Don't eat broccoli during a networking event

Last month, I attended a networking event. During the break, the organizers served snacks - some healthy, others not so much. I'm concerned about my heart health and body weight, so I naturally grabbed a small plate of broccoli. Big mistake on my part: after eating, my mouth felt full of broccoli pieces. Of course, I forgot to grab a bottle of water. I'm an introvert and am self aware of my appearance, so I felt worried that I had small green bits on my teeth. I felt reticent in speaking to others. Not a good feeling for a networking event. After the eventhe, I vowed as a principal never to eat broccoli during a networking event. At least, have a drink of water to swish my mouth out with.

The moral to this story: be aware of things that prevent you from reaching out to others and forming close relationships. In my case, don't eat food that will put me in an awkward position. Of course, I could have skipped the broccoli and ate a cookie instead. Guilty pleasures are okay every now and thenight, right? Of course, I could have gotten my fill with a cup of coffee. Alternatives exist in every situation.

Another alternative still. Each person worries about what others think about them. Break the cycle and just speak to people. So what if broccoli pieces stick between your teeth? You should allow yourself to be comfortable and speak. You will make new connections and strengthen current ones. 

Of course, you can speak to people you know. Not only will you feel comfortable, they'll introduce you to new people. Aim to attend events where you know a few people, or you could carpool with a couple friends. Together, you all could tag team the event. Start a public conversation within your group, and invite strangers to join in. You could use welcoming phrases such as "sounds interesting" or "tell me more about that." You should make sure that you and your friends use positive, inviting body language. In other words, hold your arms out instead of keeping them crossed.

What if you're there alone? Perhaps the other person has pieces of broccoli stuck between their teeth. Be comfortable and allow them to speak without judgement. You'll allow them to share their stories with you. You'll appear interesting to them, as you'll allow them an opportunity to tell you about themselves.

At the end of the day, you want to form professional contacts who become friends. What if they get a laugh out of your broccoli stained teeth? Perhaps they're as nervous as you, or maybe they're having a bad day. You don't know what goes on outside the event, so a good cheer might be the one thing that person needs to prevent themselves from going over the edge. Your world will not end of you have a few pieces of broccoli stuck in between your teeth. Just be yourself and allow yourself to get lost in conversation.

Walking into the Sky (Carnegie Mellon University): Aim for high goals and develop your network to help you achieve those goals.

Why do emotions matter in our career? Give pause to your emotions using a four letter word

As engineers, why do emotions matter? We develop cool products and get excited about awesome technologies like Deep Learning, blockchain, virtual reality. When we think about SciFi, we might think about Mr. Spock -- the emotion free Vulcan who knew how not to react. For those of us who aim to be like him, calm and logical, emotion seems like the enemy. However, we are not Vulcans, and we have emotions that we often allow to control us. Emotions can control us if we allow them to stay unchecked. It's perfectly acceptable to have emotions. You can exhibit fear, anger, frustration, happiness, joy, ecstasy, and many more. 

There will be times when you can't show fear. If you lead a company, you might need to be firm in times of uncertainty or failure. This doesn't mean you express anxiety to your team in private. However, a leader needs to stay calm and level headed, so they can decide on the best courses of action. 

You can use a four letter word to give pause to your emotions. You can say this word in public because it's not that kind of word. Remember the acronym HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Do not make major decisions under these circumstances. You will be tempted to throw in the towel if you're in a HALT situation. Take a deep breath and wait it through. If you're hungry, eat a meal. Get sustenance for yourself. If you're angry, meditate until you calm down, or take a deep breath. You should observe the sensations on your body. How does anger affect you? You cannot control your thoughts all of the time, yet meditation and self-reflection allow you to think before you speak. If you're lonely, talk to a family member or close friend. You can have many friends and feel lonely if you do not reach out to them in your times of need. What if you have no close relatives or friends? Join a Meetup where you live and make efforts to develop new friendships. True friends willingly listen to your concerns without judging you. If you're tired, take a nap. Nap for 20 to 25 minutes, so you can feel refreshed. Self care is important, and sleep is part of that routine.

Learn to recognize and understand your feelings, so you prevent them from driving your career into the ground

Whatever you do, do not make important decisions under these circumstances. Postpone them. Reconsider taking action. Reframe your viewpoint. You always have options. It might not seem like it at the time, yet I've learned over the years that other choices existed when I thought I could only make one. For example, I tried a side hustle a couple decades ago where I would sell a third-party's product. It was a MLM that sold real, physical products. I bought samples myself, and the material seemed good to me. However, I lacked the will to sell something I had no hand in creating. Instead of dropping it, I continued pushing through because I was angry at myself for not having the will to sell these products. Instead of different ways to market these products, I could have accepted my anger as a natural sign that this line of business was not for me. I could have saved a great deal of time, money, and efforts. (This was before Social Media existed. However, that would not have helped because I would have used another channel to waste my time and money.) Perhaps I could have done something else like invest in a meaningful hobby -- like writing -- or learning a different technical skill that I could have used to create my own products.

I have an important point: humans have emotions. A stoic can have emotions. Even Vulcans have emotions. A key difference between a stoic and others is that the stoic does not allow emotions to make their decisions. Remain calm and level headed in stressful situations. Do not say things you would later regret. Do not take actions that will haunt you. Your ability to separate emotions from actions represents a good stretch of the mind. This represents one's ability to accept emotions as they are, and one can formulate possible outcomes should they choose to act on those emotions.

Often, people choose to react without considering the consequences. Ray Dalio notes that one should consider the second and third order effects. For example, suppose you get angry at your manager for giving you a poor review. The first order action would be to yell at your leader: "You treated me unfairly!" or "You have no idea what efforts I put into that project!" or "I worked really hard, and you can't respect me enough to give me credit for my work!" The first order effect might be the good feeling you get for telling you manager off. However, you didn't consider the second and third order effects: a poor performance review, and loss of a promotion that your manager was considering for you.

Would this kind of reaction be worth it? If you consider only the first order reaction, you get instant gratification. Of course, the better answer would be to consider why your manager choose to give you critical feedback. On one hand, perhaps you consistently perform poorly, and you needed a strong reprimand. In that case, you should listen to your leader because you would seize an opportunity to improve your career. On the other hand, you might have an area that needs improvement, and your manager sees that. Instead of letting it slide, she decides to point it out to you. After all, you need to improve that skill because you will need it in that promotion she has in mind for you.

Of course, clashes exist between those who control their emotions and those who don't. Stay focused on thought and reason in these situations, so you do not get dragged down into emotional abyss. Listen to the argument for understanding not reaction. Allow not one's temptation to react for the sake of defense. It will waste energy and frustrate everyone involved in the discussion discussion. Personally, I do not understand the importance of allowing one's emotions to get the better of them. What do you obtain by pouting and discounting other's viewpoints? Focus on others not yourself. To do otherwise feels narcissistic to me. Each person has their own struggles. It does little to complain about your own battles. 

Think of this differently. Each person wants solutions to their problems, as they want to make themselves feel better. Is this true of all people? No. This is a generalization, as some people prioritize others' well being above their own. Rather, my point serves as an example of how people commonly deal with their emotions. An emotionally intelligent person recognizes emotions as things neither positive or negative. They strive to operate despite their emotions. Remember, you will make mistakes, and you will act on your emotions. If this happens, recognize your error and apologize if you offended anyone during the process. You make sure that you learn from this and be more aware of your emotions in the future, so will be less likely to react in the same way. If you apologize and don't repeat the slight, you will be surprising how well people respect you. In fact, they might learn the importance of emotional awareness leading to improve their emotional intelligence.


