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|In: Career Management|Last Updated:

Deep in my dark past I was a teaching assistant for a course titled “Ecology for Physicists and Engineers.” A quiz I graded included a question along the lines of “If 84% of the population has brown eyes and 16% has blue eyes, and the gene for brown eyes is dominant, what is the frequency of the genes for blue and brown eyes in the population?”

The solution hinges on very basic population genetics, namely, knowing the binomial formula rules: x2+2xy+y2=1, where x and y are the frequencies of the genes for blue and brown eyes in the population. (Don’t worry — we’ll get to the punch line and how this connects to you in just a couple more paragraphs.)

Because the gene for blue eyes is recessive, x2 percent of the population has blue eyes and 2xy+y2 percent of the population has brown eyes. x2 =16% (0.16) so x=0.4, leaving y to equal 1-x … 0.6.

But these were physicists and engineers, or at least they were students of the disciplines. They knew a lot of math and all, which is probably why a lot of the class, spotting the squared term in the equation, immediately hauled out the quadratic formula to solve the problem instead: x=[-b±(b2–4ac)-0.5]/2a, never mind that this solves equations of the form ax2+bx+c=0 — an entirely different class of problem.

Some, needless to say, wanted partial credit for their answer.

Last week I proposed that we need more engineers in management, defining “engineer” as anyone who knows you can’t cool off your kitchen by leaving the refrigerator door open.

I proposed it on the theory that engineers know the difference between addressing a symptom and fixing the problem.

Regrettably, it isn’t really that simple (as if anything is). To understand the complexity, look at the interview question I suggested you add when interviewing candidates for managerial positions: “If you open the refrigerator door, how much will it cool off your kitchen?”

Like the engineers whose answers I graded in Ecology for Physicists and Engineers, it’s almost inevitable that some would answer this question by estimating the volume of air in the refrigerator, the volume of air in the kitchen, and the temperature differential (in kelvins), using them to compute the temperature of the mixed air volume.

This answer would, in fact, be accurate if you first unplugged the refrigerator, which is to say it would be correct in every detail, even though it would be completely wrong.

Lesson: No matter what type of human being we’re dealing with, we all have an unfortunate tendency to see the world through the blinders imposed by what we’re particularly good at doing. It’s the hammer/nail syndrome (if you know how to swing a hammer, every problem looks like a nail).

So if I’m a manager and I’m particularly good at extracting meaning from numbers, I’m likely to rely excessively on metrics and computer printouts, ignoring all the nuances of real-life in my department. But if I’m a more sociable type I’ll ignore the reports entirely, instead wandering around, chatting with the people I’m most comfortable with and allowing them to manipulate my perceptions to match whatever story they want me to believe.

Which gets us to the best answer to the refrigerator question — the one that tells you you’re dealing with someone who understands there’s always a backstory to the story and variations on a theme. And it isn’t an answer at all. It’s a question: “Is the refrigerator plugged in?”

There’s another trait, common among engineers, that can make those afflicted with it unsuitable for management. It’s an almost-inevitable concomitant of the problem-solving orientation that last week seemed so admirable. It’s the tendency to always see an even better alternative — to be seemingly unable to recognize when their design, code, or what-have-you has reached the exalted state of good enough.

It’s a tendency easily confused with the well-known analysis paralysis problem, or with simple perfectionism, but it’s distinct. Analysis-paralysis comes from fear of making the wrong decision, while perfectionism stems from an excessive aversion to defects.

But if you think like an engineer, spotting the even-better alternative is a matter of artistry … of design elegance … which up to a point is actually very good business.

Not all engineers recognize when they’ve passed that point, though. Which is the source of this well-known aphorism:

“There comes a point in every project when you have to shoot the engineers and put the product into production.”

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|In: Career Management|Last Updated:

We need more engineers.

Not just in IT, bridge design, and electronics. We need them everywhere decisions are being made.

I’m not limiting engineers to those who know the niceties of load and stress computations, CPU design, gear ratios and such. No, to me, an engineer is anyone who understands you can’t cool down the kitchen by leaving the refrigerator door open.

Many business executives aren’t engineers, but they should be. Here’s what I mean:

  • Cooling off the kitchen is a metaphor for across-the-board cost-cutting.
  • The hot air blowing out of the back of the refrigerator is parallel to the impact of the all-too-common across-the-board cost-cutting that impairs the business more than it saves anything.

Any engineer knows all refrigerators do is pump heat out of an enclosed space and into a larger space. Leave the door open and the larger space and enclosed space become one and the same: The cooled air just mixes with the heat being pumped into the same space – even with perfect efficiency the net effect is zilch.

This describes most cost-cutting exercises pretty well, and especially cuts to the IT budget, because when costs are already too high, less automation probably won’t help. More might not help either, depending on what exactly is causing costs to be too high. But unless what’s being cut out of the IT budget are stupid ideas that shouldn’t have been approved in the first place, forcing employees to operate either manually or with obsolete technology just isn’t going to increase efficiency.

Which gets to the heart of why we need more engineers: Engineers generally think in terms of fixing problems rather than symptoms. So should business decision-makers.

So if a business is in trouble … if costs are too high … decision-makers need to first ask themselves some basic questions, like, are costs really too high? Or is revenue too low? Or is risk what’s too high, it isn’t being managed well, and as a result expensive problems that could have been prevented haven’t been?

Too many business executives act as if “our costs aren’t in line with our revenues” is a proper root cause analysis when profits are unsatisfactory. An engineer would insist on knowing how the business is supposed to work; then on identifying which of its moving parts aren’t moving as they should; and then on fixing the parts that are broken.

So if the problem is actually revenue, an engineer would determine whether the root cause is uncompetitive products, customer disservice, unappealing marketing and advertising, or a sales force that isn’t very good at selling. And fix it.

If the problem really is excessive cost, an engineer would figure out whether the root cause is cumbersome and inefficient processes, obsolete tools and technology that force employees into cumbersome and inefficient processes, poorly trained and unmotivated employees, or something else. And then the engineer would fix the actual problem.

Understand, this might sound simple. Conceptually, it is simple.

But it’s nothing like simple, because underneath it is the need for a clear understanding of how the business works … of the buttons and levers company management can push and pull that lead customers to buy products and services in acceptable volumes and margins.

This isn’t always complicated, but it can be complicated enough to tempt decision-makers to cut out a step or two. For example, one day in the distant past, the executives leading a not-entirely mythical automobile manufacturer discovered they could bump up the company’s profits by financing the purchase of their cars instead of leaving that business to the local banks.

Then they discovered they could sell more cars by discounting them, making up the slack by making more loans. And then they “discovered” the company was really in the financing business, and cars became just a means to an end.

Which led to its executives no longer caring whether their cars were desirable products. Instead it designed and built cars some people were willing to buy if they were cheap enough.

Which led to round after round of pointless cost-cutting, because cost wasn’t the company’s problem.

What was? It had forgotten how its business worked: With no cars to sell that people wanted to buy it ground to a halt, even though its profits no longer came from car sales.

The company’s execs outsmarted themselves.

It’s why we need engineers.

So maybe you should add an interview question for managerial candidates: “If you open the refrigerator door, how much will it cool off your kitchen?”

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