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Hey everyone. My name is Henry Surya, we Robin. And you're listening to the technology, you know, podcast the show where I'll be bringing you the greatest technical leaders practitioners and thought leaders in the industry to discuss about their Journey ideas and practices that we all can learn and apply to build a highly performing technical team and to make an impact in your personal work. So let's dive into our Journal. Hello, again, my friends and my listeners.
Welcome to the tekhelet journal podcast the show where you can learn about technical leadership and Excellence from my conversations, with great thought, leaders out there, and this is the episode number 95, thank you for tuning in and listening to this episode. If this is your first time listening to tackle a journal, make sure to subscribe and follow the show on your podcast app and social media on LinkedIn. Twitter, And Instagram.
And for those of you who enjoy this podcast and wanting to contribute to the creation of the future episodes support me by subscribing as a patron at technology. No, dot f /. Patron. Today we are covering about the engineering career, I'm sure many of you are working as an engineer or are thinking of becoming an engineer. Have you ever thought through how you can optimize your career as an engineer or maybe weather engineering itself is the right career for you.
Also, what? Let's do some of us is that after becoming an engineer for a number of years, we do not feel the same enjoyment and fulfillment as we started in the beginning and then comes up the question of what's next that I should do? How can I navigate my career and even potentially make career transitions? If these are some of the thoughts that you have in mind that, I hope today's episode will be worth a listen for you. My guest for today's episode is Jeff Perry.
Jeff is an engineering coach, the founder of modern other than engineering and the co-host of the engineering career coach podcast in this episode. Jeff shared the important role of a coach or Mentor in our engineering career. Especially when faced with all the questions that are mentioned earlier, we first discussed Jeff's engineering career
Clarity checklist. And why it is truly important to find the clarity in our career Journey, Jeff then share the role of an engineering career coach. How a coach can help us navigate our career. And the difference between a coach And a mentor throughout
our discussion. We also touch on a few other topics such as the great resignation Trend and what are some of the things behind it making intentional career transitions taking lessons from what Jeff has done in his career transitioning to a leadership role and the power of
accountability. I enjoyed my conversation with Jeff discussing about the role of an engineering career coach or mentor and also the engineering career polarity checklist and I like the way Jeff explained that we A shooter navigate, our career Journey alone. There are people and resources available out there who can help us make better decision, especially for something as
important as our career. If you also enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and colleagues who can also benefit from listening to this episode. Leave a rating and review on your podcast app and share your comments or feedback about this episode on social media. It is my ultimate mission to make this podcast available to more people and I need your help too. But me towards fulfilling my mission. Before we continue to the conversation.
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today. I have with me, I guess who is also a host of a podcast, the engine nearing career coach podcast, which has been around for more years than me today. My guest is Jeff Perry. So he's actually the engineering career coach and also leadership Coach Jeff actually came from the engineering background, not just software engineering, also mechanical, and also manufacturing. So it's really interesting how you can combine all these engineering later. Maybe you can discuss about
that. I'm actually very excited today to talk about engineering Korea, and coaching, and leadership in general. So, hope to have this great Position with you today. Jeff absolutely. I'm excited about this, Henry. Thanks for having me. Normally, I would start by asking my guests, to share his, or her story may be telling us more about your highlights or
career turning points. Yeah, so as you know, that I've kind of taken a Winding Road through a lot of different technical disciplines and different things started. When I was a kid, I really gravitated towards science and math, and things like that, like many Engineers did because there is like certainty. And a lot of the Things that I
was doing. They're always really loved being right and having right answered from an early age, I think there's ninth graders like I'm going to be a mechanical engineer, that's what I was going to do and so I never wavered from that, I went to school didn't mechanical engineering, it was great, then I got into some research during my undergraduate degree and I was connecting some of the software pieces of mechanical design and 3D CAD systems and
things like this through that guy connected with an automotive company that wanted to do more of that work, there was a In research that we were doing and so ended up with a job writing code, even though I'd only had two software courses in school. Most of my stuff was on the mechanical and physical Hardware side here. I was writing code every day when it only take a couple of software courses.
So I felt kind of like a fish out of water, but I really tried to look at that as an opportunity for you to learn and different sort of industry and really dive into that. So I really enjoyed learning about software Frameworks, apis, agile, methodologies and more in that world. There's a lot of things that I learned in. At perspectives when I was doing that. But I also realize that, hey, for me personally, writing code all day, every day, wasn't what I wanted to do.
It's not where I found a lot of Joy.