Do you want to learn more about engineering, career advancement, and leadership? Please read my prior posts on this subject:

• How You can Lead Your Team to Success with Four Effective Leadership Principles
• Avoid the Complacency Trap Using Four Important Concepts
• Overcoming Introversion in Three Counterintuitive Steps
• How You Can Successfully Propose Your Engineering Projects using Five Principles
• Definitive Guide on Boosting Careers: How to Find Stretch Assignments
• Accelerate your career through stretch assignments 
• How to Market Yourself for Larger Paychecks and Promotions
• How to Evolve Your Stagnant Career towards Exciting Fields in STEM
• How to Turn Cynicism into Positive Action
• Sometimes leadership means cleaning up the mess you created
• Learn from your mistakes to build on your experiences

How You can Lead Your Team to Success with Four Effective Leadership Principles

As an engineering leader, you need to manage processes and lead teams. The days when leaders thought "my people must do what I say" passed long ago. Now, leaders must think and act on this question: "How can I help my team succeed?" As a leader, you learn to operate with constraints. In an ideal world, you could provide your team with anything they need: software, highest performing multi-cored multi-threaded computers, multiple computer monitors per desk, comprehensive employee training, and much more. You can provide anything your team needs, yet you cannot provide everything at once.  When you transition from engineering into leadership, you will find the soft aspect of leadership to be difficult at time. You will find communication paramount. In this article, I provide advice on how you can lead your teams to success.

Set Clear Boundaries with your Team

You serve as an interface between your engineering team and other managers. Difficulties can arise because you and your team members might report to multiple individuals. Why does this happen? Your engineers receive directions from multiple leaders. It can seem like too many cooks stir the pots. Not all hope is lost. Clear communication removes barriers that frustrate you and your team. By setting boundaries, you define individuals' responsibilities including your own.

How do you set clear boundaries? Call a staff meeting. It doesn't matter if you are a new manager or a seasoned one. You get your team together in one room and get issues & concerns out in the open. This process requires a combination of leadership styles, as you will request their inputs. You start by defining what you need the team to accomplish: goals against the projects they support and other business related items. Use this time to make clear how often you will hold monthly staff meetings and what you will cover in those meetings. Make sure you make clear how often you expect status reports. Make it clear what format you expect them in and how much detail they should provide.

Set boundaries, so you make your expectations clear, and you understand what your team needs

Once you set your expectations, you can switch to a democratic leadership style and seek your team's feedback. This allows you to do something important: You establish how you will behave in assisting the team succeed in their roles. Do they want you to be hands off and available only when needed? How some employees need more hands-on assistance? Do they need any training, materials, and equipment to do their jobs effectively? Each team has unique needs. Listen to your team and adjust your leadership style the best you can, so you can assist each employee.

Although I write using positive outlooks, I understand situations exist that warrant difficult measures. For example, your company might be facing a tough time, and profits become nonexistent. Your team will naturally be tense and nervous. As their leader, you must communicate the situation to them clearly and honestly. You can mitigate their fears as much as you can, yet you should state that the situation could be out of your control. In other words, good leaders are willing to show their vulnerabilities, and you might need to do just that. Although you might need to layoff employees, keep them apprised of the situation as soon as it becomes a problem. Focus on ways that employees can do their jobs better, so they can return the company to profitability, and you can avoid layoffs. However, if this becomes inevitable, make sure your staff knows how many people it will effect. Meet with low performing employees early and in private, so they can prepare for their next job. No employee likes being laid off with no notice. They might ignore the signs. I should know, as it's happened to me during my career.

Boundaries can be difficult to figure out, and you will need to customize them according to your team. My belief is that boundaries should be set at the beginning of the manager / employee relationship and adjusted throughout. However, Abe Turner at Insperity argues that they should be set later in the management strategy. This allows leaders to get to know their team better and understand their individual needs. If you remember that boundaries evolve over time, you can set initial boundaries and modify them as you and your team grow.

Of course, you should make a point to meet with other employees. Figure out which employees influence your team the most and schedule meetings with them. This brings me to my next principle.

Hold Informal Meetings with your Most Influential Team Members

You need to understand what your team needs. You do this by meeting with them and asking them questions. Your team consists of engineers having multiple levels of experience. A few of these engineers shine as leaders. These are the employees who can rally the rest of the team to reach project milestones. They lead discussions. They set meeting rhythms and maintain project status. Other engineers might look up to them. Your initial emphasis might focus on the most senior members of your team. However, ability does not necessarily correlate with years of experience.

The idea that older people should be the ones in charge is not new. In the Republic, Plato argued the case that leadership must fall to the elders. I recall his argument focused on the young people's lack of wisdom. I disagree with his argument. Although more experienced employees could possess more experience in leading projects, that does not mean that managers should not trust younger employees to lead. At the least, give an employee who shows potential for leading a small potential the opportunities. Just because employee have not had opportunities to lead teams, does not mean that they want them.

Your team leads have valuable inputs. Listen to what they have to say.

Why should you meet with the most influential team members? Why informally? It's simple: They have the eyes and ears of the team. You should set regular meeting rhythms with the entire team, say once a month. However, if you want to understand what the team needs, you seek out feedback from the few people who interact with the rest. I suggest you hold informal meetings in the sense that you allow the team leads free speaking reign. This encourages candor, honestly, and open feedback. You make them feel comfortable in the process.

When you have these meetings, you start asking three general questions:

1. Continue: What does the team (I) do well?
2. Stop: What does (do) the team (I) need to stop doing?
3. Start: What does (do) the team (I) need to start doing?

In some ways, you can see these as six questions. I wrote them compactly because the first pair of three focus on the team, and the last three questions focus on you. For effective feedback, it should flow in both directions. You can ask individuals questions. However, they might feel hesitant to approach you because you are new to the team, they are shy, etc. Seeking candid feedback from the team leads allows you to understand your performance. Remember, you want to help your team succeed. You cannot do this if they feel uncomfortable to approach you with criticism.

Remember, the purpose of these meetings is for you to help the team. You give guidance not orders. You can tell employees what to do provided your instructions align with project schedules, task assignments, and so forth. This is where the boundaries you set help.

I've discussed how you will meet with low performing employees with the goal of helping them improve their performance. At some point, you will need to meet with all of your employees individually, as each person will need assistance during their careers.You will coach them individually. I discuss this in the following section.

Coach Team Members Individually

One of my managers noted that good managers must be willing to mentor and / or coach employees individually. Each person has their own needs, and you must take time to address them. Good leaders listen intently and offer their team members advice. You will not know all of the answers, nor do your employees expect that of you. However, you seek out answers and get back to the employees because your have responsibilities to provide that information.

Coaching and mentoring are alike in some regards. You provide advice to your employees. You listen to what they have to say. However, the focus of coaching is to make sure your team succeed. (You can be both mentor and coach to individuals, but it does not make sense for you to mentor the team.) You should coach all of your employees, and you adjust your style per person. Some people are shy, so you need to proactively ask them questions. Others might provide too much, so you ask them to summarize. You might not agree with what your employees say, or you might be tempted to do the work for them. On these points, I have two statements

1. Show your employees respect. You can provide constructive feedback, yet you must not belittle them. It will damage your relationship
2. Providing your employees guidance does not mean that you do their work. You might need to hold junior employees' hands to get them started. However, you do the employee, yourself, and your company disservice if you do not allow them to solve their challenges.

