Host - Pat Sweet: This is the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet episode 43. Welcome to the engineering and leadership podcast. The show dedicated to helping engineering leaders thrive today. I share a major announcement about the future of the show, my career, and the engineering and leadership project.

Host - Pat Sweet: Hey everyone, welcome to the show. So glad to be back so glad to have you here. Happy 20, 22. I realize it's been a little while since I've recorded since I've published anything and, and truth be known. It, it wasn't just because of the, the Christmas rush, the end of year hustle and bustle. I've had a lot on the go and I'm gonna get into all of that today. Like I said, off the top big announcement and, and lots to be excited about for 20, 22 and beyond, but first two things I wanted to let you know about two webinars actually that I'll be partaking in the first is with Mr. Jeff Perry of more than engineering more than-engineering.com and also the host of the engineering career coach podcast. Great guy. I've worked a lot with Jeff in the past, and I'm, I'm very excited about this.

Host - Pat Sweet: This will be on January 19th called engineering leadership fundamentals, improving leadership, no matter your title. And he and I are gonna go into what leadership looks like. Even if you don't manage other people per se talk about how you can lead no matter what your title is and, and great leaders build effective teams, why vision is important. It it's gonna be really, really good lots of actionable advice that you can take home with you and actually apply so that you can work on your leadership skills. Again, January 19th with Jeff Perry limited spots a as is often the case. So sign up as soon as he hear this sign up. Now you can do that@engineeringcareeraccelerator.com slash leadership webinar. That's triple w.engineering career accelerator.com/leadership webinar. And the second webinar is something I'm doing in partnership with the American society for engineering management. And if you're not familiar with this organization a S EEM, I've been a member for a number of years, they're doing some fantastic work do check them out. But the webinar's gonna be on the 26th called strategies for becoming an effective engineering manager. And that's something that I I'll be doing as part of their ongoing programming it's free. So do check that out again. I'll put a link to the registration page in the show notes along with the, the registration page for the webinar with Jeff Perry. So all you have to remember is engineering and leadership.com/episode 43. All the details would be there, but with that outta the way, let's get into the big announcement for today.

Host - Pat Sweet: Like many of you, the pandemic has given me this incredible opportunity to reflect, to just stop and go slower and, and to really take stock of where things stand in my life and where I want them to go in the future. And through this time through this reflection, I've come to as a few things. And first and foremost is that all things considered life is very, very good. I have a million things to be grateful for, and that's not to say that the pandemic hasn't been heard E even for, for me and in our family, but in the grand scheme of things, life is good. The fact that right now I can sit here and I can take the time to put out a podcast and you can sit there and listen to, it means we're, we're doing pretty well. And we've got the, this incredible universe that we've been thrust into, despite all the challenges and despite the bad stuff by and large, it's a good, and I'm super, super grateful for that.

Host - Pat Sweet: And one of the things I realized I'm most grateful for and most excited about and passionate about is serving you through this show. I started this thing back in, in 2015 with a, a big gap in the middle while I was raising a newborn and, and pursuing an MBA and working in all, doing all that stuff. But, but in 2020, I had kind of the chance to to come back to it. And I gotta say that the response has been incredible. The feedback has been phenomenal. I can say with absolute certainty that this has been a, a, a joy to do this. And, and not just from my end of the mic, kind of pushing things out into the world, but to interact with you, with the people who are listening to the show with the other engineers and the other leaders who are out there applying their wears in the real world, that's been just phenomenal.

Host - Pat Sweet: Another thing that I've realized is that there's never a perfect time for a big change. And, and regardless of when big change happens, life has a way of working out and COVID 19 has forced many of us into a big change, and that that's the understatement of the year, but w we've gotten into uncharted waters with respect to work with respect to daily life. And, and for me, you know, I, I've been a lot more hands on with my own daughter's education than I ever expected. I would be, which has been incredibly difficult, but, but so, so rewarding and so good. It's given me a profound respect for educators out there, but I, I, I guess what I've realized is that despite all this, despite the challenge we've pulled through, and in fact, in a lot of ways, the challenge has forced innovation, and you look at things like remote work and the emergence of the four day work week.

Host - Pat Sweet: It it's really forced to the surface the need to do things a little bit differently. And by and large, I think in the long run, that will be good. Now, if I look at my own life and the big changes and the big decisions that I've made, I realize that almost every single one could have been made earlier. And it probably would've been better. I look at when I decided to get married and when we bought our first home and when we started a family, all of that, I, I, I was really super analytical about it, and I was waiting for the right time, the right moment. And what I realized is that it, there's no such thing as a perfect big change. There's always gonna be some sort of downside or, or some sort of risk. And what I've realized is that, is that that's okay because things do have a, a funny way of working out.

