RIGHT RECRUITING

A few months ago I wrote about engineering in C-level and business leadership roles. This analysis was based on a survey of local, small and mid-sized manufacturing and technology firms. Even though one might assume that those should be the exact type of firms in which engineers should rise to executive leadership, that assumption would be false. Engineering is woefully under-represented on executive row. In fact, we found that there are more English majors than Engineering majors in CEO/COO roles. Most of the CEO slots that did indeed have engineers in them were basically filled by the company owner/product inventor. Very few traditional businesses had a technology presence on executive row. The Engineer as CEO is truly The Invisible Man. The details can be accessed under the Newsletter section of our web site - www.rightrecruiting.com.

I often receive comments and feedback about our Newsletters but that particular one generated contacts from as far away as California, the Mid-West and Texas. It hit a nerve and was forwarded to people beyond our original distribution list. That’s great!  Most people agreed with the premise and most agreed that the situation was a problem. It was a problem in two ways. One, companies that lacked a true technologist on executive row often misunderstand project timelines and technical capabilities. As one respondent put it, “My President does not understand that the laws of physics can get in the way of his personal product development plans.” The second problem is in relation to career development. Many engineers feel that they have a career ceiling that is lower than other employees. Since they are identified as geeky engineers or scientists, no one expects that they either want to or are capable of running a complex business.

In the original article, I considered some possible contributing factors to this “Invisible Man Syndrome”. One factor was a self-selection bias. After all, perhaps engineers don’t actually want business leadership roles and are content to “play with their gadgets”. Another reason might be that engineers become uncomfortable trading in the certainty of technical decision making for the ambiguity of the business world. While both those explanations may seem valid, neither answers the question completely. My response indicated that many technologists in the corporate world are frustrated at their inability to crack through to C-level management. That would refute the self-selection argument. Secondarily, the certainty vs. ambiguity discrepancy between engineering and business does not explain why accountants find an easier route into C-level jobs. After all, accounting is a pretty literal field, just like technology. The books balance or they do not, for example. Creative bookkeeping is not considered a plus on a resume. Both disciplines require judgment but both also require facts as well.

So, over the last few months I’ve explored alternative explanations for the Invisible Man Syndrome. It’s been an anecdotal process. I’ve met with Engineering Managers, CEO’s and engineering professors and academics, as well as managers outside of technology. I’ve spoken with individual contributors and fresh grads. All in all, via phone or face-to-face meetings, I canvassed about 100 people regarding their thoughts on the matter. In fact, I even sponsored a dinner at a restaurant near the office with 10 managers, students and academics to start a group dialog on the issue. That was such a fun and informative gathering that I may formalize it and do a similar “symposium” a few times a year, inviting a disparate group to discuss different topics. I learned that a few glasses of wine sometimes help a discussion along.

The end result of these talks led me to identify two groups of actors in this play. Each group seems to be a major contributor to the Invisible Man Syndrome. There is some overlap between these groups and they may reinforce each other. Basically, if you think that a greater technology presence is required on executive row; your villains are listed below.

Universities and Academia
I was a little surprised at this but, in retrospect, probably shouldn’t have been. It’s been more than a few decades since my college experience and I was far from being a scholar. Here is what I was told by many people; current students, people working in industry and some professors. This is a pretty typical story.
Engineering students are smart, often the smartest single group in a university. Engineering is a tough major and requires a high degree of focus. As they go through college, many engineering students end up socializing and communicating almost exclusively with each other, their professors and grad assistants. In other words, they become a closed community. This, in itself, is not good. But the problem is actually deeper.

This closed community has people at the top - the professors. In most engineering programs they are like Brahmins and earn a lot of respect. They have opinions on a variety of topics from a pedestal placed above the fray. In reality, they are really people with their own life experiences and their own needs and values. Their opinions are based on a series of decisions they themselves have made in their lives. Those decisions have, in turn, been based on their personal values and desires. That’s pretty natural. However, in a close-knit, internal looking organization like an academic department, those opinions take on a higher degree of importance than perhaps they should. The 20-year old getting career advice from the professor makes the assumption that the professor has a background in a corporate or business setting and that the advice is well-rounded. From what I am told, that’s a false assumption.