My second point can be tricky to implement. You have experience, and you've probably been through what your junior employees go through now. For the sake of the business, you might feel tempting to do the work for them. Do not succumb to that temptation. The best way your junior employees can gain experience is for them to be challenged. You can still help them. With an engineering problem, you can have them work through the mathematics behind the problem. Ask them questions during each step, such as

• Why did you choose that solution?
• What do you think the next steps could be?
• What happens if you did something different at step C before you reached step D?

When you use the question style of problem solving, you do not do your employee's work. Instead, you guide them through the problem to reach a potential solution. Often, the issue is not that the employee doesn't know the answer. The issue is that the employee knows several possible answer and is unsure which one is the best. They could psych themselves out by feeling overwhelmed. In engineering undergraduate programs, the solutions to problems often follow a recipe. This is not so apparent in real life. It is your job as a manager to help your employees build their skills as they become more senior.

Of course, not all employees perform well. You should communicate with your team that you will meet with low performing employees on a regular basis. Susan Heathfield at The Balance Careers notes that "the goal of coaching is to work with the employee to solve performance problems and to improve the work of the employee, the team, and the department." You use these coaching sessions to find out what's going on with these employees, and you will help them in any way you can. As an effective leader, you would want to layoff zero employees. In the real world, however, your goal should be to layoff or fire only those employees who do not improve despite your attempts to help them succeed. By meeting with these employees, it should come as no shock when you give them notice if their performance does not improve.

During this entire article, I've written on how you help your team succeed. Of course, you are human, and you need assistance from time to time. You will need help, and you can get that help through coaching and mentorship. You get that by meeting with your own manager (i.e., the senior manager). I discuss that next.

Hold One-One-One Meetings with Your Manager

As an engineer, you might have held monthly face-to-face meeting with your manager. Now that you are a leader, you need to hold one-on-one meetings with your Senior Manager. These meetings serve several purposes:

• Flow down business strategies (technical, financial, etc.) and directives from Executive Leaders
• Get updates on the business: financials, status on products / projects, etc.
• Allow you to give summarized project status
• Discuss employee promotions
• Address staffing needs
• Give you growth opportunities

This list clearly does not contain every discussion topic, and some of these topics are self explanatory. (If you need to hire additional staff, you'll tell your senior manager and get go ahead to open an HR requisition.) However, the ones I list represent information that your staff and your manager need for success. For instance, how can you expect your team to succeed if they do not know their priorities? One of your roles is to flow down the technical strategy to your team, as they will implement it. Additionally, your team would be interested in product / project status because that will give them the big picture. It allows them to understand how their contributions affect the business.

When you meet with your Senior Manager, you give them project updates. Although you will formally do this in manager meetings, you can give your manager summaries of your team's accomplishment during face to face meetings. After all, it behooves you and your team members when you display their accomplishments. It shows that you care about their contributions, as recognition ultimately comes with rewards. This rings true if some of your employees deserve promotions. You will point out employees who show leadership potential and are ready to become team leads or managers. To be promoted, employees often prove that they're capable of doing work at a level above their current pay grade. Your manager will request that you put together a promotion package for your employee. The requirements for promotion will depend on your organization. However, you will want to substantiate each requirement with employee accomplishments. 

In the previous section, I mentioned that there will come times when you need coaching and mentoring. Let's say you just became a manager. You might not know what you're doing, or you might feel uncomfortable in your new role. Ask your new manager for advice, as all Senior Managers held first level manager positions. They struggled to lead their team effectively, and they want you to succeed. Ask them for help, and ask the following questions:

• What were the challenges you faced when you first became a manager? How did you overcome them?
• What gaps in skills do I lack or need improvement? How can I fill those gaps?
• What advice do you have on coaching poor performing employees?
• How can I get my employees to be more open in discussing problems they face?
• Is there anything in the strategy I am missing?
• What should I start, stop, continue doing?

You will find that effective leadership requires you to be self reflective and willing to continually learn. Sometimes you need to ask tough questions and have crucial conversations. These conversations will be difficult, and your manager can coach you in handling them better. You might need to take additional training, and it will take practice. However, by keeping a growth mindset, you will learn how to guide employees despite their backgrounds.

Summary

In this article, I discuss four effective leadership principles you can use to lead your team to success. First, you set clear boundaries with your team. They need to understand what to expect from you as their manager, and you need to understand what makes them tick. You can get there by meeting with your team. Use those meetings to set expectations both ways. Make sure that your team feels comfortable approaching you with their problems, and you should be willing to coach them. 

Second, you meet with the most influential members of your team. These employees have lead project roles, and they understand what other members of your team are doing. Chances are, these employees display the most outspoken natures. They achieved their leadership positions by showing willingness to take charge. You can take advantage of that to find out what they and the remainder of your team need. Third, you coach your team members individually. These meetings can be periodic, or you can hold them on an as needed basis. You guide your employees by addressing any problems they might have. You should take more time with junior employees, as they might feel unsure in their new roles fresh out of college. Coaching can be difficult at times, yet you will get better at it with practice.

Fourth, you will meet with your manager (i.e., the Senior Manager) on a regular basis to provide them with status updates and to get strategic directives. You might need coaching, so your manager can assist you in becoming a better manager. Do not be shy. Your manager has a breadth of knowledge that can you can gain, and it will help you understand several things: How to coach employees, how to address problems within the team, and so forth. To be an effective leader, you must have a growth mindset. This means you must challenge your perceptions and be willing to continually learn new skills. You can transfer those skills to your employees and help them grow in their careers. After all, some day you will become a Senior Manager. The ability to train your replacement shows you have effective leadership habits. It shows you add value to your company, and the employees you train to become managers will pass on what you taught them. They will become effective leaders who guide their teams to success.

Do you want to learn more about engineering, career advancement, and leadership? Please read my prior posts on this subject:

• Avoid the Complacency Trap Using Four Important Concepts
• Overcoming Introversion in Three Counterintuitive Steps
• How You Can Successfully Propose Your Engineering Projects using Five Principles
• Definitive Guide on Boosting Careers: How to Find Stretch Assignments
• Accelerate your career through stretch assignments 
• How to Market Yourself for Larger Paychecks and Promotions
• How to Evolve Your Stagnant Career towards Exciting Fields in STEM
• How to Turn Cynicism into Positive Action
• Sometimes leadership means cleaning up the mess you created
• Learn from your mistakes to build on your experiences

Overcoming Introversion in Three Counterintuitive Steps

We live in a society that rewards outgoing people. In her TED Talk "The Power of Introverts," Susan Cain notes this was not always the case, as the drive towards rewarding extroverts began in the twentieth century with the rise of big business. Outgoing people, namely extroverts, get rewarded for their actions. Our society looks for people who are willing to take charge. To paraphrase Cain, even though introverts can solve difficult problems, teachers and counselors encourage extroversion, and introverts can be viewed as problem children. For introverts, this can be a difficult pill to swallow. I should know: I consider myself an introvert. Yes, I can become extroverted in some situations, and people exhibit qualities of both introverts and extroverts. Like many self-proclaimed introverts, however, I can feel drained after going through situations that require me to act like an extrovert. I know leaders who identify as introverts, and this post offers guidelines to help you thrive despite your introversion.

