make that happen and recognize that hey, there's
going to be some twists and turns.
Along the way, you can see every step as another prototype and an
opportunity, click data and things like this.
It's just another iteration. So To discourage if you're not
exactly where you want to be right now.
But how can you take ownership and be proactive with where you
want to continue to go and how you wanted to continue to grow?
Number two, is tap into and become aware of your mind sets,
not just the actions you want to take, but who you want to become
like, it really starts there. And we talked about some of the
ways you can actually go about running experiments or tests to
identify. Those mindsets might be holding
you back and move through that process.
But again, the principle is that mindsets Drive Behavior, or
behavior drives our results. And so if we're just prescribe
behaviors, we're not going to make sustainable changes to get
the results we want. We need to change our mindsets.
There's and drive our behaviors worse in Drive.
Our new results that we're looking for, really trying to
improve and grow our lives. And then number three is, I'd
say, get help and support, get mentors and coaches like those
digital things resources, like podcast that we have and books
and articles fabulous absolutely engage in find the things that
are great for you. But also invest in yourself, get
these relationship-based that can really get personalized.
You are your greatest asset in your career, and in your life.
So protect that grow that invest in that, like, you would invest
in financial investments, but invest in you, personally in
your growth physically, mentally professionally and all areas of
life, you'll be glad that you did, because you're trying to
live your best life. So you got to invest in you to
make that happen. A lot of times coaches and
toward another things can help you accelerate.
That process and make even more progress than you need to.
So be proactive tap into those mindsets and invest in yourself
and get some help. I really love the last one.
You mentioned about we as our own greatest asset.
So sometimes we neglect our career although we spend more of
our life doing our career, right?
Your hours as well but sometimes we don't invest too much in it.
We just go with the motion and make decisions maybe sometimes
thought about it but maybe not enough.
So the key here is try to invest in ourselves find mentors and
support Thank you so much Jeff for all those wisdom for people
who would like to connect with you.
Continue this conversation. Any place where they can reach
out. Yeah, a few places you can find
me and pretty active on LinkedIn.
You can find me follow or connect with me.
There just search Jeff Perry. You should be able to find me
there. Prime your website is more than
Dash engineering.com, or you can find some free training,
especially for those looking for career, transitions engineering
career accelerator, that calm especially also we were talking
about that. The careered clarity checklist
earlier. People can get that engineering
career accelerated at cam career Dash Clarity so people can get
that as a free resource for. Those are the few places that
I'd send them a lot of stuff to go.
Check out what I got a ton of resources.
If you reach out to me personally, I can point you in
the right direction. Thank you so much for your
sharing today. So I hope that this gives some
people clarity as well in terms of navigating their career.
It was a pleasure. Jeff, thank you so much.
Yeah thank you so much. Henry looking forward to
connecting some more. Thanks.
Thank you for listening to this episode and for staying, right
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