The Idol of Time: Leading Projects within the Confines of Reality

 

Welcome to your weekly 1 on 1, where I tackle some of your most challenging questions concerning Engineering, Global Leadership, Life in Japan, and more.

Today I'd like to offer a reflection on how to navigate the "Idol of Time".

I've always enjoyed working with my hands, particularly woodworking. It's a creative outlet that helps me detach from the pressures I experience at work. You see, any woodworking project is a process. It's not always linear, but still formulaic and culminating in something beautiful, functional, or ideally... both. I love the progression from an initial concept to eventually something that I can hold in my hands. But what drives me crazy, is that it is never fast. I always feel like any new project I take on expands in scope, complexity, and effort required to finish. Recently, I acquired a xTool D1 Pro 20w laser cutter to assist in some of my DIY activities. I was so excited about unboxing it and putting it through its paces. But each step of the process was layered with difficulty. I tried setting it up in my kitchen at first but almost set off the smoke detectors from charred wood.... not a big brain idea. So then I had to reorganize my entire garage and build a new shop table to accommodate the laser cutter. Upon the table's completion, I realized it wasn't level so that began another science project.

After multiple weeks I found myself back on track finally working on an engraved beer pong holder for an international food festival. This project was also layered with complexity, such as the cup holder tray being larger than my laser cutter bed could accommodate. This spiraled into multiple redesigns leading to me ultimately rough-cutting it with a jigsaw down to size and using the laser for cup holes and engraving. Here's links to the YouTube LIVE streams if you want to see me struggle:

Part I

Part II

Like any good project, this led me down to the wire. I completed it around 2:30 a.m. the morning of the event. This isn't the first time a project of mine has spiraled causing a desperate sprint to the finish. So why do we always end up here? And what should we do about it? Well, I think the problem resides in the way we idolize time and I have five suggestions on how we can overcome this limited mindset. Whether we trying to progress a project at work, get our kids to school, hit a quick workout, or carve out time for R&R... we consistently find ourselves chasing "extra" time. We compress our sleep schedules and honestly, our lives, trying to fit all those 30-minute boxes back to back. The pressure is definitely amplified in global leadership where we are often charged with developing and launching new products at an exceedingly unreasonable pace. This is driven by competition in the market and a necessity to appease shareholders... as well as serve a given customer base. Yet it is often the employees who bear the burden of this pacing and burnout is common across multiple industries. The risk is when the necessity for speed begins to outpace our ability to do the "right" work. In other words, as an organization we begin to value speed more than creating space for good ideas to mature over time. When we give ourselves over to the idol of time, we lose sight of what our customers truly need. We make tradeoffs, and compromises, and run our people into the dirt. Have you ever seen an exhausted person? They don't really seem like they're well-positioned to be creative and disruptive in their thinking. They're just trying to survive. So let's take it back to woodworking. It's a process: You fiddle around with an idea, try things out, fail, try again, fail, and then find a new path that might work well. You build little by little, giving each step the time it needs. Otherwise, you screw up and it cost you three times as much time to try again. You measure twice. You cut once. You sand the wood multiple times with different levels of grit until every corner is smooth to the touch. You stain it with a nice clear coat of polyurethane. You sand it again and give it a second coat. ... you sand it again... Then you marvel at the works your hands have made. It's a process that takes time. Eventually, you grow in competency and can do things faster. But you'll never grow if you're in too much of a hurry. That said, everyone around you is in a hurry. And your future career advancement is often connected with your ability to execute. But don't forget that the quality of what you execute is equally important (at least if you work in a healthy organization). So here are five ways you can dismantle the idolatry of time while still maintaining a strong reputation within your organization. 1. What would it take to... Early in my career, I was one of the first robotics controls engineers on a small team progressing a robotic surgical instrument. Little by little, robotics became more and more of a priority for Johnson & Johnson leading to a pressure to accelerate the platform. I had a great boss during that season of life who stood in the gap between executive leadership and the health/well-being of his team. He started getting asked "crazy" requests to cut months and even years off the development cycle of the project. And he never yes. Rather he connected with each member of his team, and asked, "What would it take to ______". For me, it was, "What would it take to accelerate your robotics controls workstream to pull in DV (Design Verification) testing by 8 months." This deceptively simple question is so powerful because it made me feel valued. I was an equal partner in the conversation with senior leadership through him. I made him aware of the complexity of controls, our lack of expertise (at the time), risks, resourcing needs, and opportunities to parallel path some aspects of development. As you experience idolatry of time, use, "What would it take to ____" to bring your leadership back within the confines of reality. This protects you and the well-being of your team while also providing you the opportunity to accelerate if support is given.