So I actually had an opportunity to go to a smaller company and dive into my first leadership experience and they wanted me because it also done some like entrepreneurship side projects that had in mechanical and the software aptitude and I could really bring a lot of these disciplines together and really kind of almost became a product owner over a technology I trying to Newmarket. Utilizing existing Technologies and find a road map for new technologies for the company
where they were doing a physical sensor service Hardware capabilities. We're working with electrical and mechanical engineers and we had to manufacture these things. Plus the software side data acquisition systems and things like this, in the cloud or on-premise, depending on how we were doing that at the time. And so it was a lot of different things going on there trying to bring all this together.
So, I did that for a while. Then I shifted again towards operations and It was more process-oriented using technology to simplify enhance operations. Make sure we're collecting the right data really take that continuous Improvement methodology and approach and different initiatives. So those are kind of the big shifts in the corporate world and obviously we can talk more about what I do now eventually got to a career Plateau. Where I knew that, what I was doing wasn't a perfect fit for
me or the company anymore. And so had some tough conversations and even got to a point where I said, hey if we can find an I meant the really is a fit for me. We happy to explore that with you, but if things stay the way they are, then it's probably best for me to leave. Like I had recognized that where I was not really giving my best work for the company and also wasn't great for me.
And so had those tough conversations we explored some things, nothing really felt like a great fit but I was okay if it was time to go and it actually was then, it was like, okay, what's next? I didn't actually have anything lined up for me. I wouldn't always recommend that for people, but it's what I needed to do.
So I spent a lot of time getting Clarity and what I really wanted and the end kind of breath together this entrepreneurship bug that I'd had wanting to stay close to Technology and Engineering but also over the course of time recognize that helping people grow and developing people with something that was really important to me, I had opportunities to do that. I found, that's where I really lit up and found joy in my work. So that was kind of where I have found.
My own kind of Genius Zone, put it all together and doing what I'm doing. Now is a leadership and career coach. So that's may be long and short of the story for me. Hearing your story. I can see so many transitions in your career. One of the topics that we'll be talking about is about career transitions but I think before we went there, one of the things that I also see in your career is that there are many facets.
Right? You started from maybe doing engineering, mechanical software, and keeps on continuously, improving and exploring. This not just fitting into one particular role but actually moving into multiple facets and seeing where you can grow further, although eventually it met the plateau. But I think now you are entrepreneurial and you started this company called more than engineering. So tell us more. What is more than engineering
thus? Yeah, so more than engineering is the name I put for what I do is leadership and career coach specifically for engineers in technology professionals. And the more than peace is this idea by? Okay, engineering might be this professional identity that you might have as an engineer technology professional. But want to look at the whole person. Who are you? What are you trying to become Beyond just building your technical skills which it's
absolutely important. But what about in leadership personal development? What do you want to do when your community or otherwise you want to give and support?
Like who do you want to become? This is really trying to take this larger holistic approach to personal development but coming from, hey, I've got this broad range of experience in the engineering and Technology world, but I've also now developed a very wide tool belt of things that we can do to look at where you're at. And where do you want to get to? How do we make that happen? A lot of that is around Career
Development people. Trying to say, hey, I'm not really happy with where I'm at right now. How do I do that? Or I'm trying to grow in my leadership approach building a new team trying to grow these certain skills. How do we do that in a sustainable way? Instead of just prescribing behaviors things to do, okay? Try this. Try this, trying to look at. How do we make? That is actually a transformational experience.
For you. And so that's really the essence of what we're trying to do. One of the thing, when I went to your website, you have this career checklist, you call it engineering careers checklist. It's very interesting to me because I didn't have that checklist know that I thought about having a checklist before I went into engineering. So tell us more. Why do you have this career checklist? And what's the purpose? How does it help someone to decide where the engineering is
the career for them? Yeah, so I called the engineering career Clarity checklist. What this This is really designed for is those people who were at those points were saying you know, I wonder if there's more to what my career could look like, rather than just showing up getting a paycheck, and going home and watching Netflix or staying home and watching Netflix, if you're working from home, because engineers and Technology professionals have a huge amount of Versatility.
I mean, I'm an example of that of like all the different areas but done, when I've talked to so many Engineers who have done so many different things across different Ecology disciplines across different roles. They played. They can stay. They can go deep in Tech that can stay bra. They could work priced products that can work across projects, large programs, leading, large
teams, whatever that turns into. But there are plenty of people who are, like, I know something needs to change but I don't know what that actually is. How do I find alignment in that? So that I'm actually really enjoying? Cuz I know what I want is to actually wake up and feel excited about work. We're right now. I'm feeling like an being drained. And not excited about that at all.