Self-realization: There are times and places for introversion 

After all, introversion is a personality trait, not a disorder or disease. I'll note just like Cain that introversion can be viewed as a disease. I've made this observation out of frustration when I'm unable to get out of my own shell. One should not view introversion as a disease or weakness that should be removed from the body. Rather, the first step an introverted leader takes means that the leader realizes there are times and places for introversion. This is no easy task, as many introverts note that they wish they could control when they must act instead of ruminate on the situation. Look, I go through this myself. Whenever I write an article, I prefer to write in solitude because I can focus my attention on transforming my thoughts onto the screen. Unfortunately, life demands that we address other people's needs, and there exist times when we must put aside the task we feel most important now. Anyone with a family can attest to such situations. For example, I often get home before my wife, so I'm the one who cooks dinner. "I'll wait for dinner to cook," said no hungry person ever, so my priority shifts from writing to cooking when I know my wife is coming home.

Self-reflection: Figure what drives one's introversion.

Ironically, a second step of sorts is to think about why you feel comfortable as an introvert. It could have arisen from a situation you encountered during childhood. For example, when I was in elementary school, my parents owned a time share in Del Mar, California. I met a boy about my age, and I started hanging out with him. I enjoyed spending time with this young man -- almost to the point where I would follow him. Unfortunately, I overheard him talking to his mom about this kid who was clingy and wanted to go wherever he went. I heard what he said, and thought "that sounds just like me, so it must be me." Instead of confronting him and figuring something out, I chose to close myself off and not speak to him again. Not because I felt angry at what he had to say, but because I felt embarrassed for being too close. Thus, introversion became a defense mechanism that I used to shield myself from rejection. Through reflection, you can figure out why you choose introversion, and you must confront your fears even if you fear you will falter. You will face pain and rejection at times. To receive recognition for your leadership skills, you must risk shattering your perceptions that you hold dear. Figuratively speaking, you might feel like you're putting yourself in danger.

Growth-mindset: Be bold through uncomfortable situations

Actions follow reflection. This brings me to a question: once you realize the situation calls for appropriate social behaviors, how do you prepare yourself? Practice, practice, practice! I'm serious. If you feel uncomfortable in situations that demand you shift towards extroversion, you must put yourself in situations that force you to do this.  You can do this in one of many ways, I list a few below:

• Take on stretch assignments in areas outside your current job
• Find a mentor in a position of leadership whose background differs greatly
• Socialize as often as you can.
• Write down your thoughts before attending meetings

As I've discussed in previous articles (why you should do stretch assignments and how you find the best stretch assignments), taking rotations outside your comfort zone force you to directly face your fears. Take on short term projects where you interact with customers or project management. You risk failure if you do not interact with other people. This can feel daunting at first. In fact, I argue that if you do not think "why did I put myself in this situation?" within the first one or two months of a rotation, you do not stretch yourself far enough outside your comfort zone. Something to remember: You lead a team, and your team wants you to succeed. Seek them out for their advice. Seek the manager you report to for advice. It is not weakness to ask for help. As Peter Bregman notes, "needing help — asking for help — is an essential part of being a leader," and the idea that leaders only help others and don't need help themselves is not true. "The reality is that leaders who don’t need help have no one to lead. People feel good when they help. They are inspired when they are needed. They don’t think less of the people they help, they feel more connected." If you want to feel closer to your team, this means you must reach out to them in your time of needs. This will build trust.

Seek your team's feedback: Build their trust while learning to feel comfortable reaching out to them

I believe in the power of mentorship. When I had my first job straight out of college, I did not have a third party to express my concerns. I felt lost in the jungle called a large company. I would wager that extroverts feel the same way when joining a large team. After all, it is human to feel uncomfortable in new situations, and every person's personality consists of a combination of introverted and extroverted traits. Find someone to mentor you even if for your first couple months. In a new situation, a seasoned employee can show you the ropes: forms you need to get processes started, training classes you need, managers who can approve documents such as parts order forms. My point here in seeking out informal mentors is that you can make lasting professional friends who can help you shift from being a new employee to an experienced one. Who knows, maybe you'll return the favor some day.

Of course, a temporary mentor can get you so far. I would suggest that you seek out a leader who can guide and maybe even coach you. This leader should be one level above your current manager. Yes, this can feel uncomfortable especially if your prospective mentor lives directly in your chain of command. However, you will need to report status to managers anyway, so why not seek their advice? Every leader is a person, and they all started somewhere. The CEO of your company, for example, was once an entry-level person who made mistakes and got less then stellar feedback from their managers. However, that CEO stuck through the tough times, learned from their mistakes, and used constructive criticism as opportunities for improvement. Do not fear making mistakes. You will take risks, and you will naturally mess things up. The important thing is for you to share your concerns with a mentor you develop trust with, so they can point out how you can best learn from those situations.

Anita Campbell at American Express notes that "it can be a good idea for you to step out of your comfort zone every now and then." You can do this by socializing with your coworkers. This can take the form of hanging out during lunch or going to happy hours together and schmoozing. Do not be afraid to share personal details about yourself. This will take practice because you might not know how much information is too much. No one wants to know about that large growth on the back of your neck, or your constant indigestion, for example. However, you can talk to them about your hobbies, your family in positive light, exciting things you did last weekend, and so forth. The point here is that you share personal information, so your team feels connected with you, and you with them.

Bonus: Prepare for your meetings by writing down your thoughts.

Before meetings, write down your thoughts. OK, you can think of this as a bonus step: Create a personal agenda of topics you want to discuss to ensure that you address them. I do this whenever I meet with my mentor or a manager. This at the least makes sure that I do not forget to address concerns I might have. When you develop a meeting rhythm with your team, you might find that you might not need to write all your thoughts down. You get into the habit of discussing issues with your team on a regular basis. However, it is a good idea to write down your thoughts before important meetings.

Remember, it is not easy for introverts to become extroverts. It will not happen overnight. Despite what other people say, it is perfectly acceptable for you to be introverted. You should remember, however, that you will need to be outgoing in many situations. I did not explicitly state reasons why you need to be less introverted when needed, as I assume you already know this. For example, you could get passed up for promotions when compared to an outgoing coworker who shows no fears of speaking their mind. If you practice these steps, you will find it easier to reach out and be active in a team. You will make mistakes: I know, I've made mistakes by going back into my comfort zone when I should have asked my program manager and team members questions each day. However, the funny thing about stepping outside of your comfort zone is that you expand it. Just don't forget to stay in that new spot. You will need to continually need to go outside, and you might reach a stage where you look forward to doing that. I wish you the best of luck!