Host - Pat Sweet: And, and since there is no perfect time for a big change, the, the, the best time is often right now, because that you could just get on with it. And finally, and this is a third thing that, that has really come to mind. And I promised to wrap this all up here in a minute, I'll, I'll get to the punched line. But the third thing that I've realized is that life is short and between our daughter growing up and looking at my own parents, my grandparents, and, and seeing them age it's occurred to me that as life around me is progressing at a breakneck pace. That, that that's my own life, too. I'm in parallel with my daughter. I'm becoming an old man. right. It's not just my daughter, who's having a birthday each year. So when I think about all this, when I think about the, the, the passion I have for this project and the realization that there's no better time than now to execute a big change, I've made a major decision with respect to my career and this show.

Host - Pat Sweet: And, and ultimately it comes down to this. I'm going all in. And from this point forward, I'll be dedicating myself. Full-Time to helping engineers develop leadership and management skills and helping organ organizations grow their technical management capabilities. The podcast will be a part of this, but, but the overall vision is much, much larger. And I'm calling this new expanded venture, the engineering and leadership project. And I'll be honest with you. This has been a goal of mine for years. And one of the things I'll do is I'm gonna take a picture of a little black notebook that I had. I think it was a note from 2014 or 2015 that I I'd written out for myself, where I laid out exactly how I wanted this to look, it's taken this long to finally convince myself that, that there will be no perfect aligning of stars.

Host - Pat Sweet: And I just have to do it because I feel like I feel like this is what's right for me and right for the world and, and a way that I can really contribute more fully to something that I care very, very strongly about, which is creating excellent leaders in the engineering community, because I think it's so, so important. And I'll get to that in a little bit, but, but the point I wanted to make is that this has been, this has been on the docket for years, and the pandemic has really forced me to make that call. It's really forced me to realize that there's no better the time than . And like I said, this is something I'm incredibly passionate about. And I see it as a, as a phenomenal opportunity to really help make the world a better place. You know, if I look back at my career and I look back at conversations I've had with other engineers, the same story happens over and over again, all too often, engineers get thrown into leadership roles and they don't have the proper training and they don't have any kind of development beforehand.

Host - Pat Sweet: And they certainly don't have any support after the fact, when a role comes up, it's often just the best engineer on the team who gets quote, unquote, promoted to management only to that being an engineer and being a project manager or being a people manager, or being a manager of anything else, that these are very different jobs. And it's really funny to me. We don't expect a great people manager to be able to switch gears and become a great engineer. We would never make that translation in a, our minds. It just doesn't make sense yet. We do expect really good engineers to become really great managers because they were such great engineers and it just, it just doesn't follow. So the ultimate result when this kind of thing happens is the new leader struggles, which frustrates them because they're, they want to do well.

Host - Pat Sweet: And they're high performing old because they were great engineers before, but the skills just aren't quite translating that also frustrates the team who lost a great engineer and now has kind of a crummy manager and that leads to burnout and poor performance all across the board. And, and that's awful. That's terrible. So my ultimate goal is to make all that a thing of the past by providing tools and systems for engineers to, to lay that foundation so that they can launch themselves into leadership, confident that they have the basics, and then to support those same leaders as they grow as they, they really find themselves in their leader roles, because it don't get me wrong. This isn't a matter of of saying, okay, you're ready for leadership now go lead. It. It it's much bigger than that. And really, I do feel strongly that that leaders need to be supported particularly in the early years as they navigate new situations each month and each year.

Host - Pat Sweet: So what exactly is this all going to look like? What does the engineering and leadership project entail? And like I said, the, the podcast will be a huge piece of this, but the overall plan is gonna be even even bigger than the show. Most importantly, and, and I really want to get this across the overall mission stays the same and, and the mission is to help engineers become incredible leaders full stop. Now I'll be keeping everything I've been doing all along with the, the podcast and articles on the site, webinars, free guides, all that, all that stays, and it stays free because I want there to be a ton of accessible material out there for you to use. I want to equip people with, with readily accessible stuff that they can just get going. I don't want there to be a barrier in place to accessing most of the fundamental into material that I create.

