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…

First time reading? You can subscribe here.

Alright, let’s get into it.

Noteworthy Headlines

Is the management track losing its luster? (LinkedIn News)

Highlights:

Fluor stock drops 27% after earnings (Barron’s)

Highlights:

• Subcontractor design errors, delays, and price escalation on three infrastructure projects, as well as a shift in expected capital spending from some clients all weighed on second quarter results.

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Management Perspective

It’s great to bring in work, but all those projects don’t mean much if none of the fees trickle down to the bottom line.

Here are the tactics to improve profits, listed in rough order of most effective to least effective.

1. Raise fees

2. Lower delivery costs

3. Address underperformers

4. Increase volume

5. Lower overhead costs

Here’s a closer look at how to accomplish each.

Raise fees

• Specialize. You can charge a premium if you’re the expert.

• Find ways to add more value to clients.

• Prioritize clients who are willing to pay more.

• Develop and market higher value services.

Lower delivery costs

• Reduce rework.

• Staff projects appropriately.

• Make greater use of paraprofessionals.

• Match contractual requirements and client expectations with project deliverables. Don’t unnecessarily overdue it.

Address underperformers

• Correct or remove underperforming staff.

• Drop unprofitable services.

• Stop working with unprofitable clients.

Increase volume

• If a profit margin is fixed, bring in more work.

• Increase staff utilization (applicable for time and material type contracts)

Lower overhead costs

• Improve the speed of billing.

• Improve the speed of collecting bills.

• Capitalize on all office space.

• Reduce equipment costs.

Management Insights

Bill Belichick on winning:

“Helping the team win doesn’t look warm and fuzzy. It looks like work—usually hard work—if you want to outcompete your opponent.”

—

Karen Lamb on starting:

“A year from now you will wish you had started today.”

—

Zeynep Tufekci on admitting someone else is right:

“It is easier to keep adding exceptions and justifications to a belief than to admit that a challenger has a better explanation.”

Management Resource

Stop solving your team’s problems for them (HBR)

A good reminder that leaders are not necessarily problem solvers for their teams.

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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

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