“One of your primary assets in life, is a feeling of confidence.” This statement is not from a self-help book, nor is it from a motivational speaker. It’s the first sentence in the chapter “Approach the job with confidence”, from a 2007 book “Project Engineering: The Essential Toolbox for Young Engineers”. Even project engineers need confidence to do a good job.

It goes on to say, more eloquently, that “if you expect a positive outcome, your intentions will bring energy and add reality to successfully achieving that outcome.”

I like that frame: it’s a little more tangible than “be confident”.

When facing a problem, especially one involving other people, it’s useful to consider the variety of viewpoints. As most problems involve other people in some way, it’s always important to take a moment to think differently.

I know it’s difficult to stop our train of thoughts, it’s time-consuming to have to take a moment to think in any way besides that firmly from our own viewpoint. Our viewpoint includes our experiences and our expectations, the internal monologue, and our level of certainty.

Just remember, the other person has a whole set of those too, and they’re probably different to yours.

After four days of steady, heavy rain over Brisbane, it’s certainly been a deluge. Brisbane is facing another anxious time ahead. The enormous amount of water has to go somewhere, and it ends up in the wrong places. I’m not affected directly, but my heart hurts for those facing the difficult clean up challenge ahead.

Deluges are like that: a massive amount of something that all arrives at the same time. Working our way through is exhausting and seems never-ending. It feels too dismissive to just say “ it does end, eventually.” “Blue skies eventually appear”.

Take care out there.

A key feature of being hireable, promotable, and successful, is your reliability. We can’t be reminded enough about it, that being reliable is often why many people advance in their career (ok, I know many are promoted in spite of not being reliable, but let’s focus on the positive here).

Being reliable means doing what you said you’d do; showing up to meetings on time; performing your work to the best of your ability; and even calling yourself out when you know you won’t be able to be relied upon for something. Being honest is part of being reliable, too.

When a problem arises, it should be faced, focussed, and figured. And because I love the symmetry of threes, those three steps have three expansions each.

To face a problem, we need to identify it, realise it, and recognise it. It has to be described, before it can be solved.

Next we focus on the problem. In the context of problems within projects, the focus could be on people, information, or processes that might help resolve the problem.

Then we figure it out. Here we need to consider documentation, communication, and change management.

Face it, focus, then figure it out.

The word ‘pilot’ can be a noun, verb, or adjective. As a noun, it’s a person who operates an aircraft, ship, or who is the one showing the way, or, an example. As a verb, it’s controlling the position, or providing guidance. As an adjective, it’s an experiment or test for something before being introduced more widely.

So: we could have a pilot, piloting a pilot attempt at a pilot.

In any case, great things often start as a pilot, preliminary trial, or experiment. Here’s to always having a pilot on the go, so that we’re always trying something new.

Having a low level of hope, or being uninspired in recent times, is not unexpected given the past two years. It’s been a hard slog, and we have some way to go still, to repair the damage done. I have immense hope that we’ll overcome the difficulties and retrieve our collective joy. That’s what keeps me looking ahead.

There’s a direct relationship between hope and accomplishment. Sure, we must always have hope; but when things are difficult, we also need to be accomplishing things. Moving forward a little bit every day provides some confidence that the hope is not misplaced.

How knowledge is transferred influences how effective it is.

Information-based: think of the teacher as the ‘sage on the stage’, presenting information outwardly. Historically, information was scarce and expensive. Not now: information is free and google-able.

Advice-based: advice-based learning is predicated on a protected version of the information, only provided from someone ‘on high’. Not as useful or results oriented as it could be.

Experience-based: this is where the magic is. When learning is experiential, or including sharing of past experiences and learnings, then information, advice, and emotion are all included in the exchange. It’s the best way to learn.

Late in 2021, I had to give up my regular timeslot volunteering at the RSPCA. It was a tough but obvious decision; my days were just too full. Something had to give.

The half day I spent with the cats (or sometimes the laundry room) was what had to give. Work and family were priorities, and that was the right decision at the time.

We evaluate commitments every day, at every decision, and whenever we’re overwhelmed. It’s our commitments, or principles in other words, that help determine our decisions.

Fortunately, I’ve found a timeslot again and I’m back at it.

Networks are complicated things. Whether we’re talking about electrical networks, sewer or pipeline networks, or people networks, they are complicated.

Networks are more than one-to-one, of course. One-to-one is not a network. A network has many nodes, many connections, and, conversely, the possibility of many points of failure.

Networks need to be nurtured. The pipelines, the wiring, the cables need maintenance. Our personal and professional networks also need nurturing. I’m not sure what it will look like in the new normal of choice around workplaces, travel restrictions and online meetings. We’ll need to learn some new networking skills this year.