So it career Clarity ideas like okay how do we find that two analogies are use as ways of thinking either clarity like a Northstar like the things that you really want to get to that kind of keeps you aligned with where you're going or maybe another way to look at it as a set of filters of things like what's really important to you. So those opportunities or things, come your way, how do you run this through your filters and see if they meet criteria that are right for you?
If so let's continue to explore if not then.
Waste any more time on there because you already identified those things and most important to you through the number of different tools within that, it's a checklist of activities and exercises, you can use to really do some introspective work and identify that Northstar those set of filter that you need to use, so you can get the clarity with where you want to go. So some of the things that you Advocate into checklist is finding the Y, maybe many of us,
get to work to get paycheck and go on with our lives. I'm not sure why the all Engineers really have a clear goal in mind. Before it is like the career. So, tell us more about. Why do we need to find the white? And what are some of the wise that engineering should think about by becoming an engineer? Yeah. And this could be becoming an engineer or a certain type of engineer or engaging like in a certain industry or something that's really important to you.
This comes from a tool that I use when I was in manufacturing, where a lot of times, there was a problem on the manufacturing line or something we need to dive into the root cause of it. We use a tool that's pretty common called the 5y as the diamond, the root cause analysis and saying. Okay you initially look at what the problem is that you think is the problem. And then you keep asking, why is that? Why is Is that you keep going deeper and deeper? We use the same tool these five
wise. You can go more than five and say, okay, what's the goal? You have something you want to get to, but then what we're trying to do is unlock, what's the deeper level of intrinsic motivation? What's really the driver for you.
That's pushing you to want to make this goal and I've had people have all sorts of different answers to this in the end from hey I really want to find something that's exciting for me in my career because I I watched my parents, both hate their careers through their lives. And I grew up with that and I hated that, and I don't want that to be how I end up for the rest of my career. And so, I want to find this alignment.
That's one type of answer. Another person said, you know what, I want to find my happy place in my career. I don't know what that is, what I'm trying to figure that out. Another person who is really passionate about sustainable energy and things like that. And so they were making the move from medical devices over to Green energy and building. And things like that because they recognize that's an
industry. That was very important to them that they wanted to be actively involved in, are the people want to work on certain types of products or things like this or other people want to get involved in scale or it's really about their opportunities for personal growth and different opportunities are going to help them do that because I don't want to feel stagnant. So it can be all sorts of things. But the question is, like, what
is it for you? That really drives you to want to get up and go and do things in your career? And so, Finding that deeper level y, can be really powerful. They are so many things that you mentioned, just now that people look for in their jobs. So, I think the key here is to find intrinsic motivation, how to align that with your career, is not just some job that you need to do to get paycheck, but
to get that fulfillment as well. Another thing that you mentioned in the checklist is that we need to find our genius Zone. Tell us more. What is this genius Zone? And how do we use that? You have? So put simply the genius. Iran is where you do your best. Twerk. Okay. Couple different ways to look at this and also recognize that your Genius Zone can evolve to as you go through different
experiences. If you would have asked me five years ago about me hey can I do leadership and career coaching for engineers? Like that wouldn't have been that because it took me a few years of getting experience of doing training and kind of internal coaching and development inside of the company that I was at for a while and kind of unlocking that piece of me.
And then also having more experience in the technical side to have Broader range of things that allowed me to feel like, hey, I had the confidence that I can do this and I can put that together. So that's one way to look at is like these combinations of things that you're really good at. So you may be good at one particular type of software application, or product
development or leadership. You can look at those as separate things, but when you combine them the combination, then create something that's quite unique and different because you have certain insights into financial institutions, if you're in fintech or something like like that or other types of Industries. And so, it's industry, its passions its skills. When you combine them, do you have a unique value that you can bring where you can really deliver exceptional work where
you can do your best work. So that's one way to look at genius Zone. Another way is to look at it like okay. When do you feel like you kind of get in the zone or in a state of flow? If people are familiar with this, the idea of flow comes from a researcher by the name of Me. Hide csikszentmihalyi, I think he passed away a few months ago. Been quoted extensively on industry, search and flow.