Do you want to learn more about engineering, career advancement, and leadership? Please read my prior posts on this subject:

• How You Can Successfully Propose Your Engineering Projects using Five Principles
• Definitive Guide on Boosting Careers: How to Find Stretch Assignments
• Accelerate your career through stretch assignments 
• How to Market Yourself for Larger Paychecks and Promotions
• How to Evolve Your Stagnant Career towards Exciting Fields in STEM
• How to Turn Cynicism into Positive Action
• Sometimes leadership means cleaning up the mess you created
• Learn from your mistakes to build on your experiences

How You Can Successfully Propose Your Engineering Projects using Five Principles

Engineers enjoy working on cool projects. We're nerds and proud of it. It is one thing to work on a hobby project such as home automation with a Raspberry Pi single board computer (SBD) or developing custom Alexa Skills. Suppose you have an idea for a cool project where you work. How do you convince internal funding sources to fund your idea? Ultimately, you must write a project proposal. Before you do that, I will describe principles you should follow to ensure your proposal's success. This article assumes you will internally propose your idea instead of an using an external crowdfunding source like Kickstarter. I share five principles on how you can get your project ideas funded within your company. These principles are

1. Check for relevance: Focus on your company's technical strategy
2. Refine your idea: Write, Re-write, Re-write again
3. Determine your project costs: ROI is key
4. Find the relevant markets: More demand means more interest
5. Write to the funding source's guidelines: Stay within the lines while painting vivid pictures

Follow these principles to increase your odds of proposal success. Let's start with making sure that your idea aligns with your company's technical strategy and why you should do this.

Write a concise project proposal to show your idea's relevance to your company

Check for relevance: Focus on your company's technical strategy

If you want to sell your idea to leadership, make sure that it aligns with your company's technology strategy. Companies typically publish their strategies internally on their Intranet. It might take some digging to find it. You might need to speak to people in the Business Development department. My point is this: You must know your company's technology road-map and where your idea fits. If your company develops autonomous cars, for example, an algorithm to improve its ability to cooperate with non-autonomous cars would be beneficial to your company. An algorithm for self-regulating temperatures in people's house would not.

At a high level, companies exist to make money. Explore this concept deeper, and you will find that companies have missions and values. Missions explain why companies exist: make the world a better place, make roads safer, help people live healthy lives, and so forth. Values set the boundaries on how companies will go about fulfilling their missions. Your idea must help your company achieve their mission.  Simply put, the technology strategy explains how they will do this. You can find advice on developing strategies, yet you need not worry about that. Your ideas represent tactics -- ways that you help your company execute their strategy.

Refine your idea: Write, Re-write, Re-write again

I've been told that the first draft of anything sucks. On a side note, the quote "the first draft of anything is shit" is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway. However, it could be attributed to Anne Lamott who authored Bird by Bird. When writing, I live by the mantra Fast, Bad, and wRong or FBR. (For more details on FBR, see the "Fast, Bad And Wrong: A Mantra For Creating The New And Impossible.") The ideas here are not that you suck as a writer. It's that first drafts represents your opportunities write all of your technical thoughts down on paper. You want to do it FBR, so you do not lose your thoughts. Write down your thoughts fast, so you document them. Do it bad, so you don't pause and reconsider what you write down. Do it wRong because you will revise your proposal multiple times to get it right. This does not mean that you should write your first draft in one sitting. No, if you need to take a break, take a break. However, when you sit down and write, make sure that you focus on writing your proposal

Remember your company's technology strategy? When you revise your first draft into your second draft, refer to the strategy. If you documented technical ideas that do not align with the strategy, remove them or put them in a future works section. When I write first drafts, I use a "more is better" strategy with FBR because I want to cover my bases. However, I know that I will not need all this material. You can delete text. It's OK.

Tip: Learn concise writing, or try not to express your idea with a plethora of beefy wordy excessive words

When you revise, say what you want to say with as few words as possible. In other words, keep it short and simple. Although teachers expressed this idea to me from an early age, I find guilt in not following this advise. You probably do this too. Why do people write lengthy papers? Perhaps they trained to a "grade by thickness" mentality in college / university. Perhaps they think the more they write, the more important their writing becomes. Unfortunately, the audience gets lost in discursive statements that drone on and one. In fact, they probably don't read it. Why do you think proposals have abstracts and executive summaries? Rhetorical question.

When you edit your draft, you should cut excessive verbiage. Take my sub-header for example. Instead of writing, "try not to express your idea with a plethora of beefy wordy excessive words," I could have written "express your idea with a minimum number of words." It's straight to the point, and you don't fall asleep when reading it. I find it vague, yet I could revise it further to say something like "express your idea briefly yet comprehensively."

Tip: Have someone else review your proposal draft

We are all blind to our own mistakes. You should have someone else review your revised proposal draft. At this stage, it would be inappropriate for you to have a member of your company's hypothetically names Innovative Technology Research and Development Board review your proposal. However, if you know a fellow engineer or technologist who interfaces with that group, you have ask them to review it. You could ask your manager or another manager to review as well. Better yet, find someone who successfully submitted a proposal to this group. That person would know what works and what didn't. Offer to meet with them over coffee or lunch, pay for them, and have a list of questions prepared. Take notes during your conversation, and thank them both in person and via email for their time

Determine how much your project costs: ROI is key

To sell your idea, you need to show it has a reasonable return on investment (ROI). To show ROI, you must figure out how much it costs to implement your project. This serves as your baseline to prove that the company will earn a long-term profit if management funds you. You can break costs down into one of several categories:

• Engineering / software development labor costs
• Manufacturing costs including tools and labor
• Fringe benefits
• Hardware procurement
• Software procurement / licenses
• Training and education

Even if you develop software as your proposed project, you will need to buy hardware. For example, if you decide to develop a cutting edge Deep Learning / Artificial Intelligence software application, you will need a machine with Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) to handle the processing you need. Your standard word-processing and Excel laptop for day to day work will not cut it. GPU powered computers are not cheap, and you will need to factor that into your proposal cost.

What are fringe benefits? Think of them as cost of money involved with bringing people onto your project. Suppose you staff your project with a senior engineer having an hourly salary of $50 / hour. You will need to factor in costs for that engineer's benefits including health insurance. With fringe benefits, this could easily become well over $100 / hour. This becomes important because your company's Internal Research and Development Program (IRAD) already considers fringe benefits in employee hourly rates, so your budget will retract if you do not include it in your budget. Imagine you budgeted that senior engineer for 100 hours at $50 / hour. With that budget inconsistency with the true rate, you will get no more than 50 hours for that engineer. Your project could fail with half of that person's time. Include the fringe benefits in your labor estimates.

How do you calculate ROI? Once you know your costs, you can calculate the return using one of several measures. The measure you use will depend on what you intend to accomplish:

• Process improvement: Number labor hours saved multiplied by hourly rate(s)
• New product: Number of units sold 
• Product upgrade: increase in sales, cost savings to customer

Remember, these figures are estimates. You perform your own analysis to derive both your costs and returns. How do you effectively calculate such numbers? Much of this comes from experience. As you gain engineering experience, you develop a sense for how much time and effort projects take to completion. Granted, you might feel uncomfortable in calculating sales estimates. In that case, find a coworker who successfully submitted project proposals, and request their help. 

Tip: Have your coworker review your ROI figures

Every person is blind to their own mistakes. When you have your coworker review your proposal draft, request they review your ROI estimates. They could find something you missed in your calculations, or they could tell you that your sales estimates are way off base. The IRAD program review staff will review your numbers, so you want them to be accurate. If you know a coworker who serves as the liaison to that program, seek their advice before your submit your proposal. They will know what kinds of proposals get accepted, and which proposals get thrown into the trash bin.

