There’s the old saying, ‘what got you here, won’t get you there’.  I guess it’s claiming that to achieve new goals, we need to make changes and do things differently.
I think that’s partially true, but it unfairly dismisses everything done to this point.

Actually, what’s come before, is the input to what comes next.

A better, though not as pithy, philosophy is “what got me here, will get me there, with effort”.   Our backgrounds give our context:  mine is different to yours, and we can both be successful by drawing on our experiences to launch into the next thing.

I moved office at the end of June.  Two months later, and I still have boxes to unpack.  However, my office space now has the most amazing view over the river to the eastern horizon.  A good outlook is hard to beat.

It is September 1st today, and even after almost 30 years away from the northern hemisphere, September to me is still an “autumn re-set” in my head: “back to school”, get stuff done, less than 80 workdays to year end.  It is an outlook that gets me motivated.

Keep up with the big sky thinking and wide-ranging outlooks.

Between Aug23-30, there was a community of like-minded people tracking an event being held south of Perth. It was a “backyard ultra inspired fundraiser”, where a runner (Phil Gore) committed to running 6.71km every hour on the hour for 168 hours (7 days).
To say this was pushing the limits of endurance is an understatement. As it turned out, he found his limit during hour 153 (1020km), and his support team finished the remaining 15 hours as a relay.

What I took from the week was the sense of community, camaraderie, and basic human enjoyment of being part of something.

I think it was Obama who campaigned on the tenets of Hope, Optimism, and Confidence. This framework has stayed with me since then.

When I’m facing obstacles, or feeling anxious, I revert to it.

I ask myself, what can I be hopeful about, where’s the optimism, and, how do I build some confidence to take the next step?

This week has been full of competing priorities. I found hope in the idea that it’s only temporary, optimism in next week’s plans, and, I built confidence by clearing some clutter and organising some paperwork… because that always makes me feel good.

Engineers Australia has announced their new National Competency Standards for Engineering, and I’m very keen to start diving in, to find out what’s been done, how it will be used, and making it relevant to individuals.

For several years I’ve supported local engineering businesses utilising the 2012 EA competency standards. I’ve also helped organisations develop internal competency standards, and, I’m a big supporter of the pipeline-industry dedicated “PECS” for pipeline engineers.

Competency standards are something I’ve worked with for about ten years now.
I find that having a structure is good, but in the end, our “competency” is very individualised.

When I was growing up, I was taught to take responsibility. I was introduced to decision-making early, and furthermore, expected to wear the consequences of decisions. If I made a mistake, I had to own up to it.
So my upbringing was very fortunate. Not only did I learn about decision-making and responsibility, but I also developed a sense of agency. All my life I’ve had agency: I could decide things for myself. And with those decisions I had to accept the consequences.
It hasn’t always been roses and unicorns, but there’s been a lot of them. I like that.

My alma mater, the University of Alberta, recently stated proudly that they have “started to reimagine its undergraduate programs to better prepare the next generation of engineers”.

They are “modernizing our curriculum … rebalancing workloads to support deeper learning and sharpening our emphasis on in-demand professional skills, such as effective communication, project management and decision making”.

This not uncommon curriculum change has me a little nervous.

I continue to hold the stance that engineers should desire, and demonstrate, technical skills first and foremost. We should seek deep technical knowledge. And the other generic work skills, yes, can and should follow.

The goal of “higher productivity” for widget manufacturers and production lines, makes sense.
For years, though, I’ve been struggling with the definition of ‘productivity’ for professionals, for ‘knowledge workers’, for those of us who add value by using our brains to solve complex problems.
Productivity for professionals is actually about:
credibility before speed,
better over faster,
added value instead of ‘more for less’, and,
in reality, though it may be hard to admit: effectiveness over efficiency.

It has been, and always will be, hard to defend ‘slow’ work, because, progress. But sometimes problem solving doesn’t benefit from speeding it up