It would appear that many engineering programs, with the exception of night-school programs, are overseen by PhD’s and professors who have rarely, in fact, actually worked as an employee, manager or executive in corporate America. They themselves made a personal decision years ago to avoid business as an employer and to seek fame and fortune through an academic career. Beyond that, many of the people I spoke to firmly believe that within academia in general there lies an anti-business bias and suspicion. One person at our dinner went so far as to call it contempt for business. While it’s not a surprise hear that a Sociology program is not pro-business, I thought it odd to hear that a similar bias exists in engineering programs today. But, since I was told this by numerous people, I assume it’s true.

Here is what happens to an eager 20-year old engineering junior asking a professor for career advice. That young fellow or lady is urged to continue for a MS degree and then a PhD rather than take a “boring” job in industry. They are told that they will hate working in a company because they won’t do R&D and will be at the beck and call of dirty little business people who are “only interested in a profit”.  A clear message is delivered that purity lies in education. Monsters lurk in the swamp of commerce.

From my conversations, the only interaction that many academics have with the business community is in seeking grants from either large business or government. Not to be cynical, but it appears that these same professional academics need grad assistants, TA’s and other eager, educated and cheap support personnel to either support the aforementioned grants or to assist with the teaching/grading side of the equation, thus allowing the professor freedom to seek out new grants. So, what we have is an uncomfortable combination of interests and ignorance. We have advice on a subject being given by people who may be ill-informed about the subject matter. To make matters worse, these same folks have a hidden, embedded interest in steering their disciples along a certain route.

Before the angry emails and letters start pouring in, I know that not every professor is like this. However, based upon people I spoke with over the last few months, this is more common than an outsider might believe. If there is a 20-person engineering faculty at a school, 10 ill-informed professors can cause a lot of career damage to students over the long haul.

Of course, most students do indeed follow a career in business and spurn academia. They find higher salaries and interesting entry-level jobs in industry and want to move on with their life after graduation. But, they enter the business world having been silently inoculated with the philosophy that technology = purity and that business = greed. It’s not far from there to cynicism about other corporate departments which leads to a feeling of superiority over other employees which leads to arrogance which basically leads to the rest of the company hating your guts. That’s not a good formula for promotion to a CEO slot.

I also found an amazing lack of information about business and business organization in the engineering curricula that I saw. I did a test of my own. I asked every person I spoke with, from manager down to fresh grad, if they could tell me what a marketing department did. I asked if they could tell me how their salary was determined. I asked if the right side of a business statement showed an asset or liability.

Out of 25 people, one could answer the business statement question.  Five had a semi-accurate idea of how their salary was determined. Six knew what marketing did. The rest, oddly enough, admitted that they don’t know what marketing is but they were sure that whatever it is, it was a waste of time and money.

Sadly, not only do many engineering students begin their business careers with a silent, unknown, emotional bias against non-techies, they never get any accurate information through their coursework that might counter that bias. Because they literally don’t know what they don’t know, they very quickly alienate those not in their little technology club and build walls around their discipline. It becomes a feedback loop. One person described an interesting collegiate phenomenon that continued in his work life. In each college year, his circle of non-technical friends narrowed until his group acted like they were an elite priesthood led by the guru professors. He and his friends continued that attitude at their first employers, often substituting their Manager for the professor as High Priest. Many assumed, rightly or wrongly, that the contempt that their professors in college showed for business people would be mirrored by their Engineering Managers. Sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn’t but, in either case, the damage was done. The person who relayed this story to me was able to see through that static and eventually moved on to a Manager role that is both technology and business driven. Some of his friends still maintain that ill-informed bias, he said. Now, over ten years out of college, he can see the career frustration building up in many of them.

Technical Leadership
Conveniently enough, this brings us to our second villain, some Engineering Managers. There is a saying about biting the hand that feeds you. It’s not a good thing to do. It is not lost on me that many of my clients and potential clients are Engineering Managers. The intention of this discussion is to illuminate and help employees and employers. Hopefully, this will be seen as an honest, straightforward attempt to bring a subject to peoples’ attention. If I lose a client because I am honest maybe I will gain two to replace them.