Find the relevant markets: More demand means more interest

When you calculated your project's ROI, you might have calculated how much sales would increase. Although many companies have lofty values and mission statements, remember that leadership wants to show profits. You show profits by convincing them that your idea generates market demand. How do you show that your project increases market demand? You must talk to people. Discuss your idea with coworkers, managers, current customers, and potential customers. Figure out what they need. According to Josh Wolfe on The Knowledge Project, "ask yourself: 'What Sucks?' Almost everything that we use, almost everything that was ever invented, started with somebody saying, ‘Huh, that sucks. I’ve got a better idea.’” Go out and ask people what they think sucks in their lives, and you can figure out how your idea can make their lives better.

If you consider yourself an introvert, you should learn to behave like extroverts. Challenge yourself to speak to strangers. Seriously, you must learn to sell your idea. You will have time to develop your project on a bench by yourself later. This is the time for you to reach out for support. Yes, you can figure out market demand by doing Internet searches. However, companies rarely publish the best known information online. If you do not work in customer relations, find people who work in business development. Send them introductory emails and request 30 to 60 minutes of their time to discuss your idea in person. You will learn much from these conversations including uses for your project. What's the worst that can happen? You can learn that your idea has no relevance, or someone has already done it. If this happens, consider it an opportunity to move on to a better idea.

Does the market have to be external? No. You could apply your project to other business areas within your companies. This rings true if your idea focuses on process improvements. For example, if you propose to use Artificial Intelligence and machine vision to improve yields in smart phone processing board manufacturing, your company's television division could use that idea to improve yields in their television production lines. What if your company's divisions have different customer groups? If you prove value to both groups, you increase likelihood that your leadership approves your project.

Tip: Develop your professional network well before you develop your project proposal

You might notice a common thread in proving market value: You need to speak to people. To make this easier, develop your professional network. When people know you personally, they show more willingness to help you. If you have opportunities to attend conferences whether internal to your company or not, attend them! If you can present on a project, by all means, present it. Whatever you do, DO NOT miss out on the networking opportunities that conferences represent. Speak to people, find out what interests them, hand out your business cards, and get their contact information. You never know when you will need their assistance. The person you chat with at a conference could be a potential customer, an insider to a potential funding source, or someone who can mentor or coach you when you develop your project proposals. Get out there and make yourself known!

Write to the funding source's guidelines: Stay within the lines while painting vivid pictures

Look, you should respect the review board's time. This means that you write your final proposal draft according to their guidelines. If they request a one page summary, provide them with a one page summary. Yes, you will develop far more than a page while you develop your project. That's great because you can save that information for when they ask you for more information. Do not provide them with information they do not request because (a) they will either not read it, or (b) they will be annoyed that you make them spend more time reading irrelevant text.

Of course, project proposal guidelines can have more than page limits. The review board can request you provide the following in your proposal summary:

• Summary of project
• Project implementation plan
• Project timeline
• Project costs
• Source materials including any prior work (i.e., patents)
• Any products your proposal supports
• Relevance to other business units
• Sales or ROI estimates

You will not need to provide all of the information I listed above in your proposal. It depends on your company's internal processes and the funding source. It will take time for you to provide this information, yet you should compile this information when you edit your proposal drafts. You should provide this information concisely. (See my tip on concise writing.) If the internal IRAD group has an internal website for you to submit proposals, make sure you save your inputs in local documents. It sucks when you write text in an online form only to lose it to a system glitch.

Tip: Prepare to present your project proposal

Keep extra material saved in separate documents, so you can incorporate them into a project briefing proposal. You can delve deeper into your proposal when you present it to the proposal board. However, you need to stay within their guidelines here as well. This means using the company presentation format and staying within a predetermined time limit. The more prepared you are, the more likely you will impress the proposal board. You want to convince them that you can

Summary

In this post, I discuss five principles that you can use to successfully write an internal business proposal for your engineering project idea. Engineers enjoy working on cool projects. Imagine developing a matter transporter used in Star Trek or a light Saber used by Jedi knights. We love turning science fiction into science reality. Unfortunately, engineers often work in business environments where they must prove their idea's worth before leadership will grant funds for developing these projects. The five principles discussed include focusing on your company's technical strategy, refining your proposal idea, determining project costs and ROI, finding relevant markets to sell your product, and writing your proposal to the funding source's guidelines.

Not all ideas are created equal, nor are the best ideas guaranteed to receive funding. By following these principles, however, you will increase your proposal's acceptance chances. These principles allow you to develop your idea to your audience's needs.


Do you want to learn more about engineering, career advancement, and leadership? Please read my prior posts on this subject:

• Definitive Guide on Boosting Careers: How to Find Stretch Assignments
• Accelerate your career through stretch assignments 
• How to Market Yourself for Larger Paychecks and Promotions
• How to Evolve Your Stagnant Career towards Exciting Fields in STEM
• How to Turn Cynicism into Positive Action
• Sometimes leadership means cleaning up the mess you created
• Learn from your mistakes to build on your experiences

Definitive Guide on Boosting Careers: How to Find Stretch Assignments

Previously, I discussed why you should pursue stretch assignments to boost your career. Today, I discuss how you find stretch assignments to maximize your career boost. A recap: One takes on stretch assignments to learn new skills. Should you pursue any assignment for your career? Of course not. You take on rotations that allow you to drive your career towards a desirable direction. If you want to become a manager, take on rotations in engineering leadership, program management, or in first line management. If you enjoy developing cutting edge technology, take rotations in the Science, Technology Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) fields. One you have a general idea where you want to move your career, how do you find the best stretch assignments? I'll explain below.

You must develop a reputation for outstanding work

It's simple: Why would anyone want you in your organization if your reputation stinks? You must complete your current tasks to the best of your abilities. Even if you dislike your job, and job dissatisfaction represents a valid reason for career changes, you must put your best efforts forward. Whether you work for a small or large company, people talk. If your peers and management know you for excellent work, people will want you on their teams. To market yourself effectively, you need to let your managers know when you do outstanding work. This can be in person or via email. I suggest an email first to keep written records of your achievements. You should follow-up with your manager in person to make sure he or she received your email.

Tip: Work in your current position for at least three years first

Unless you find yourself regretting a move into your current position, you should stay in that position for a minimum of three years. This will give you sufficient time to get used to your role and work on at least one project. Remember, your reputation matters, and reputations take time to develop in business. No one will know you if you get in a company, and you want to switch roles immediately after starting at the company.

Does this rule apply to everyone? No. Some companies have entry-level Leadership Development Programs (LDPs), and new employees can apply for these programs within the first year of employment. If you truly find yourself unhappy in your career, you can speak to your manager about a position change. However, you should first address the reasons for your dissatisfaction in your current role. Have honest discussions with your manager first, and you consider rotation assignments as a final option.

Update your resume

 This sounds counter-intuitive at first. Because stretch assignments are temporary, you will not formally interview for them. Formally represents the key word here, as you will speak with managers and project leads about potential assignments. Your resume is your calling card and your introduction. You will use it, along with an introductory email, to introduce yourself to these people. Even if they know you personally, they do not know your accomplishments. Sell yourself by keeping your resume up to date. You can brag about your accomplishments, yet you should never lie.

Keep your resume accomplishments relevant to the positions for that you will inquire. You can add personality by listing hobbies provided they relate. If you seek assignments in leadership, you can list volunteer activities if you hold a formal position, and you've held that position for a year or more. If you use a chronological resume, make sure you list your most recent accomplishments first.