And it's like this combination of Challenge and the skills that you bring to the table, you can kind of get in the Flow State. But what is that for you? It's almost that time or those experiences are those things you work on your hardly feel time passing? But you're just really in that zone because you're excited about things and what is it that
you're doing that? Unlocks that for you can we find ways to do more of that because that's something that you've got some natural inclinations but also Oh some skills that you've developed that really allow you to do some amazing work. When you're in that space, how can we do more of that so you can really deliver your best value so we can identify that. Then maybe we can find a role or an opportunity that can align and give you more opportunities to do your best work in that
way. So I find that these two questions, really really important especially as you go along your career, right? Maybe 5-10 years it's not like in the beginning. I think these two questions can help people who will feel stuck or feel. The motivated or didn't get the sense of fulfillment. Also, people who want to explore new areas of growth. It could be new role, new career, new industry and all that you seem to have lots of experience at doing career, transitions part of this exercise.
I believe that people will make career Transitions and jumps into different areas which they may have not explored before but this is something that they are good at. So tell us more. How can we make this more intentional career transition maybe after you do this exercise, how do you navigate that? At. Yeah. So that's a perfect question and you said the right word that's really important. To me is like being intentional Baptists. Okay.
Because I talk to so many people and they're like hey I know I want to make a move or something but usually initially or often initially what they're motivated by I don't like what I'm doing and so we're just trying to move away from where they're at right now because they know what they're doing right now is in great. What we want to do is not just find a new opportunity or job or But the right opportunity in situation for them, it's about being proactive.
Not reactive, like, saying, I want to identify what I want, what's important to me, and then I want to go through a strategic process to go find it and make that a reality. So it's about moving towards what you want to do and become rather than moving away from something, you don't want. That's just a much more powerful way of going about. Any changes that you're trying to make in your life is thinking about a positively framed approach to Audi.
You move towards what's important what you want rather than moving away from something that you don't. So I've designed a whole approach in program to this called the engineering career accelerator, that's really designed to help Engineers move through this intentional career transition and get into that right opportunity and situation. It's been my pleasure to help a lot of people.
And I get that opportunity to kind of have that front row seat to working with people through this process and helping them grow to get where they want. But also again, we Trend Design This in a way that trying to be a transformational experience.
we're not just successful in landing the opportunity but they see that there's benefits and changes they've made that are going to help them as they continue forward throughout their career and actually what it's designed to do, So again you emphasize the key word intentional or deliberate here.
It really struck me when you said that many people want to make career transitions because they just think they don't want to do whatever they're doing now, it's more about moving away or running away from their situation but towards where maybe they are not sure about. So this is something that probably is critical, right? When I hear about great resignation, or maybe during pandemic, people are not fulfilled or suffering with their career.
So maybe this is also partly why that many people are resigning. I don't know whether In your coaching or maybe in your training session, you have this study case about great recognition, is there some kind of things that you want to give insights where the people are making the right transitions during this time or actually still the same kind of problem? Yeah so I mean we've gotten the whole gamut throughout the pandemic and the great resignation experience from.
Hey there's layoffs upon layoffs, across the world because the pandemic to now we're in a place where Employment really low and it's really hard for companies to find. People are trying to grow like crazy and maybe there's some long tail effects of that of some people who left the workforce for a longer period of time and are coming back. I think we're still trying to sit through some of the data around that but there was some significant data around like 20 21.
So we were already through kind of the first year of the pandemic in the US. There was the highest quick rate that we've had in decades, that was significant. I think there's just a lot of people Going through that process and kind of stepping back and trying to figure out.
Okay, what do I really want? So some of that people actually have that time to be introspective because I couldn't leave their moments for one reason or another or some people got forced into looking for something else because I got laid off and others. Especially in particular in the software space found that because they were more primed for the remote work opportunities. And there were a greater need to want to do more Automation and software pieces. There were a lot of Of
opportunities in front of them. There's been a lot of wage expansion and compression and things like that. People like hey I can get a significant raise if I make a move. Well, I'm going to do that. So sometimes they're chasing the money, sometimes they actually did some of that intentional work to try and figure out what's really right for them in the conversations of I had.
And I've talked to hundreds of people one-on-one, is that I find that those who were driven by fear, through the process, or after the ones that kind of lost out on opportunities, it didn't really make progress. But those who are driven by opportunity and what's possible and looked for, how can I make
the most of the situation? Those are the ones who found the opportunities and were able to continue to grow and grass instead of taking a break and staying stagnant, or maybe losing ground during the last couple of years. So currently you are a coach at least in my part of the world. It's not common to have an engineering coach, engineering career coach particularly. So tell us more. Why should engineer think about having a coach? And how does it differ between Mendes and Coach?
