There are many advice articles on how to ‘future proof’ ourselves, in the face of advancing technology. The conclusion of the advice in those articles mostly seems to be some derivative of these themes:

• Network

• Don’t fear change, embrace it

• Build your skills (including soft skills)

• Identify gaps in where you want to be

One of the definitions of competence is “a combination of knowledge, skills and experience”. The advice in the articles follow those aspects, too:

• Networking develops knowledge;

• not fearing change is demonstrated by building relevant skills, and

• the best way to fill gaps is through relevant experiences.

It’s well understood that in order to improve, there must be some associated exertion. This is obvious with exercise, or fitness. If you want to lift heavier weights, then, start lifting heavier weights. If you want to run faster, you have to, well, run faster.

The same is true for learning. Active effort is required in order to learn; passive learning does not work, or at least isn’t as effective. This is difficult to accept for students, and more particularly, for those of us mid-career or later. We simply don’t learn unless we’ve had to put some exertion into it.

A hundred years ago, it was 1920. Back then, there was less established infrastructure. And less expectation of being looked after by a third party. Infrastructure was less complex back then, too.

Expectations of ‘being looked after by others’ has grown, especially when something goes wrong.

Fortunately, now we assess what happened, and put things into place to aim for ‘this will never happen again’.

Some may say we’re more fragile now than a hundred years ago, but that’s just one perspective. Now, as was then, when disasters occur, they are resolved, cleaned up, and we get back to business.

There’s an emerging (or perhaps already established) sense around “engineering” which is different to “how it was”.

Now it seems we are “engineering” code, which is all about ones and zeroes, rather than engineering buildings, bridges, railways, roads and viaducts. I guess that’s all been done before and so there’s no thrill in it anymore.

The investment – where the money is going - is now in ones and zeros (systems engineering, IT and data analytics), not so much in bricks and mortar. So, this is the new engineering. It’s not like the old engineering, where a tangible thing was built.

The 2min30s comedy skit by Clarke and Dawe, back in March 2017, is still astute today. They remind us that in Australia, we don’t have an energy system, we have an energy market. And that is the difference.

As per usual, Clarke and Dawe describe it humorously well and there are a lot of gems there (link in the comments below).

A system is defined as “a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network; a complex whole.”

A market is “an area or arena in which commercial dealings are conducted.”

Very astute indeed.

There is no shortage of advice and information out there about time management skills. Time management is a whole industry, and there is an abundance of hacks and tips to help with managing time.

In the context of time management, there is a logical expectation that meetings or conference speakers or training sessions will finish on time. And so often, they don’t.

I often wonder what the talker is thinking of as their allotted chunk of time whizzes past. I wonder if they worry about it, and if they are at all concerned about the other people in the room.

There is undeniable richness in the content of a training session, workshop, or even a meeting, when it is delivered in person, by someone you know or, even better, someone you like. The interaction, questions, and stories discussed in person are difficult to capture in written material, databases, or even on video.

Humans prefer personal interaction – we are by nature social beings. The stories, examples and legends told in person make issues real and more relatable. Personal interaction is a crucial tool in knowledge transfer.

Exchanging information in person also makes follow-up questions and other future interactions so much easier.

Perhaps one of the difficulties with describing or measuring "competency" in technical / knowledge workers, is that we tend to have trouble explaining what we do, or, we have trouble establishing (proving?) the value behind what we do.

One way people communicate is through stories. In fact, it may be the best way to communicate amongst humans: stories. So I've been reading about how to tell stories, and probably the best hint I've come across is this: Stories (to be compelling) must reflect change of some kind. It’s too easy to tell what happened, but not how it changed us.

Change management is recognised as a key activity, especially after, and especially if things have gone wrong. And here I don’t mean changing people, or organisational change, although that’s part of it. There’s a whole industry for that.

This is about changing “things” or “situations” on a project design, or operational procedure.

Deserving more attention is recognition of change in a process or a project.

But crucially, the step that’s often missing when planning for it, is defining what constitutes change.

The top of the change management flowchart is often labelled “Change Identified”. Well, yikes. Sometimes that’s the hardest part.

Money isn’t made by doing it safely; rather, future unknown costs are saved.

Being in a role that includes the word “safety”, “quality”, or “risk” in the title, automatically is a cost centre role and not a profit centre. Any old-timer will tell you; those roles don’t make anything go any faster (I don’t agree, but I’ve certainly heard it).

When the going gets tough, the cost centres are where the accountants look to save money.

It is very hard to put a line item in the P&L to cover “money that we saved because the disaster didn’t happen”.

In safety-critical industries such as the airlines, trucking, mining, and the hydrocarbon/petrochemical industry, significant resources are expended to deliver safely. And as long as those products and services continue to be in high demand, the people in those industries will continue to deliver them safely.

