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

• Short management insights

• And more…

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Alright, let’s get into it.

Noteworthy Headlines

ENR 2025 Top 400 Contractors (ENR)

Highlights:

• Turner, Bechtel, Kiewit, Whiting-Turner, and MasTech make up the top 5.

Cities Turn to Stadiums to Snap Out of Downtown Doom Loop (WSJ)

Highlights:

• The creation of whole neighborhoods anchored by new sports stadiums or entertainment arenas is emerging as a real-estate asset class all its own. Stadiums serve as the foundation, surrounded by hotels, shopping centers, office towers, residential buildings and entertainment venues. 

• Stadium developments don’t always live up to their economic promises, especially if taxpayers have to fund a portion of it. Rather than generate new economic activity, new stadium districts can just reallocate consumer spending from local businesses to the sports team or entertainment company running the arena. 

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Management Perspective

I’ve been talking with a lot of architecture and engineering managers in the last few weeks and it’s a busy time. Lots of project deliverables, client events, and hiring interviews fill the calendars of these managers. Oftentimes, they are double or triple booked.

This type of schedule can be hard to avoid, and actually doing so is easier said than done. But one way to combat it might be a little bit counterintuitive: add another meeting to your calendar.

The meeting I’m referring to is an open discussion with your colleagues. What’s on your mind? What challenges are you facing? Did you learn something new?

I have three of these currently; each is a recurring monthly call. One is role-based, where my counterparts around the country and I meet once a month to have an open discussion. The second is operational management, where the entire business group’s operational leaders check in with each other to make sure we’re rowing in the same direction. The third is similar to the second, but it’s regionally based, so there’s a deeper dive into discussion specifics.

These discussions help pull me out of the minutia of certain aspects of the job and recalibrate with the whole. They help me avoid hardships that others have already experienced and worked out. And they help lower barriers for collaboration.

Yours doesn’t have to look like this. Maybe you work at a small firm and don’t have national resources. Look to professional societies. Look to friends from school who may be at different firms. Look to

There are many different ways to connect with others. Tailor yours to your situation and how it best fits with others around you. The important part is that you commit to this time.

*Do you have something like this already? Maybe you’ve taken it to the next level? Shoot me an email to let me know about it. I might steal it for myself.

Management Insights

Jocko Willink on defaulting aggressive:

“An aggressive mind-set should be the default setting of any leader. Default: Aggressive. This means that the best leaders, the best teams, don’t wait to act. Instead, understanding the strategic vision (or commander’s intent), they aggressively execute to overcome obstacles, capitalize on immediate opportunities, accomplish the mission, and win.”

—

The Wright brothers on seeking knowledge:

“The best dividends on the labor invested have invariably come from seeking more knowledge rather than more power.”

—

Peter Bernstein on probability:

“Probability has always carried this double meaning, one looking into the future, the other interpreting the past, one concerned with our opinions, the other concerned with what we actually know.”

Management Resource

Ride the Wave (FS)

This article illustrates what you can control and how you can use that to interact with that which you can’t control. This distinction is important for leaders of all types in navigating their industries.

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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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