Because these two terms always use sometimes interchangeably, but maybe you can give us Clarity why an engineer should look for career coach. Yeah, sure. I mean, Engineers are notorious for being problem, solvers, right? And figuring things out. That's one of the things that Engineers do best there aren't all that many of us who are coaches specifically for engineers, but there are few and because I'm in the industry, I know a number of them, but think about this.
I'm just a huge proponent Moment and believer that when we're trying to make changes in our lives, we shouldn't change alone and try and do that alone. We need people in our life to support us and help us through that process. What a mentor or coach can do, is really provide that outside perspective, maybe? See things in you and work.
The problems you're going through and the opportunities that are in front of you that you might not be able to see because we all have blind spots whether we like to believe it or not, we do. And so we, We need that help mentors and coaches can also help expand your network and
give you access to insights. And people that you might not otherwise be able to connect to and also just a big opportunity to give you Frameworks activities may be a community to be involved in one of the most powerful things is the power of accountability. You can have that you are invested in yourself and have someone who is invested in you trying to help you move through this process because you have
maybe regular meeting. Send situations and things are trying to report on. Then you've got this extra motivation, I've got something I gotta deliver. So there's a lot of benefits. A lot of that when we think about the difference between a mentor and a coach, maybe the separations mentors often, kind of someone who would volunteer
to help you. Maybe it's someone in your workplace often workplace as well have mentoring programs and things that you can get connected to, or you can just find someone you want to connect to ask questions and I semi-regular basis or maybe someone in another community. Eating you can connect with but they just kind of help and you connect with them. It's often informal, it can be formal. It kind of depends on how you set that relationship going to coaches often.
Paid something that you would invest in their also uniquely invested, then in your success because they went when you win, it's how they're set up. So it's often a third party person outside the perspective of where you're at in your company and so they don't have any other agenda to keep you in your company or get you out. Or whatever other than you being successful. And what's most important to you, then investment in you through that process can be
really. Again, transformational coaches. Also, bring often a more intentional framework and are more proactive in your experience rather than mentors, they'll often show up in. Like, okay, what questions do you have for me? And they can be fabulous and wonderful, but a coach is more like really bringing something to the experience more often than a mentor would So, you mention technique, which I find really interesting and also powerful this power of accountability.
Again, I'm not sure, but I can just look from my personal experience. Sometimes I don't do this accountability for my career, so things could be just thinking in our head or just Consulting with our family members, but the accountability I think is a very unique angle that people can explore. Tell us more about, how can we find an accountability partner. So maybe some kind of accountability framework for us to navigate our career. How does this work? And maybe you can give us
examples. How can this accountability help someone to navigate and make career transitions? Yeah, so we can use accountability in any area of your life to put some data to it. I think the association for standards and training development. Astd did a study on the power of accountability from someone who's got a goal that they want to accomplish. You just have the idea of a goal is about a 10% chance. You're going to do it if you like write it down, it increases like 25% movie.
Until someone it gets up to, like, 50 percent. But if you get to the point where you have someone who you're accountable to that, you have a specific date set up to be accountable and delivered to them on a specific day. It's like 95% of the time you're going to deliver on that. So we go from 10% of. I have an idea of something I want to do to you. I'm accountable to someone, I've got a specific date tied to that deliverable.
So from 10 percent to 95 percent, you get a frame that so that's just provide a data perspective that shows. Real power in the power of accountability, you can find people in your life. I mean, these can be partners spouses friends, mentors in personal community and your family or other things. Just again, like this idea of not making changes alone, brings a little bit accountability. You've been sharing with someone that you're trying to do this rather than holding onto yourself.
Yeah, it feels a little vulnerable, but that can actually sometimes light a fire and you to, it actually takes an action but then taking that next level to maybe invest in yourself, get some Specific help in a coach or something that could be next level because they're going to be helping you
in different way. Anyway, this accountability area or principal and just be so powerful to say, I want to do something, but instead of just thinking about it, actually going to do something about this, share this with other people and ask for help. You'd be surprised how many people are actually willing to help and support you through that process and many different ways.
It can get some people who are willing to do little check-ins and things like that with you, if that's what you want. Because sometimes, especially if you get a full-time job and other responsibilities, now, you're trying to be something else would be hard to put in that time in that effort because we're tired and got a lot of other things on our plate.
