Winter 2010

Good afternoon colleagues,

Exactly 29 years ago on a December afternoon here at College Park, I sat quietly in my cap and gown among new graduates just like you, day dreaming, with all the excitement and nervousness of someone about to sail on to a new world.  I wondered whether I had chosen the right path.  I knew I was ready for the world; the question was whether the world would welcome me.  Today, 29 years later, I am happy to report that yes I did pick the right path, yes I still love being an engineer, yes I have been having a hech of a sail and I am still dreaming of my next journey with the same excitement and nervousness of 29 years ago.  The only difference is nowadays I am a bit better at anticipating the undercurrents, the storms and even the pirates along my journey.  As such, Dean Pines asked that I would share some of my observations with you, as you are about to start your sail on to the world.

Well, the first question is where to, right?  In what direction should you start your sail?  My suggestion?  Follow your heart.  Ask yourself what you are passionate about and navigate in that general direction.  If you happened to glance at my biography, you already knew that I came to the United States 35 years ago as a refugee, penniless and homeless.  But I met so many kind and generous Americans who were more than willing to lend me a hand in my darkest moments.  It was their compassion that restored my faith in humanity and inspired me to public service. I chose my career path because I wanted to pay back, because I wanted to serve Americans – especially those who continue to protect our freedom and security.  If you love what you do, chances are you will be quite successful at it too.  That’s why I said just now that I’ve been having a hech of a sail.

Now that I’ve talked about the direction of your sail, here are some thoughts on your sailing skills and techniques.  The good news is you are already armed with the best tool kit that Maryland could offer: your engineering degree.  So what are some basic qualities that will help you stand out immediately from your peers at work?

First, not surprisingly, is the quality of your work.  As a green engineer, you usually will be assigned to assist more senior staff.  By the way, this means doing anything and everything that you are asked, and doing it well, regardless of how boring or insignificant the task might be.  Young professionals in entry-level positions often expect to be given interesting work right away, and when they aren’t, they might get restless or unhappy.  A fact of life is a part of everyone’s work day is often spent on non-interesting but necessary activities.  A test engineer for example does not get to design new experiments and think great thoughts on science all day long.  He also has to clean out tools, order equipment, write reports, xerox data, etc.  A new employee often lacks experience and therefore is often given “busy” rather than meaningful work at first. It would be a mistake is to think that a trivial task is a task not worth doing well.  If you as an employee do not demonstrate that you can or are willing to accomplish a small task well, your boss might be reluctant to trust you with anything more substantial. Oh, and pay respect to the technicians on your team, by the way.  They might not have a college degree but they usually possess a wealth of practical on-the-job experience that a green engineer can certainly learn from.

Second is the quality of your physical appearance.  It is one important metric others use to judge us and how we judge ourselves subconsciously.  As you already know, our appearance reflects our self-respect, and one must respect oneself before being capable of respecting others.  I am not talking about looking pretty, handsome or dressing expensively.  I am talking about looking respectable and presentable and dressing appropriately.  
Next is the quality of your communication to others, verbal and written.  Modern societies such as the U.S. tend to over-value communications skills, to the extreme extent that anyone who is a poor communicator is automatically cast aside as a poor performer at best and a dim wit at worst.  In my career, I have seen many competent scientists and engineers with poor communication (especially oral presentation) skills being by-passed by less technically competent colleagues when it comes to promotion, especially to leadership positions. As such, one cannot overlook the importance of being able to write well and speak well.

Fair or unfair, people tend to form opinions about us based on the way we dress and communicate even without knowing about the quality of our work, or despite our work. For example, if you aspire to be an executive in your company, dress like one and talk like one. Don’t come to work in jeans and T-shirts, don’t hang around the water cooler gossiping and don’t write e-mails full of spelling and grammar errors.

In the early stages of your career, your success mainly depends on you.  As you begin to rise through the ranks and begin assuming management and/or leadership positions, your success and therefore career advancement will increasingly depend on others such as your partners, your subordinates, your employees, etc.  They have to succeed as owners of the various parts in order for you to succeed as the leader of the whole.  The larger your leadership or management responsibility, the more you will depend on others and the more you will need to rely on something else; many call that “something else” emotional intelligence.  It is the ability to perceive, assess and positively influence one’s own and other people's emotions in order to motivate and lead.  I recommend that you start building your EI or “soft skills”, now that you have possessed a good amount of “hard skills”.  And the start is oneself.  The first thing is to build your resilience and self motivation. What differentiates a tennis ball from an apple when both are thrown on the floor?  The apple gets smashed immediately while the tennis ball bounces back as if nothing happened, right?  I would like for each of you to think of yourself as a resilient tennis ball, always bouncing back and ready for the next opportunity, no matter how many times you get thrown on the floor.  Failure is what we often choose to label a disappointing outcome, like not getting a result that we desire, a job that we want, but true failure only happens when we learn nothing from a disappointing outcome to better prepare us for the next opportunity.  And there will always be a next opportunity, if you are resilient enough to hang on to your dream.

Last but not least is the quality of your character, your ethics.  It guides your decisions, motivates your actions and gives the proper context to all the previous qualities. Hitler, for example, might be someone who excelled in the first 4 qualities but without proper ethics, Hitler became the essence of evil.

So, let me repeat the 5 fundamental qualities that I believe will help you stand out immediately as you start out professionally: the quality of your work, your physical appearance, your communication skills (verbal AND written), your emotional intelligence and your ethics.  As an executive, they are what I look for among my staff, in order to gage someone’s potential for increased responsibilities and promotion.

So go do good work, and remember you are a resilient tennis ball.  Happy sailing and Bon voyage!

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