Workers’ safety is, of course, extremely important. Just as important is the protection of the ‘innocent bystander’: that person who doesn’t work for the company or the industry, but who is affected should something go wrong with the plane, the truck, or the pipeline.

Kudos to those whose daily efforts keep the innocent bystanders safe.

There appears to be two competing afflictions in the workforce affecting our ability to be productive: either we’re disconnected and disengaged with our work (i.e. presenteeism), or, we’re working so furiously without stopping that we are completely stressed and forgetting to look after ourselves.

The juxtaposition of those two afflictions is puzzling, especially if it purports to apply to the same person or work team. I don’t think it can. Either you’re disengaged and uninterested and it doesn’t matter, or, you’re completely stressed by the pressure of performance because it does.

It’s probably better to be somewhere in the middle.

When you go to work, how about you do.

Today I watched as the brick house next door was demolished to make way for a new modern house. This is progress, and as has been said before, “You can’t stop progress”.

I enjoyed watching the brute force of the hydraulic-powered claw as it ripped down walls and roof, whereas of course, I couldn’t have pushed it down if I tried.

These jobs are tangible, obvious, and honest. There is clear evidence when progress is made - and when it is not. When construction workers go to work, they really do.

“Many kids today will live to see the year 2100”.

This is a comment from Tim Urban’s website “Wait but Why”, which, by the way, is a site infested by many rabbit holes to get lost in.

It is daunting to think that 2100 is only a lifetime away.

The other striking observation I heard recently was this: compare being a teenager for the moon landing (now a baby-boomer), where it seems there was hope and striving and working together for a goal, versus being a teenager for 9/11/01, which brought fear, distrust and malaise about a lot of things.

Recently here on LinkedIn, there was a question posed about what a leader/manager should provide so a person comes to work ready to contribute. One of the answers was “trust’, and this was supported by others. Fair enough.

Trust and risk are on opposite sides of the same coin. If you are asking someone to trust you, then there is risk involved. Recognise that expecting to be trusted means they have accepted a risk.

Similarly, if you are managing risk – for example, you are responsible for key infrastructure – then always remember that others are trusting you to keep them safe.

In the struggle measure competence, I have been wondering about the engineering degree itself.

I’m trying to work out if maybe there is a difference between having an engineering degree (a hard-won degree to be sure), and being an engineer.

“I’m an engineer” is an awkward statement for those who spend our days going to meetings, replying to emails, and administrating project or contractual documents. Certainly I have spent most of my career in Outlook, Excel and Word, rather than MathCAD or HYSYS.

With everything being disrupted as it is, perhaps it’s time to refresh the perception of ‘an engineer’.

The problem with writing it down is that it takes so much effort. But yet, deep down, we know the importance of recording stuff for future use.

The purpose of records are obvious: communicate information, justification for decisions made, track performance and trends, enable verification of the assessment, provide an audit trail.

But we know all that; yet we generally don’t like paperwork or checklists or documentation (ok, well, I do, but that’s beside the point).

It’s so important to review procedures and processes for efficiency, usefulness, and relevance. If a document or procedure isn’t being used, figure out why.

In the risk world, “consequences x likelihood” is a familiar equation. But perhaps this isn’t a useful measure. Consequences aren’t predictable. Also, consequences can be cumulative: if the concern is power outage, the length of that outage is a factor to be considered.

Likelihood has the same problem: if something hasn’t happened, its likelihood is unpredictable.

Complicating the risk equation is the complexity of it and the language around risk. Risk, in many ways, has become overintellectualized.

For example, “not enough staff” is not a risk, but could rather be a certainty.

Some “risks” are just circumstances to be managed.

It’s impossible to exist in Australia at the moment and not have our minds turned to the awful fires. Brisbane, where I am, is basically unaffected, but we’re unable to avoid the news, and hearts are breaking.

In other thoughts, I recently heard the title 1989 Billy Joel song. It is a list of all the crazy newsworthy stuff from before then, that the Billy Joel aged people (ok Boomer?) observed happened before their time. The song tries to promise a better future. “We didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it”.

Humans tend to strive to be better.

#100wordsaday is back for 2020. Like in 2019, these will be posted daily (except Saturdays), and will be 100 words exactly.

Last year, I made a conscious decision to never use the words “I think”. I was also careful to not ask questions, and avoided rhetorical questions especially. In 2020, I might loosen my grip on “I think”, allowing a bit more leeway to be opinionated here. Though, really, there still might not be much “I think”; I’m generally more interested in what (I think) I know.

I’ll still avoid rhetorical questions, because really, what’s the point of them anyway?