But when we have other people supporting us and holding us accountable, or we feel accountable to and then that can keep the fire going and controlling their. So some people also find gave me a vacation as part of accountability. So maybe use tools to do habits streak and also some people put some more Stakes like, put money. So, yeah, I didn't do. Exile, put some money for you. So I think that kind of like also works as a accountability technique, I've got a friend
who's wanting to write a book. And so if he doesn't get that book manuscript submitted by certain time this year, then he owes me 500 bucks. I think it's gonna light a fire for him. So just a funny way that works for him that negative pressure doesn't work for everyone but that's something that's really pushing him array. Lemond, that whenever we talk almost every week. So, whatever works for you, that's what you're trying to
find. So, one of the major Get transition for engineers is to actually navigate between individual contributor and to leadership or management in your career, you also mentioned that you have navigated that process as part of your career coaching, or I think your training in general. Is also a leadership aspect, so tell us more. How can someone have this mindset transition between individual contributor to more
leadership or management role? Here is a critical transition for a lot of people if it's the right thing for them and if It's the right time so we need to recognize the ships. It's taking place here is an individual contributor. Your best value and your expectations completely surrounding around that the technology progress that you
deliver. Whether that's you know, the code that you're writing, the product that you're working on and thing that you're developing or designing, whatever that looks like. It's about. What are you delivering in that way? When you make that shift to leadership and management, that's Where your focus is anymore is in, you delivering the technology, its you enabling your team to do that, and that's
a shift. And it's really hard for many people to let go of that direct ownership of this, is the code that I wrote and I own. And I know it. A lot of times, you're kind of having to give up your baby, you were working on it for a long time, especially if you like staying on the same team and then becoming the leader, that's really difficult or even if you're shifting things, you just have to completely let that go and hand that off. But that impulse to, I don't know.
Exactly. So I'm going to go in and solve that problem for them. It's not enabling them both to make the best decision in the moment. But also to enable them to grow and that doesn't mean that you shouldn't bring in your technology insights. Just means that you need to step away recognize that your shift from you're not going to be writing code or diving into the details of everything on the technology side and there are so
many challenges. Just two people letting go of this idea and really delegating, hey, if I don't do this it's not going to be done or fear of quality going down, or if I don't do this it'll take longer than any train. People has all sorts of things but that's really what the shift is about and really taking the personal approach to how can I enable them. But also help them grow to become the people and the professionals that they want to become. And how do I align their goals
with the company needs? And I work across these various things and so just deeper level of understanding. People really need to understand processes and understand higher level areas of how different pieces of Technologies fit together and eventually delivered to the whatever the final product or services in that way. And so it's a big shift because usually is individual contributor, you're being delivered your tasks and maybe you have influenced their as your planning and things like
that. What that looks like and moving through. But then something is a leader. You're identifying those and Across multiple people and working across functions. Usually it's a big shift but it's an important one for people to get, right? So again, it's a change to make sure you have at least some mentors to help you through that process. So you don't have to squat or too much because there are a lot
of lessons learned. There's gonna be a lot of frustrations, there's imposter syndrome, there's fear and uncertainty there. You want to make sure you have some help. As you move through that, you mentioned that it's very critical to have Mendes. So when I look back to my career, when I made this transition, I didn't have meant oppa say so It's more like winging it maybe maybe reading books or consuming whatever
resources that you could find. But I think having that meant that could really help accelerate that process, right? So that you are not stopped in the loop of fear or impostor syndrome, like you mentioned, or maybe sometimes your school as what should I do. Because you're dealing with a totally different kind of a challenge altogether. And letting go is one part that I think many people who will transition from Individual contributor to managers suffers
a lot. So maybe is there any specific technique how can? Be embraced. This letting go. How can individual contributor start shifting their mind towards more enabling growing people. Improving process, and things like that. Yeah, it's a great question. So, this is the foundation of a lot of shifts that I try and Coach people through as identifying like, Okay this not just the prescription of techniques that we want to give you like okay. Take these actions but for you
you need to First identify. What are the mindsets are beliefs that you're hanging onto. It's almost like an anchor that's kind of weighing you down. Down. We need to identify that first from the belief, or mindset side of things, and then we can move through processes. There's a really great process that I love from a book that's called immunity to change by a couple of Harvard psychologists. And I love the framework in here because it's a process that
Engineers can really understand. Okay, we're identifying a change. We move through essentially experiments and tests to identify, okay?
Here's a level of belief that is driving my behavior while I need to identify and Through some experiments and collect data to challenge these beliefs, if I can move through that process and suddenly the power that belief and mindset has on me starts to diminish because the experiences I'm having, aren't telling me that what I thought was true isn't actually true.
