ENGINEER
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”
– Lord Kelvin, Father of Thermodynamics and the Transatlantic Telegraph
THE ENGINEER ARCHITYPE
The Engineer unearths the data and technology and creates structures that underpin the complex systems of our natural and virtual world. Engineers measure, categorise, systematise, value, predict, and theorise but most importantly – Engineers build.
As an archetype, Engineers refers to a specific way of seeing the world. Engineers create order out of chaos and structure from incoherency. Engineers manifest in many forms of occupations.
Reason, intellect and logic.
The origin of the word ‘Engineer’ stems from a common root found in the close cousin of ‘ingenious’, which in Latin means to ‘contrive or devise’.
The structures that Engineers build have the sole purpose of creating linearity in process and product when faced with a problem. Linearity, ideally, increases efficiency. Be it sending a man to Mars or developing a mobile app, these structures frame a problem and provide a pathway to a possible solution.
Engineers prefer three tools above any other: reason, intellect, and logic. Predictability creates reliability and with reason, they can compare and contrast. With logic, they can induce and deduce. And with intellect the Engineer ties all key variables, factors, and parameters in a packaged formula or hypothesis that is replicable. While the tools are similar to all Engineers, the application in practice is relevant to a wide and varied field of expertise from science, IT and medicine. More often than not, Engineers are specialists in a narrow field, but with much depth that has been cultivated and acquired with an extensive background combining studies and dedicated work.
“At Amazon, we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.”
–Jeff Bezos, World’s First Centi-Billionaire; CEO of Amazon
Coaching an Engineer
Coaching creates tools, solutions and alternative approaches that come in handy when pursuing a new venture or exploring opportunities outside the local optimum. Coaching also creates tools to respond when there’s a risk to go “off-spec”.
Engineers are often very work-driven and immersed in focus and well-structured work routines. The iterative and steady approach to work and life is balanced and creates satisfaction. But as we know, life is unpredictable by definition. The need to change can be a sudden hit from the external world or a slow-burning need growing within. So you might wonder why you aren’t enjoying as much as you thought you would despite having a career that pays well.
For engineers, working with self-awareness, core needs, emotions, beliefs and fears seems not easy, let alone to express.
Coaching can help determine what capacities you have, set clear and measurable new goals, explore better performance and create better skills to create, manifest and communicate in more engaging ways.
How much have you thought about where you want to go in your career? What are your long-term professional goals, independent of those goals you establish related to your current employer? Are you trying to mesh your own vision into the constraints of your current position, or do you see how your current role and position contribute to your long-term goals?
Do you speak up, negotiate, and ask for what you need to thrive at work? Are you visible, not just those you immediately work with, but others in your industry and organization?
It’s time to step up!
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
ENGINEER
STRENGTHS
Analytical Mindset
Whether drawing on disparate bits of information or vast amounts of data, the Engineer can inspect and dissect with surgical care the wealth of information they are confronted with on a day to day basis. Their sharpened analytical ability allows them to categorise, systematise, and understand interrelated connections.
Sustained Attention and Focus
The tasks the Engineer undertakes requires extended durations of unbroken attention. Whether it is to memorize and play a concerto or building a code, the Engineer often has the ability to immerse into a flow that delivers extraordinary results.
Resilience and Persistence
The Engineer returns, time after time, to the core of the problem. An Engineer can labour years, even decades, to pursue an answer that seems to evade them at every turn and corner. Yet, the glimpse of the summit, the promise of presenting something enviably new, and maybe even lending it your name in the process, is for the Engineer the search for truth.
ENGINEER
WEAKNESSES
Managing Ambiguity
The Engineer may meet a challenge when it comes to handling ambiguity, ambivalence, and the muck and mess that reality has to offer to a mind that tries to find order and reason in all events that transpire. Finding ways to deal with situations and less rational emotions can feel challenging.
Emotional Intelligence
Sometimes Engineer can face particular challenges to engage in the social aspect of human interaction and emotions. Distancing often feels more natural, especially when there is a risk to become the centre of social attention or mingling with people in a networking event. The challenges of expressing empathy and reading and adapting to emotions can create awkward situations for all parties.
Communication Skills
While not definitely the case with all Engineers, many do have a different level of challenges in communications. This can be linked to the introvert approach, shyness or just lack of motivation. This can also affect career development. For example, female engineers have a well-documented visibility problem.
CONCLUSION
You are tasked to impact millions and to make it happen!
Your ability to see interconnected systems and the skill to command and scale technologies opens the opportunity to impact the world in a meaningful manner. To make a difference, you must raise the level of your self-awareness, work with your flaws and meet the new standard in your performance.
Eventually, it’s only two things keeping you at bay: Your Fears and Your Beliefs.
Change requires another. With the right coach, mentors and complimenting community and partners, the Engineer has the opportunity to grow fast to meet the better version of themselves. This requires stepping outside the comfort zone. It makes sense to make this journey together with an experienced guide and community of like-minded life long learners.
Book a call if you are open for a zero-pressure discussion where I can listen and find out if we can add value to you or not.
Learn more about the Eight Archetypes
The Eight Archetypes are distributed in four different spheres where Seekers lead the need to change, Builders are here to manifest, Connectors to connect, and Leaders to lead.
The Seeker sphere introduces the two archetypes of the Healer and the Activist. The second group of Builders hosts the Designer and the Engineer archetypes. The third level is the group of the Connectors - the Captain and the Dealmaker. The fourth level introduces the Leader archetypes: the Alpha Leader and the Omega Leader.
