Hey, it’s Collin. Welcome to Engineering Echelons, a newsletter full of ideas and insights to help engineers excel at management.

Here’s what I’ve got for you this week.

• New and noteworthy news

• A management perspective to consider

• Leadership insights to delve into

• And more…

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Alright, let’s get into it.

Noteworthy Headlines

Business conditions at architecture firms remained weak in September (AIA)

Highlights:

• Architectural Billings Index (ABI) is 43.3 for September, the lowest since April

• New project inquiries remained flat in September

• Design contract values declined for the 19th consecutive month

Construction’s mental health challenges (ENR)

Highlights:

• 64% of construction workers have experienced anxiety or depression in the last 12 months, up from 54% in 2024, according to Clayco survey respondents

• 45% of construction workers say they would feel ashamed to talk about their mental health, addiction, or suicidal thoughts with their coworkers, up from 39% in 2024

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Management Perspective

The demands of leadership are constant: strategy, execution, crisis management, contracting, marketing, recruiting, and more. But of all the activities leaders are involved in, teaching is the one that needs to be prioritized at the top.

The most impactful leaders understand that their primary job isn’t to do the tasks or even manage them. Instead, their most important job is growing people, both personally and professionally.

By constantly teaching your people, you are:

• Developing and reinforcing company culture

• Aligning staff with the bigger picture

• Growing individual capabilities, which compound when combined collectively

• Improving recruitment and retention

Jim Senegal, founder and former CEO of Costco, said of leaders, “If you’re not spending 90 percent of your time teaching, you’re not doing your job.”

Think about that. 90 percent. That means if you work 40 hours per week, 36 hours need to have a teaching component to them.

I think many of us, myself included, fall way short of this metric. So that begs the question: how can you prioritize teaching more in the work you do every day?

Management Insights

L. David Marquet on organizational structures:

“In our modern world, the most important work we do is cognitive; so, it’s not surprising that a structure developed for physical work isn’t optimal for intellectual work.”

—

Mark Miller on having a leadership culture:

“A leadership culture exists when leaders are routinely and systematically developed, and you have a surplus of leaders ready for the next opportunity or challenge.”

—

Ed Catmull on failure:

“What I’ve realized is that failure is asymmetric with respect to time. Often when you look back on a moment in which you failed, you can instantly see how it led to positive growth. ‘The experience taught me so many lessons,’ you might say. Or: ‘It made me who I am today.’ Nonetheless, when we anticipate failing in the future, we have trouble holding on to that knowledge. We don’t have the luxury of calling something ‘educational’ until after it happens—sometimes long after.”

Management Resource

How to intentionally design your org (First Round Review)

Former Square CEO shares about business organization structure, internal and external forces that shape it, and how you can align the company structure with its mission.

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Or…

• Let me know if you’ve found something worth sharing.

• Let me know what challenges you’re having as a manager.

• Let me know what challenges you see other managers having.

Send me an email at [email protected]

Looking forward to hearing from you. See you next time.

Collin

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