It diminishes that and suddenly were Shifting the mindset that driving a new set of behaviors that were trying to have because the end goal the behavior shift, it's pretty easy to outline what that looks like. Like in terms of delegate trash, don't micromanage all that sort of stuff, not that hard to identify, but how I as an individual moves through that process, as can be different. Because I may be different things that I'm struggling with to let go.
Then you would or someone else. The truly identifying that deeper level minds and belief that this whole he's back, there's this process between go to the book or surely reach out to me and we can talk more about what they look like, really moves process. It's amazing.
And we would do that. Like I had an Cheering leader that I worked with was kind of notorious for just kind of taking it all on his own, really struggled with, if I don't do it, it's not going to be done because he was really closely connected to customer projects and things with what he was
doing. And so we work together on this and identified, how to run some experiments and things and hence and things off because like, you know what, we've started this new project, and I started it off with someone on my team to really take ownership of that. Three months ago, I wouldn't
have ever been able to do that. I wouldn't be able to trust and I wouldn't have had that set up so it was amazing and they're doing a great job with it. So a huge shift in a freeing up his time to work on the more strategic areas that are important to him. And so that's just one example there when we can make that shift from his beliefs, he's not tied down by that as much narrower. And moving on to other things that were working on together,
that sounds really powerful. So first, identifying, your mindset and belief old mindset and beliefs that you probably are not productive. In that sense, Rapier stay on that zone. So I think I seen any Kind of changes its habit, it's a personal development identifying mindset first, I think is the key for many kind of
transformative experience. So I think partly by becoming a more effective leader is also about changing your mindset and beliefs from I see mode to more management and Leadership role. If there are some kind of attributes that leaders should have, maybe if you can give some tips for people here, who just made that transition or who are still clueless and don't have members, what will be that attributes? What Do they need to look at and maybe just practical tips for
them. Yeah. So from an attribute, one of the things that's really important to me and something that I've been working on the last few years since I got into this coaching and training role. So the idea of seen people is people that sounds really simple but it's extremely powerful. I first learned it from a group that did some training called The Arbor injure Institute.
And they talked about a mindset idea, called the outward mindset is this idea of we can see people as people whereas the opposite of that they call in Self-focus where you see people as objects may be to use them as vehicles or maybe their obstacles in your way. And so you just need to get them out of the way or maybe they're just irrelevant. You don't care about them but it's this idea of like really seeking to understand what people need was important to
other. People what they're trying to accomplish their objectives. What the challenges are that they're being faced with when you can truly understand people. When you're thinking about from leadership perspective, both on your team, also the piers, That you're working with and also thinking maybe up in terms of what do your leaders really need
from you? And really seeking to ask questions to understand, how do you deliver the greatest impact these people and seeking to not, just be held accountable to that. But seeking to be proactively accountable for you in actively checking in with them. Hey, how am I actually doing and delivering, am I helping you in the ways that you need that and always seeking for that growth
opportunity? Feedback then suddenly everyone around you becomes kind of a mentor in that opportunity to give you insights and feedback that you might not otherwise be able to know because sometimes we're so afraid is new leaders
and experienced leaders. Even of what are people thinking about me. And we're so afraid of our image, we can let go of that and say, Hey, I want to understand that because then I can actually deliver better and put myself out there and be a better professional better person for them that they need me to be, then we can make those changes.
