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
Construction starts rebound in July (Dodge Construction Network)
Highlights:
Total construction starts popped 25.6% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.79T.
The jump in starts is not spread evenly across markets.
Multifamily is propping up residential.
Data centers are propping up commercial.
Energy is propping up non-building.
Tariffs on Canadian wood products just went into effect (The Architect’s Newspaper)
Highlights:
Richard Branch (AIA Chief Economist): “Tariffs on Canadian plywood will exacerbate the pressures already weighing on the entire construction sector, with the housing market poised to bear the heaviest burden.”
A report issued by the Joint Economic Committee in April stated that the tariffs could increase the cost of construction per home in the U.S. by $17,000 in the years ahead.
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Management Perspective
As teams grow, the dynamics, priorities, and structure change. As a leader, you need to tailor how you lead your team to fit evolving needs.
When you’re leading a team of five or so, coordination is fluid and organic. Performance is pretty obvious, and everyone generally knows what everyone else is doing.
Then you add three. Then three more. And somehow some more. Before you know it, your team of five is now up to twenty.
The organic flow doesn’t scale to a team of this size. You need to be much more intentional about the team structure and operations.
Three main things that change as teams grow are:
Leaders can become bottlenecks
Leaders with total control and many direct reports become bottlenecks that slow down the team. Breaking down the team into smaller groups with distributed authority is a necessary organizational shift.
Information flows become disorganized
Internal communication grows exponentially with new additions to the team.
Priorities start to conflict
Small, aligned teams share the same goals. When more people with different backgrounds are added, those goals start to differ.
Management Insights
Dan Levy (Harvard professor) on how to think probabilistically:
“Thinking probabilistically about the world involves three distinct elements: 1.) Understanding what the subjective probabilities actually mean, 2.) Assigning probabilities to many things (events, beliefs, etc.) in our lives, to help us better understand the world around us and make better decisions, and 3.) Updating these probabilities appropriately when relevant new information comes in.”
—
Daniel Kahneman (psychologist) on how biases are inevitable:
“The best we can do [with biases] is compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high. . . . it is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.”
—
Jocko Willink (former Navy SEAL) on how effective leaders handle mistakes:
“If mistakes happen, effective leaders don’t place blame on others. They take ownership of the mistakes, determine what went wrong, develop solutions to correct those mistakes and prevent them from happening again as they move forward.”
Get in Touch
Did something strike a chord? Tell me about it.
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
Engineering Echelons is a brand of Echelons, LLC
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