Engineering Managers, for the most part, lose in the corporate political game. Perhaps it’s a direct result of the factor mentioned above, education. Perhaps it’s the discipline’s inherent risk aversion. It’s probably a combination of both as well as many others. Whatever the cause, Engineering Managers generally take more guff from other managers and executives than any other Department Manager. I’ve heard that from many people in my feedback circle and see it every day in my business. Frankly, most of you guys are lousy politicians.

The word politician has bad connotations but it shouldn’t. Corporate politics and culture are the informal rules in a business about how decisions are made. Some firms foster consensus, for example, while others foster confrontation. For some companies, one strategy might be more effective and for others a different strategy might better. As a matter of morality, neither a confrontational nor a consensual culture is good or bad. Any negativity comes from a mis-match between employee and culture – a consensus seeking person in a confrontational culture, for example. In reality, the art of politics, when properly applied, is not about getting a promotion. It’s about getting things done. Those who get things done get promoted. It’s easy to confuse cause and affect but in general its effort, success and then promotion.

Many technologists, perhaps because of their training, view business politics as a sin. They won’t play the game because it’s wrong. In doing so, a manager removes himself from the playing field and allows others to determine his fate. What’s worse, he allows others to determine his group’s fate. Lastly, he hampers his ability to get things done. Those who don’t even attempt to get things done don’t get promoted.

Some Engineering Managers see themselves as part of a team of Department Managers (Accounting, Sales, HR, etc) each working to come up with the right strategy for an organization. That’s quite appropriate and, in a perfect world, would be 100% accurate. In fact, in a few extraordinarily well-run companies, it is 100% accurate. But, in most firms unfortunately, not all Department Managers are willing team players. However, the vision of managerial camaraderie is always a goal to be sought.

However, Managers also must compete for resources to do their jobs. Budgets must be apportioned to each department and projects assigned. That budgeting process is close to a zero-sum game. A company only has so many dollars to distribute and a CEO must make the right decision. Here is area where many Engineering Managers misunderstand corporate politics and perceptions.

The budget process and most internal political messaging and posturing require a manager to balance two conflicting concepts. The first, on which most engineering managers focus, is efficiency. That means keeping costs down, lowering budgets, doing more with less, etc. You all know the phrases. You need to send a message that you can control costs. You need to send a message that you run a lean department. You need to send a message that you can get the most out of your group. You can sacrifice for the common good.

However, you need to balance that message with a different, more subtle message. It’s this secondary message that is ignored by many technical managers. Frankly, you need to send a message that you and your department are important. You need to send a message that you do necessary work and that your time is valuable. Rather than send a message that you can do more with less, you need to send a message that you can do a whole lot more given more resources. Technical resources take time to train and develop. My guess is that they take more time to get up to speed than additions in any other department. A successful technology manager must be constantly laying markers and sending messages about his department’s importance. Agreeing with every budget cut and reduction in your department, even small ones, sends a corporate message to executive row of unimportance. While you should be a team player at crunch time, setting the stage by rolling over on every picayune policy request and small cut only makes your department look, well, small. Guess what, if you are a manager whose department is perceived as secondary means you that you too can be considered secondary. Secondary managers do not get promoted to executive row.

Here is an example that I saw in real life. I used to be a VP at a locally owned recruiting firm. The owner of that firm, my boss, sold the business to a larger firm. His personal plan was to move up the corporate ladder at the bigger firm and become a corporate big shot. His first move was to take over another office in the Mid-West. That would allow him to show his new bosses that he could manage multiple profit centers so they would consider him for national job. It was a good strategy.