Host - Pat Sweet: The big difference you'll notice is that you'll be able to expect more of it and a, a better kind of consistency, better cadence with respect to delivery, because frankly I'll have more time to dedicate to producing it. Second of all. And, and this is a big change, is that for individuals and organizations who will looking for something broader or deeper or more hands on, more access to me, more customized, I'll be able to provide that now. So I'll be offering courses, coaching, consulting, public speaking, all stuff I've done in the past to, to some extent, but we'll be able to do much more of now in will really be able to invest a ton more time and energy into, into producing the, the, the, the right product, the product that I have this vision for in my mind. And I'm really, really excited about that.

Host - Pat Sweet: And to, to bring all that to you as always, and, and this has always been the case. Everything I do will you to be designed specifically for engineers will be actionable, will be relevant and will be of the highest quality possible. So very, very excited. I don't know if you can hear it in my voice. I suspect you can. , I'm, I'm really jazzed about this. So for next steps, you can expect to hear about a productivity course that I'll be log within the next couple weeks. I'm very excited about that. I've done this. I did a beta launch not last fall, but the fall before I took a small cohort through that, and I've been refining the material since. So that's the the productivity pyramid. You'll be hearing about that soon. And I'm also going to be opening some one-on-one coaching spots as well.

Host - Pat Sweet: So do stay tuned for that. If you're interested in any of this in the courses or any of my work, all you have to do is go to my website@engineeringandleadership.com, but even better, even better, if you haven't already, I highly recommend you subscribe to my newsletter engineering leadership weekly. That's the single best way to keep tabs on what all is going on in, in this great big venture of mine. And on top of that, it, it also just in and of itself is probably one of the best things that I produce in terms of providing quality information and guidance and, and ideas, tips, tools, books, all sorts of good stuff. Again, geared specifically toward engineers who are looking to improve their leadership skills. The other thing is I always give my engineering leadership weekly subscribers, advanced notice on what's going on. So when a course is coming out, or there's a, there's some sort of seminar or a product or something.

Host - Pat Sweet: And I also normally pair that with discounts as well, that you can't get elsewhere. So you get notified sooner and things are, are normally cheaper as well. So it's absolutely the best way to kind of get looped into this community. So if you're interested in that engineering leadership weekly, you can get that@engineeringandleadership.com slash E L weekly. Finally, I just wanted to say, thank you. Thank you. So, so, so much for your support and your engagement, and for joining me on this adventure, I can't thank you enough for being part of this. I, I really, I really do owe it to you for, for helping me realize just how important this stuff was to me, how passionate I am about it, and for encouraging me along the way, you know, some of you have been with me now for 10 years, I started this as a blog back in 2012.

Host - Pat Sweet: So, so 10 years of doing this, and some of you have been with me from day one, and I'm just so thankful that you you've come along for the ride with me. And I'm excited beyond measure to see where we go over the next 10 years. So buckle up. This is gonna be a lot of fun. So that's it, that's the big announcement is the, the launch of the engineering and leadership project. That, so it's a short episode for today. I really just wanted to, to hammer that out and, and share that with the world. I promise I'll be back next week with a more traditional episode. We've got a great interview with Duncan oar of the business savvy academy on the impact a business savvy workforce can have on the strength of a business. So really, really great stuff. Duncan has lots of facts and figures and kind of hard data to back up what he's saying and his approach.

Host - Pat Sweet: So I'm very excited about that. And then we've got a bunch more lined up author, Ralph SPECT. We've also got Anthony Fasano. Who's a friend with the show, a mentor of mine. It's gonna be, it's gonna be really, really great over the coming weeks. So do stay tuned for that. Also, don't forget. I mentioned those two upcoming webinars on the 19th and the 26th check the show notes, details, engineering and leadership.com/episode 43. And again, I'll encourage you, please do subscribe to engineering leadership weekly, and that's at engineering@leadership.com slash E L weekly. If you enjoy the show, I would love it if you would subscribe. And please, if you have a moment, leave an honest review and let me know what you think of the show. I use the reviews as part of my own continuous improvement feedback loop. So it's great to get your feedback and it helps others find the show as well. So that's a, a fantastic way you can help us out again for more information and any of the links that've mentioned today, just go to the show notes@engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 43 until next time, this is pat sweet reminding you that if you're going to be anything, be excellent.

Host - Pat Sweet: You've been listening to the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet. If you'd like to learn more, go to engineering and leadership.com where you'll find more free articles, podcasts, and downloads to help engineers thrive. That's engineering and leadership.com.