Make sure you have someone review your resume! People often forget this step. Do your accomplishments make sense? For each accomplishment, do you show the relationship between your situation and / or task at hand, the actions you took, and the results you achieved? Do you quantify your results whenever possible? You might think that you've answered these questions positively, yet it might not be so clear when someone else reviews your resume. My advice to you: Have a coworker or manager you trust review your resume for anything that sounds unclear, and edit your resume following their advice. Of course, it is acceptable for you to make your accomplishments shine bright. Just remember to never lie about what you've done. You will be found out during the interview process whether formal or not.

Develop your short-term, mid-term, and long-term career plan

If you don't know your destination, how can you get there? You must create figure out your career goals and determine your strengths and weaknesses before you can find the best stretch assignments. Your career plan will consist of the following sections:

• Short Term: 1 - 5 years
• Mid Term: 6 - 10 years
• Long Term: 10 years and beyond

Your career plan represents where you see yourself in those time frames. Is your plan set is stone? Of course not. You should revise your career plan once a year. However, once you calibrate your path, you should assess your strengths and weaknesses. Perform a gap analysis to learn what skills you need to develop, so you can achieve your goals. If you find your soft leadership skills lacking, consider leadership positions that force you to develop your skills. If you want to become a software developer, and you find you know little about configuration management, pursue positions in software development. My point is this: You cannot select stretch assignments that take you outside your comfort zone if you do not know your boundaries.

Discuss your career plan with your manager

You cannot pursue stretch assignments in a vacuum. Your manager can assist in developing your career. Of course, this assumes that your organization's culture encourages professional growth, and I will not discuss what to do in these cases here. It behooves managers to help people develop their careers and get promoted, as that reflects positively on them. That said, you should arrange a face-to-face meeting with your manager, and discuss how you see your career flowing in the coming years. Speak to your interests and what makes you uncomfortable. You want assignments that challenge you and push you to your limits. That is how you grow professionally and personally. You will not achieve lofty goals without taking risks. Yes, you might fail, yet you should see those as career paths that you should reconsider for your long-term plans.

Your manager is your coach. He or she can offer suggestions on what rotations best fit your goals, and what positions will challenge you. They should know what managers have positions that need to be filled for the next 9 to 12 months. Take advantage of these openings: Write down names and descriptions of the positions. If your manager suggests that you review internal job boards, follow-up on that suggestion. However, they should have established a network within your company's management structure, so your manager should know who has openings.

Tip: Join a Leadership Development Program (LDP)

If you want to spend the next two or three years in your career in stretch assignments, I would advise that you join a LDP. I briefly mentioned LDPs aimed at entry-level professionals. There exist LDPs for mid-career individuals who want to boost their careers in different directions. These LDPs often aim to place people into leadership positions. However, if leadership roles do not interest you, you do not need to place yourself into a management spot. I would take advantage of these programs anyway, as all professionals can benefit from developing leadership skills. Even if you decide not to become a manager, you could find yourself leading teams. Why not develop your leadership skills? You can boost your career by showing management that you successfully lead teams to success.

Of course, LDPs often require employees to have excellent yearly reviews. If you focus on performing with excellence, this should not be a problem. You will shine, and the LDP Manager will want to bring you into the program. Once you are in a LDP, meet with the LDP manager and get their advice on possible rotations. This manager will get to know you through one-on-one meetings, and they have contacts within your company who will show interest in you. Take detailed notes during your meetings, and make sure to follow-up. LDP managers will want to make sure that you find a good rotation.

Meet with Rotation Managers

Now that you have contacts, reach out to them with your resume! Write short emails that do the following:

• Tell the manager who you are
• Explain a few key skills that match their position
• Tell them why you are interested in joining their group
• Request a 30 to 60 minute meeting with them

Do not forget to include your resume. Recall, it is your career summary, and the managers will need it to understand you as an individual. Sometimes managers do not respond immediately. Wait one to two weeks to follow-up, and follow-up gracefully. Remind them of your interest in the position. Suggest a date and time, and ask if that works.

Once you schedule meetings, make sure you are on time for those meetings. Always bring a copy of your resume, and dress professionally. You do not need to dress formally, as this is an informal interview. However, I advice that you do not wear casual Friday clothing. When you meet, you should be prepared to tell the manager about yourself. Make sure you have a thirty second elevator pitch. Explain why you want to do a rotational assignment in that manager's group. You should be confident in yourself. It is OK for you to be nervous, yet remember that you are interviewing for a temporary position within your group.

Quite often, people forget to have questions for the rotation manager. This is an area where you can steer yourself off course. You should ask the manager the following types of questions:

• Why is the position open?
• What do you expect from an employee in this role?
• What is your management style?
• What skills would you need to develop during the training phase?
• What is your team like to work with? How would you describe your group's micro-culture?
• Optional: Do you plan on retiring in the upcoming year?
• Optional: Does this position require travel? If so, how much?

You can ask other questions. Just make sure to give the manager time to explain the position to you. The last two questions are optional. If the manager is far in their career, you should know if they will be there to support you throughout your rotation. If they leave the company, will they have an alternate who can guide you? If the position requires traveling, you will need to know especially if you have a family. You might be unwilling to sacrifice time and relationships if you will be on the road most of the time.

Summary

You must take responsibility on finding the best rotations for your career. When making your decisions, make sure to follow your gut. If something seems off, do not take the rotation. I've done this myself, and I found myself having to find another one. It was painful. Yes, I found a rotation that suited my career better. However, I would have found that rotation sooner had I followed my intuition that said something was wrong with the rotation.

Remember, you need to follow up with the managers. Thank them via email for their time. If you decide not to take a rotation in their group, politely let them know. Of course, you need to let your manager know of your decision. (This applies to your LDP manager if you are in a LDP.) Remember, the rotation is not permanent, so you will need to decide at the end of the rotation if you will go back into your original assignment, or if you will make that rotation permanent. Communication is key throughout the entire process. It will help you boost your career because you will find stretch assignments that guide you along the career path that you want.

You can achieve your career goals in business through a combination of knowledge, support, experience, potential, and expert assistance.

Do you want to learn more about career advancement and leadership? Please read my prior posts on this subject:

• Accelerate your career through stretch assignments 
• How to Market Yourself for Larger Paychecks and Promotions
• How to Evolve Your Stagnant Career towards Exciting Fields in STEM
• How to Turn Cynicism into Positive Action
• Sometimes leadership means cleaning up the mess you created
• Learn from your mistakes to build on your experiences

Accelerate your career through stretch assignments 2019

Do you feel stuck in your career?  You can accelerate by taking on stretch assignments. Take on roles that challenge you. Look for career opportunities requiring skills you want to develop. The point is to get out of your comfort zone. If you have strong technical skills, look for opportunities that challenge you to develop soft leadership skills. You can think of these assignments as lateral career moves. Instead of moving up the ladder, you move across in a different role that forces you to learn new skills. You can move up by applying these freshly minted experiences.

What do companies consider as stretch assignments? Employees take temporary assignments in different areas within their field. A hardware engineer might take on a 12 month assignment as a systems engineer or as a software developer. A financial analyst could rotate into accountant roles. A software engineer can stretch into an engineering program management position. These positions can be temporary, or they can evolve into more permanent positions. They must challenge the employee.