But it was bad tactics. His way of demonstrating effectiveness revolved around cost-cutting. The company had a corporate apartment in the Mid-West because there was no on-site manager. My boss was excited when he found a different apartment saving the company $100/month in rent. Of course, it was 45 minutes from the office. He would spend hours researching the cheapest flights and would never, ever, ever use a cab. It was all public transportation. He assumed that all of these cost savings would be applauded at corporate. Instead, his thrift was considered a joke. Corporate soon knew they had the wrong man. To them, if the most productive use my boss could find of his own time was saving a few bucks in travel expenses, he did not understand leadership. He was sending a message that his time was unimportant. He would save $40 to spend an extra two hours in a plane. That’s not what corporate wanted and they fired him.

I knew that they replaced him with a better man when his replacement called me from corporate to say that he was coming in to Philly for a visit. He wanted my secretary to arrange for a limo/driver to meet him at the airport. This was a guy who knew his time was important! Sure, he spent more money on travel but he was more effective. Corporate knew that if he got results the money was well-spent. He put himself on the line by spending money to make money. He made the business calculation that the risk of spending more money was balanced by the greater chance of success.

Analyze yourself. Do you aggressively try to attend strategic policy meetings or do you feel relieved not to be invited because the issues involved are not technical enough to interest you? Are you still using an obsolete CAD package while your company’s tax software is upgraded annually? Do you surrender easily when fighting for higher salaries for new hires or existing team members? Doing so looks great as a budget control message but also sends a secondary signal that your department is composed of commodities and not professionals. It also hurts you personally at review time. There is a reason accounting and finance salaries, within similar companies and industries, are usually higher than engineering. A VP of Finance understands the existing but invisible relationship between staff perception and corporate power. The typical VP of Engineering misses that point entirely. Understanding how, when and why to push back is a learnable skill. Pay attention to your peers to see how they do it.

I am going to give an anecdote which exactly demonstrates this point. It’s about employment, recruiting and search firms. I warn you now that it will sound self-serving. It is, I admit, but there is a message behind it.

In my follow up research on The Invisible Man Newsletter, I lunched with a couple of Engineering Managers. Neither of these fellows were clients. They were just professionals who contacted me after reading the Newsletter because the topic was interesting. It was a good lunch but I noticed something small that was amplified by an experience a week later.

During lunch, off-handedly, I mentioned that one way to gauge how importantly a company views technology is if they allow engineering managers to use recruiters or if they see recruiting fees as an unnecessary expense. It’s analogous to an employer investing capital to find the best person or just accepting what walks in the door. The best equipment, the best software, the best people all require capital investment. The best recruiting involves a fee. I casually said how surprised they would be at the number of firms that will not approve agency budgets for engineering recruiting but will approve them for other company areas like accounting, sales or HR. One fellow registered surprise at that and seemed to assume any limitation he had was shared by all the other managers at his firm. I was surprised at his surprise but we got onto another topic and it got buried.

When I returned to the office I got a call from the Plant Manager at a large, local manufacturing facility. He needed a lean manufacturing leader for his plant and wanted to know if I could help. I said yes and he went to get approval for the recruiting fee from HR. This was a 90k position that would spearhead an important program for the company. My fee would have been about $15,000. A few days later he called sheepishly saying that his request for budget approval was denied. Times are tough, he said.

What I am about to tell you is the absolute truth. Within a week I got a call from an old HR contact with whom I used to work. He had been laid off and wanted to know what I knew about XYZ Company, ironically the same company and location where the Plant Manager worked. It seems that my HR friend had replied to an ad run by a retained NY recruiting firm. It was for a position at the same company that had denied the Plant Manager budgetary approval for a recruiting firm. In fact, it would appear that the same person who had denied him fee approval gave themselves fee approval for a $30,000 retained fee for a job in their department that was at a similar, or slightly lesser, level.

That is an important story for you to internalize. This has nothing new do with budgets and nothing to do with cost cutting. It has everything to do with perceptions and power. The message behind that story is this – The HR Manager or Director is an important person in that organization. Their time is valuable and their department is essential. Because their time is valuable they shouldn’t be wading through lots of resumes. Because their department is essential they need the best staff possible. A $30,000 investment to find a good person will pay for itself by saving the manager’s time and should produce top-flight people. It is a cost of doing business.

