PhD as Credential, not Character
Yes, I earned that credential. You might think it means I’m a wizard, and yes, maybe, in the narrow niche of my PhD work, you could be right (but that was a long time ago). What I think it means is that I learned deeply technical stuff well. That I was persistent. That I kept my eyes on the prize and followed through.
Persistence and follow-through have been far more valuable to me than knowing an esoteric corner of engineering really well. This post is about the bigger picture. It’s about learning. I’ve learned from everyone, and continue to do so, and you should too.
Be in a Learning Mindset
No matter who you are and what your credentials are, being in a learning mindset is essential to being a leader. The world and your world are constantly changing. You’re being presented with new challenges, being asked to cover a different project, or realize it would be really good to understand some specialty technical area better (AI anyone?). As soon as you think ‘nope, that’s hard’ you’re beaten. The project will suffer, the organization will suffer, someone else will step up and leave you on the sidelines.
Typical Learning Sources
Who have I learned from? There are the obvious sources. Of course from other engineers, whether with graduate degrees or not. People with more experience than me. Also people will less experience – those newbies on the team are probably there for a reason – fresher skills, higher energy, and different experiences. People in adjacent or complementary fields. The scientists and dreamers whose vision we engineers endeavor to fulfill. These are the kinds of people most technical professionals are not challenged to consider as knowledge sources.
Learn from Everyone
Let’s step out of the comfort zone. Who else can you learn from? I allege you can learn something from nearly everyone. Even if they didn’t go to college. Maybe it’ll be a life lesson rather than a technical one, but learning just the same. Likely there’s a leadership lesson available, because everybody has seen leadership struggles.
So, how do you access the learning? Communicate with people beyond the basic. Be curious. Express interest. Be humble. (No, you probably don’t already know all about it.) Be thankful and respectful. Build relationships over time. Non-transactional. Openly listening. This is not complicated, but it might not be easy; it might take practice, there’s no other way to go about it.
If this is too uncomfortable for you, that’s why I’m here.