So from a A fundamental principle standpoint, this idea of seeing people as people and seeking to understand what they need from, you will allow you to be the best that you can. So stay humble and teachable and open to those ideas. Instead of again, you don't want to be driven by fear. You want to be driven by how can I continue to improve and grow and see those gaps that you might have and where you're at
now as opportunities. Rather than knocks on you, we all have things we can work on. Well, that's an opportunity to grow and develop in a new way. So, get excited about that. So I like the way you frame it, sick people as people and also try to understand them. So, I think some people also refer this to probably, like seven leaders, your job, is there to serve people. It's not to give orders is not to give a high-level goals directions or maybe chasing
people for task. So I think the key is about serving people, by understanding them. Hopefully, they can grow and also be more productive and also create a great team. And a high spirit, I think that's the message here. So part of your day-to-day is also hosting Just tell us more about your podcast, what is it about? And where people can find it and
why they should check it out. Yeah, so the podcast is called the engineering career coach podcast and this is a podcast that I am the primary host right now, it's in partnership with a group called The Engineering Management Institute that I've been able to partner with, in the podcast itself been around since I think 2013, but I've been the host for the last couple of years, put out a couple episodes of months, typically, across, all sorts of different things, in terms of
engineering, Career opportunities and success from hanging. How do you deal with things as an introvert? Talk about mindset principles, we talk about leadership, would talk about changes in engineering and Technical education and things like this. There's all sorts of different things would get to bring in experienced guests on to provide Insight, but a truly meant to be General across, engineering disciplines, not specific to a
few. Although there's a lot of people and things in the software world that people can get insights on who we try and make things as applicable as we possibly can across Ross engineering disciplines because everyone has goals and things that they're trying to do and accomplish in their careers. And so we want to give people a resource to help in progress. That's what it's all about. So in find that on any podcast platform, pretty much and also
YouTube videos as well. So I look at the number of episodes that plenty of resources. So if people really want to look at the career coach angle, there are plenty of episodes that probably you can look at sometimes when you navigate in a certain situation, when you don't have mentors is really hard. So looking at Those previous episodes, I think probably can help you as well, not to mention that podcast or maybe YouTube now has become one of the mentors in life.
If you don't know about something search on podcast, YouTube or books. And then you try to Self Serve Yourself by having these kind of electronic Mendes. So Jeff is been a pleasant conversation with you about career coach leadership career transitions but we need to wrap up before I let you go, normally I have one last question that I always ask for all my guests which is this question about
three technical leadership. Wisdom, maybe you can give us some advice from your experience from your journey. What will be your tree? Technical leadership? Wisdom Jeff? Yeah, so the first one that I would share is to be proactive not reactive. We've talked about this in terms of being intentional, deliberate in your career but just like identify what you want to do and go make that happen and recognize that hey, there's going to be some twists and turns.
Along the way, you can see every step as another prototype and an opportunity, click data and things like this. It's just another iteration. So To discourage if you're not exactly where you want to be right now. But how can you take ownership and be proactive with where you want to continue to go and how you wanted to continue to grow? Number two, is tap into and become aware of your mind sets, not just the actions you want to take, but who you want to become
like, it really starts there. And we talked about some of the ways you can actually go about running experiments or tests to identify. Those mindsets might be holding you back and move through that process. But again, the principle is that mindsets Drive Behavior, or behavior drives our results. And so if we're just prescribe behaviors, we're not going to make sustainable changes to get the results we want. We need to change our mindsets. There's and drive our behaviors worse in Drive.
Our new results that we're looking for, really trying to improve and grow our lives. And then number three is, I'd say, get help and support, get mentors and coaches like those digital things resources, like podcast that we have and books and articles fabulous absolutely engage in find the things that are great for you. But also invest in yourself, get these relationship-based that can really get personalized. You are your greatest asset in your career, and in your life.
So protect that grow that invest in that, like, you would invest in financial investments, but invest in you, personally in your growth physically, mentally professionally and all areas of life, you'll be glad that you did, because you're trying to live your best life. So you got to invest in you to make that happen. A lot of times coaches and toward another things can help you accelerate. That process and make even more progress than you need to.
So be proactive tap into those mindsets and invest in yourself and get some help. I really love the last one. You mentioned about we as our own greatest asset. So sometimes we neglect our career although we spend more of our life doing our career, right? Your hours as well but sometimes we don't invest too much in it. We just go with the motion and make decisions maybe sometimes thought about it but maybe not enough.
So the key here is try to invest in ourselves find mentors and support Thank you so much Jeff for all those wisdom for people who would like to connect with you. Continue this conversation. Any place where they can reach out. Yeah, a few places you can find me and pretty active on LinkedIn. You can find me follow or connect with me. There just search Jeff Perry. You should be able to find me
there. Prime your website is more than Dash engineering.com, or you can find some free training, especially for those looking for career, transitions engineering career accelerator, that calm especially also we were talking about that. The careered clarity checklist earlier. People can get that engineering career accelerated at cam career Dash Clarity so people can get that as a free resource for. Those are the few places that I'd send them a lot of stuff to go.
Check out what I got a ton of resources. If you reach out to me personally, I can point you in the right direction. Thank you so much for your sharing today. So I hope that this gives some people clarity as well in terms of navigating their career. It was a pleasure. Jeff, thank you so much. Yeah thank you so much. Henry looking forward to connecting some more. Thanks. Thank you for listening to this episode and for staying, right until the end if you highly enjoyed it.
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