The importance of human socialising cannot be underestimated. While we’ve had a bit of a break from it for a couple of years, don’t ever think we won’t get back to it.

Putting aside the reality of personality differences such as introverts, extroverts, shy and awkward, funny or serious, gregarious or sanguine, the ability to get along with others is a hallmark of a good society.

The human reality is that we want to make eye contact, maybe look deeply into someone’s soul, or just have a good belly laugh. The world is rich with opportunity. Let’s get out there.

Of the four factors that a successful career can be built on (mastery, autonomy, impact, and connection), connection probably matters the most.

Most jobs, roles, tasks, projects, and goals, have some interaction of some sort with another person. Many jobs have interactions with many, many other people. And that’s where connection comes in, and why it matters the most.

There is a plethora of advice and information out there about how to work with others. And it’s up to us individually to practise it: we need to make the effort to connect with others, not just to work with them.

Of the four factors that a successful career can be built on (mastery, autonomy, impact, and connection), impact is the one with the most emotion around it. When we’re making an impact, we know we’re making a difference.

In another context, impact is related to recognising “experiences” through our career. A definition of competence includes having the knowledge, skills and experience to do a task. When we’re aware of the impact of our work, we’re probably experiencing something. And that comes with emotion. We remember experiences based on how we felt.

Making an impact is equivalent to feeling our experiences.

Of the four factors that a successful career can be built on (mastery, autonomy, impact, and connection), autonomy is a mysterious one, which we might not know we want, and need, to feel successful.

Autonomy means we’re allowed to be self-directed. The funny thing is, knowledge work is 85% self-directed. I made that percentage up, but it feels right. Because it happens every time we start a new project or job – in work like project engineering, we often just ‘figure out’ how to do the next step. That’s pretty much being autonomous.

Using autonomy well is a sign of success.

Of the four factors that a successful career can be built on (mastery, autonomy, impact, and connection), mastery might be the trickiest but most important one.

Mastery is getting better at things that matter. This means stretching ourselves beyond the basics. But what makes this tricky, obviously, is the need first to master the basics before taking on the next level. It’s often tempting to accept a role or project that is beyond our current mastery. And we are also often encouraged to do just that. So, the tricky balance is to stretch but not leap ahead. Finding support helps.

Daniel Pink wrote a book called Drive, which introduced the motivation factors as being mastery, autonomy, and purpose. I’ve recently heard Cal Newport, writer of So Good They Can’t Ignore You, in a podcast, expanding this a bit further to mastery, autonomy, connection and impact.

These factors are key to a satisfying career and doing work that you enjoy. Mastery is about getting better at things that matter. Autonomy is being self-directed. Purpose is important, but better expressed as connection and impact. Impact means making a difference. And connection. Oh, connection – we do need so much of that in 2022.

If a book has a table of contents (ToC), then it probably contains technical information. Or, at least, it probably isn’t fiction (though some novels have them).

Tables of contents help orient the reader to what the document contains. It’s like a meeting agenda: it sets the scene for what to expect from that book (or meeting).

A document longer than 5 pages should probably have a ToC. For documents over 10 pages, I’d argue there certainly should be one.

The ToC shows the structure and organisation of the document. Without a ToC, a reader can’t get the big picture.

I’ve heard the word “nuance” more recently, in conversations, and, in my own head.

The definition of nuance is given as “a subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound”. I guess the key there is ‘subtle difference’. The (perceived?) usage increase, for me, is about the real nuance of some of the issues we’re currently dealing with as a society.

I might be using the word wrong, but to me, understanding the nuance of a position or situation, is to respect the fact that not everything is easily put into right/wrong or good/bad scenarios.

Subtle differences abound.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, ancient aqueducts and railways, the pyramids, and the moon landing. All of these wondrous engineering accomplishments were completed before computers. And before “management systems”.

Now, we have a plethora of company management systems, mainly because we can.

Ideally, the management systems might:

• reward the right behaviours,

• advocate for safety in outsourced work,

• have the right structure so bad news can travel up,

• encourage and act on hazard reporting, and

• create opportunities to share stories.

Ideally, that’s what management systems in hazardous industry companies might do. But I suspect they are more about budget and profit forecasts.

Many of us are guilty, especially recently, of just-in-time preparation. It must be a combination of growing role responsibilities, and the ‘times’ (being of frenetic information overload). I’m pretty sure work used to be a bit more leisurely, a bit more ‘controlled’, a bit less frantic. I remember being very prepared for meetings, having read the pre-work the day before or some such in advance. I find now I’m doing the preparation just-in-time, just moments before the meeting starts (but at least I’m doing that!)

Unfortunately, doing things just in time is fraught with risk. We need to slow down.