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.

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Highlights:

Highlights:

Highlights:

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Every form of information that exits your organization will reach two major types of audiences: the people you want to reach, and the people you’d prefer not to notice.

The first group includes people who benefit your organization by knowing more about it. From a marketing and business development standpoint, those are people who can become clients, strategic pursuit partners, and advocates. From a recruitment standpoint, those are people who could become interested in joining your company.

Visibility with this first group feeds your business and talent pipeline.

The second group includes people who don’t benefit your organization by knowing more about it. Namely, your competition and detractors.

Visibility with this group erodes your competitive advantage and stifles your ability to win and deliver work.

As a result, an intentional balance must be struck between information that is allowed to leave the organization and what must remain within it.

Here are a few things to consider when it comes to sharing outside of your organization:

Mary Kay (entrepreneur) on leadership:

“No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important. Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.”

—

James Clear (author) on being in the action:

“The best view is probably from the stands. But that’s not where the action is. And so you have to decide, do you want a nice view or do you want to be in the thick of it and playing the game?”

—

Daniel Coyle (author) on the order of vulnerability and trust:

“We think about trust and vulnerability the way we think about standing on solid ground and leaping into the unknown. First we build trust, then we leap. But science is showing we’ve got it backwards. Vulnerability doesn’t come after trust—it precedes it. Leaping into the unknown, when done alongside others, causes the solid ground of trust to materialize beneath our feet.”

As many firms flatten org charts, they are tasking remaining managers or experienced staff with something akin to a player-coach role: They’re asking them to manage team members and also to function as active individual contributors.

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

Collin