When you stretch, you will feel comfortable. You will find difficulties in your new role. You could feel like you'll fail miserably. You might wonder why you bothered. If you find yourself feeling this way, you must persevere especially if seek promotions into management. Stretch assignments will test your tenacity. They will make you question your abilities. A key note: good stretch assignments push you outside of your comfort zone, so you can learn and apply new skills.

I can attest this personally. I'm in a leadership development program (LDP) where I work. I've been through it twice. First, I rotated out of systems engineering into software engineering. Although I have a minor in computer science, it had been years since I programmed in C++. I forget many constructs related to object oriented software development. However, my team helped me, as I quickly learned a non-technical skill. You can ask others for help. In fact, you always need support from your team. They know their craft, and they want you to succeed. I recalled software engineering tenets including unit testing, configuration management, and test driven development. When I felt unsure, my team members pointed me to materials to hone my software engineering skills.

Not every skill you learn focuses on technology such as software development. If you intend to become a leader, you develop soft skills. Communication, time management, people management. Think of them as are forms instead of science. You will make mistakes. What ever you do, you must not become complacent in your role. Your team and program management depend on you to see your project through its next milestone. In leadership roles, you must learn how to manage your team, and you must communicate their concerns up to program management. Keep track of tasks and responsibilities, as your reputation will precede you. You should develop a reputation as a leader who can get through challenges. Your team and project management must rely on you.

How do stretch assignments accelerate your career? You volunteer for challenging assignments, and you lead them to success. You learn new skills that you transfer into promotions. I've been told that receiving a promotion is a matter of having the right skills at the right time. You must develop broad skills that you can transfer into higher levels. If course, you retain your central expertise whether in engineering, business development, or finance. Challenging stretch assignments broaden your skills because you lack skills you need for new roles. You develop new skills through on the job learning.

I give you my second personal example. I'm currently in a product engineer role. I own a software product my team develops. Ownership exists in a figurative sense. I own the software configuration management, software problems database, and the documents pertaining to the software package. Where do the challenges exist? First, I quickly learned the product: how to maintain it, compile it, install it, and test it while keeping track of customer delivery deadlines. Second, I must communicate status to program management while leading my team of software developers on an Agile schedule. This requires communication and commitment to keeping track of software problems and the software development solutions. Software products inherently exhibit complexities. Communication can lack quickly, so I must keep the problem database maintained at all times. I must communicate customer needs through project management down to the team. All this while keeping to the schedule.

Are stretch assignments worth your time? Absolutely! They can feel daunting, as you take on responsibilities in new fields. However, you will push through the difficulties. You will develop a reputation for excellence. You will learn new skills and master them. By broadening your skills, you will be ready for opportunities whenever they arise. You will accelerate your career because you learn more in short periods of time by taking risks. You take risks by taking on assignments outside your core area of knowledge. You develop new skills because you do not want to fail in your new endeavor. In the long run, you prove yourself worthy of promotions. You do this faster than peers who chose their comfort zones over trying new things. If you have an opportunity to take a stretch assignment, go for it. You will learn much about yourself and where you want to point your career.

Grow your career through challenging stretch assignments

Want to learn more about career advancement and leadership? Please read my prior posts on the subject:

• How to Market Yourself for Larger Paychecks and Promotions
• How to Evolve Your Stagnant Career towards Exciting Fields in STEM
• How to Turn Cynicism into Positive Action
• Sometimes leadership means cleaning up the mess you created
• Learn from your mistakes to build on your experiences

Update on My First Alexa Skill Top 50 Podcasts Quiz

In a previous article, I wrote about my experiences developing my first Alexa skill. I will update you on the status of my skill submission. Following submission, the Amazon Alexa skills team failed my skill because it was missing a background image for the Amazon Alexa display. This was my own fault because I thought of adding the background images as an upgrade. In my mind, the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) was the skill itself. The simple answer would be to disable display support. I decided this would be poor programming habit, as I would be excluding users with Amazon Alexa displays. Thus, this article will discuss how I addressed the Amazon Alexa Skills team reason for rejecting my skill and resubmitting it for certification.

In an Amazon Alexa skill that supports displays, programmers will see a function of the form supportsDisplay(handlerInput). This function checks to see if the Amazon Alexa device (i.e., Echo) supports a display. If the result is true, the skill will display either a background image or an image related to the quiz question. I originally commented out code wherever a call to supportsDisplay existed. My first step was to removed my comment blocks and re-enable the display code.

If I left my code as is, the code would not compile. I did not define my background image and quiz item images. To get images to work with Amazon Alexa skills supporting displays, I needed to understand how to use the Amazon Web Services' Amazon Simple Storage Solution (S3) for storing files on the cloud. The Alexa skill would access images from my AWS Free Tier S3 bucket. For readers interested in learning more about storing files on the cloud via AWS, I suggest you read AWS' article titled Store and Retrieve a File. For my podcast, a bucket already existed for my podcast, so I found a background image from a free stock photo site (via a Google search) and uploaded it there. When you upload an image for your Amazon Alexa Skill via S3, the default setting for Manage public permissions is "Do not grant public access to this object(s) (Recommended)." You want to change this to "Grant public read access to this object(s)" because Alexa users will need to access it when they use your skill. See the image below.

The next step in uploading an image to AWS S3 is to set the storage class properties. The default storage class is Standard. Unless you subscribe to an AWS service other than the Free Tier, leave the default storage class as is and click next (see below). Click Next to review your upload, and click Upload.

Once you have a background image uploaded, you need to reference it in your Amazon Alexa skill javascript code. In my podcast code, I referenced my background image as

const backgroundImagePath = "https://s3.amazonaws.com/toppodcastquizshow-userfiles-mobilehub-187033348/public/podcastQuizBackground.jpeg";

In the quiz podcast, the backgroundImagePath  constant variable is referenced in a function called getBackgroundImage(label, height = 1024, width = 600). Notice this function uses a default width and height for the image. You must supply the function with a label. In the US States Quiz, this call looked like

const backgroundImage = new Alexa.ImageHelper().addImageInstance(getBackgroundImage(attributes.quizItem.Abbreviation)).getImage();

Clearly, my Podcast quiz does not have a quizItem field called Abbreviation. During the quiz section of my code, I changed this call to

const backgroundImage = new Alexa.ImageHelper().addImageInstance(getBackgroundImage(attributes.quizItem.podcast)).getImage();

This works great for showing the background image during a quiz. There exists another section of code that displays an image when the Amazon Alexa user asks Alexa to them them about a specific podcast (example: "Tell me about How I Built This.") I changed my code in that section by commenting out the definition of the variable image and replaced it with the following block of code:

I ran the tests, and my Podcasts Quiz skill displayed background images as expected. Note that I could have added individual images for each podcast for the "tell me about..." option. However, I decided against this because it was more work that I was willing to do at that time, and the podcast images are likely copyrighted. I resubmitted my Podcasts Quiz for Certification and am waiting on the results of the Amazon Alexa team review. Images of my Alexa skill in action in the Alex Developer Console are below. In the first case, the Amazon Alexa user asked for more information on "How I built This" Alexa said the network is NPR, the artist is Guy Raz, and the ranking order at the time of code development is 15.

Below is the example of the quiz. For this question, Alexa asked "What is the Network of Over My Dead Body?" The choices were Wondery, Barstool Sports, and Oprah. The correct answer was Wondery.

I hope that you enjoyed this podcast. Please come back for updates on my Alexa Skills development and other topics.