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John D. Trudel
The Trudel Group

David Wells has asked that I re-target my columns. I am writing this for IEEE's GOLD, the Graduates Of the Last Decade. Those of you with management inclinations are our future leaders.

It has been a very long time since I was a new graduate. Those were the days when we walked five miles to school through the snow, uphill both ways. The dinosaurs were gone, but I actually did build projects in grammar school with vacuum tubes. (You know, vacuum tubes. Think of them as very large transistors. More like FETs, actually. ! Oh, never mind...)

Anyway, I have lately been writing mostly for senior professionals and managers, and I would welcome your GOLDen feedback, comments, and suggestions for the topics that concern you. Just hit my email, listed below. I promise to read all you send, and to respond.

The engineering profession has certainly changed a lot since I started. One of the most interesting things is how the selection and promotion processes for engineers have changed.

For years, I wrote a column for another magazine titled, "Tales from a Skunk Works." Skunk j works were technical nirvanas. They were places of legend and lore, where teams of elite technologists created wondrous things.

Entrance was by invitation, a great honor. Only the best of the best need apply, and the work was its own reward. It wasn't about making money; it was about creating miraculous and valuable marvels. In exchange for hard work and meeting deadlines, technologists would be freed from bureaucrats, accountants, and, yes, even those marketing people from Hell.

The greatest legend was Kelly Johnson, whose famous skunk works at Lockheed produced break-through aircraft from the P-80 (our first jet fighter) to the U-2, and the phenomenal SR-71 that cruised at mach 3.

Imagine a four-decades-old design whose performance has never been matched. That was the SR-71. In electronics, we have nothing comparable. Interestingly, Kelly was that brilliant, even when he was GOLD. His first design, the P-38, was the only allied military fighter in production throughout all of WW II. In wartime, air combat obsolescence came quickly except for the P-38, the aircraft of choice for our leading "aces."

Times have changed. Today the large firms crave "design factories," not skunk works. It is about consistency, incremental innovation, and fast cycles. Japanese products took over market after market. Some were innovative, but most were not. The winners offered value and quality.

The cultures are very different between factories and skunk works. Order is needed in a factory, and "The nail that stands up gets hammered." HR policy changed from "get the best " to "hire to minimum qualifications." Why? Quotas and fairness. Quantity won over quality, process was king, and elites were distrusted.

My first mentor, a division manager at the old Collins Radio, bypassed the HR department for key employee staffing. He hired me out of graduate school. I wondered why I got two letters, one from HR rejecting me, and one from his office, with a job offer.

He said, "Oh, the people I get from them never do anything bad. It's just that they never do anything very good either." That was Bob Tollefson, Lord rest his soul. It was a great job. Conversely, some large firms now send managers to classes teaching them how to function less with less than excellent talent. Bob would disagree, but the future is yours, not his.

Please note that I am not taking sides. John- son's skunk works never produced anything with the commercial impact of a 747, microwave oven, cell phone, or PC. We now enjoy the best and most affordable mass-market products the world has ever seen. Even adequate talent is scarce in our age of abundance. Incredibly, some 40% of the workforce in the U.S. is illiterate [1].

Perhaps an "uplift strategy" is best for others to ponder. What are the consequences of these selection trends for you? Read my next column.

Endnote
[1] Ungson and Trudel, Engines of Prosperity. London, UK: Imperial College Press, 1998, Chapter 10. Citations are given. Popular newspapers have more recently placed this figure at well over 50% in some areas.

ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT REVIEW
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