On the other hand, the Plant Manager’s time is not valuable. Since he is a secondary player at the company he can weed through resumes. Since his department is not essential, an average selection of candidates will suffice. I think you get the point. Which of the two is more likely to be considered for an executive job?

This is a perfect example of the type of corporate politics that is often invisible to the technology manager. While on the surface this was about cost savings and budgets, in reality it was about control, power and prestige. The HR Manager or Director was more than willing to go on record and demand a resource (recruiting fee) to upgrade their department. They were willing to extend political capital defending that decision. Extending political capital is a risk that involves calculation. That’s a tool that should be in every ambitious manager’s toolbox. Movement up the corporate ladder requires some risk-taking in order to project the reality that your department and function are importance. This is not about what’s fair or not. It’s about the way the world works. A busy CEO making a decision about a promotion and who needs to choose between a manager who is important and one who is secondary will choose the one who is important. The important manager knows how to use political power. The use of political power is an important tool on executive row. Make yourself important.

Of course, I am not implying that to be a good manager you need to pay me a lot of fees. This story is meant to demonstrate how Technology Managers do their job a little differently than other, more business-centric, executives. Let me put it another way so that you can look at risk/reward from another perspective. Investors get angry when their company carry too much cash. Too much cash on a company’s balance sheet is not seen as a sign of prudence. It’s seen as a lack of managerial imagination. If a CEO or executive team cannot come up with effective and inventive ways to invest that cash in the business, investors either want a new executive team or they want the cash disbursed to them so they can invest it with someone more aggressive. Once again, the ability to take risks is a tool on executive row. Investment implies risk.

I apologize. It’s taken me a lot of time to get here but I am now ready to circle back to the main point. One of the major reasons for the lack of technology presence on executive row is the timid nature of many technology managers in their corporate hierarchy. C-level people were Managers before they became Directors and were VPs before they became CEOs. But, when they were Managers they understood how Directors thought and as Directors they understood how VPs thought. Perhaps, because of their earlier academic experience and formative years under less ambitious Engineering Managers, today’s Engineering Managers often don’t play in this very important political game. By not playing, they are usually eliminated from consideration for a C-level track. What’s worse, by perpetuating and strengthening a stereotype of the engineer as dweeb some managers are allowing the commoditization of engineering to continue. That will continue to drive the best and the brightest away from technical careers and into careers in other professions. Arrrgh!! Please, no more lawyers!!!!!

Synopsis
OK, based on what I’ve learned I think we can safely say the following things are true:
1)      Fewer engineers and technologists move into executive roles than any other discipline.
2)      This hurts businesses because it removes and minimizes a key discipline that is a very important component of their corporate structure.
3)      This hurts engineers and technologists because it limits their career ladder. It also makes their jobs more difficult because the aforementioned organizational gap can create bad direction from executives down to the technical team, which can create a high level of frustration.
4)      There are elements within a technical education that create an us vs. them mentality among technologists that can breed arrogance. In turn, that arrogance can alienate an engineer in the formative years of their career. That inevitably can create a feedback loop that magnifies the problem.
5)      Technology Managers manage differently from other Department Managers and see their role in the business community as separate and different. This affects how they and their function are viewed.
6)      I have no solution for this. This is a problem that has many contributing factors and is basically a problem of education. All I can do is bring it to your attention. Hopefully, as the word gets out and people start communicating, as a group we can begin that education process. Any ideas from you would be very welcome.

As ever, thanks for reading this far. Hopefully, you’ve gotten something positive from this discussion and realize that my criticism of some Technology Management is well intentioned and meant as a starting point for dialog. As I mentioned in my first Newsletter on the subject, I think that since we do both executive and technology placement from both a retained and contingency perspective, we have a unique view of our market. It is truly an overview because we are not focused on a specific niche. At any one moment in time, our project list can include a CEO slot, a Director Supply Chain slot, a VP Sales slot, a Manufacturing Engineer slot, a Design Engineer slot and a Production Supervisor slot. From all of those experiences I try to draw conclusions. At least I’ve given you something to think about.

Of course, please remember Right Recruiting for all your employment needs.
Jeff Zinser