Photo credit: Flickr/ Ryan Tyler Smith

A few semesters back, I took a course in organizational theory as part of my MBA studies. It was incredible. Its amazing how much you can learn about the way the world around you works when you understand how groups of people work.

One of the more interesting people we studied was a man named Karl E. Weick, a professor of organizational theory and psychology at the University of Michigan.

What caught my eye about Weick was a list of ten “pieces of advice” he had for managers, based on his years of research in organizational theory. I thought the advice was excellent for managers, but it occurred to me that most of that same advice could apply equally to engineers as well.

Today, I want to share eight ideas from that list and how engineers can use Weick’s advice to become better engineers and produce better products, services, and designs.

Wieck’s Advice

1. Don’t panic in the face of disorder – The world of engineering and information work is anything but tidy. Use the disorderly information you have, rather than ignore it.

2. You never do one thing all at once – The full impacts of your decisions today won’t make themselves apparent until later. You can never make a decision today and know every effect it will have.

3. Chaotic action is better than orderly inaction – I’ve written before that Nike’s slogan isn’t “Just think about it” for a reason. You can’t always know what action to take. There is always uncertainty in the world of engineering. Weick argues that the way to deal with this is to just do something. Anything! The point is that you can learn a lot retrospectively by simply taking action and seeing where it got you.

4. The most important decisions are often the least apparent – It can be very difficult to know which decisions you make will have big impacts down the road (see number 2). Therefore, it’s wise to start any engineering work out by looking for lessons learned from previous projects. Go ask those who have gone before you about their experiences. How did they get burned? What decisions should you make now that will save you grief later?

5. There is no perfect solution – This on is kind of disappointing for engineers, eh? The point here is that there is no single “correct” solution to any real-life problem. There are, however, many reasonable solutions. Engineers need to learn to roll with it and adopt reasonable solutions, rather than fighting to have something that is absolutely 100% perfect. Otherwise, you’ll never finish anything you start.

6. The map is the territory – Weick suggests using causal maps to explain how the past worked out, and then extrapolating it to the future. Engineers can use this technique to help troubleshoot problems in the field. I’ve used maps to sort out “what causes what” problems to diagnose major issues with rail designs I’ve been involved in.

7. Visualize organizations [or designs] as evolutionary systems – Weick’s original advice was applied to organizations as systems. I believe the same advice applies to designs, which are also systems. Designs progress and evolve and change over time. Be aware of what likely will change, what could change, and what can’t change in a design, and use those facts to your advantage throughout a project.

8. Complicate yourself – Don’t ever settle for a single way of approaching a problem. While it’s important to look back on how things were done in the past and how they can help you with designs today, don’t let yourself fall into the trap of believing the way something was done before is the only way. Challenge your own preconceived notions. Ask others how they would design something. Remember, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

What will you do?

My challenge today is for you to put at least one of these 8 pieces of advice into practice. What advice will you use, and how will you use it? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

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