2. Where does _____ fit within overall prioritization... While it would be nice to be able to work within the simple confines of a singular "engineering silos", you would never really accomplish anything of significance. Innovation requires partnership between different working groups and subject matter experts.

Unfortunately, from a governance perspective, this makes the prioritization of tasks convoluted. We often get requests from a wide range of partners for more than we can physically do in a day. Early in our careers, we may feel a pressure to say yes to everyone and progress the work at the expense of self. As we start to mature we learn how to say no, but this is usually when we're on the edge of breakpoint and a manager has proactively stepped in. What I prefer to do, is ask, "Where does _______ fit within overall prioritization?" It's not condescending or rude. I simply need to know if the work is truly important, and when it needs to be completed in comparison to other things. There are literally hundreds of times that I've said this back to a manager, colleague, or support function and they paused. They reconsidered if the request really mattered, and sometimes they even retracted it. I sometimes supplement this expression with, "In comparison to ______ should I be prioritizing _______ instead?" This often forces a decision from a manager or sometimes an escalation across working groups if prioritization isn't aligned at a higher level. Either way, "Where does _____ fit within overall prioritization?" allows to you say no or yes with greater confidence and increases your reputation of being able to navigate tradeoffs.

3. A project is a circuit of resistors...

I know it's probably been a few years since you took Physics 101, but come on... V = IR. I loved calculating the resistance present in different combinations of series and parallel circuits. The process was therapeutic for me... like woodworking. Ya... I have problems. Any project you lead is like a circuit. There are certain aspects of the work that can be completed in parallel and there are others that must be done in series. The problem with idolatry of time, is we don't honor the reality of series development. There are some things that should not be done in parallel. It just won't work, yet we often try it "at risk". This is fine if your organization actually accepts the risk of failure when it doesn't work out. This is why tools like Microsoft Project & Jira are so helpful, as they allow you to visualize where things can be done in parallel (if there was extra resourcing) and what tasks are truly locked in Series. For instance, when there was a race to find a cure for COVID-19, many companies started mass production of their vaccines prior to a successful Phase I clinical trial. This meant that if they failed the clinical trial, then all the vaccines would be a huge economic hit on the companies. This is where the US government stepped in and subsidized development to offset those financial risks so a typical Series process (Phase I to Phase II to Phase III to Production) could be put in parallel. That said for many companies the game was over when they failed Phase I... which was a known risk. We often talk about the winners of this strategy, but not the losers.

4. Providing context (escalations)... This flows well into the concept of providing context to leadership prior to escalations. Often as messaging is cascaded vertically, nuance (context) can be lost. This is why questions like, "What would it take to ___" and "Where does ___ fit within prioritization" are so important. It's also helpful to be able to visualize to senior leaders which tasks are more efficiently done in Series vs Parallel. All of this is far better than saying yes and failing to meet the deliverable... or saying no and being perceived as underperforming. Rather, bring them into the nuance with concise clear examples, case studies, and data (at the correct level), and invite them to choose across various scenarios. For instance, if they require acceleration of Series work into Parallel, do they accept the business risk associated with that choice. Flip the accountability back to them so they can partner with you in the tradeoffs.

5. Essentialism & Contentment... Now I don't like plugging books, but one that has been very helpful for me is "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown. I have a lot of problems with this book, which I may save for a future blog post. That said I think he does a marvelous job encouraging people to recognize what work is essential to do, and what else needs to fall by the wayside. The start of your journey of breaking free from the idol of time is to recognize what you can and cannot do. Then start doing what is essential and strategically cut off the rest. But to reinforce this you need to find more contentment in yourself if actually do... do less. This may go against the very nature of who you are. For instance, I often do long-distance running. There are a lot of terrible and wonderful reasons I run, but one of which is the constriction of time. When I run 5 to 9 miles, I'm out on the trail for around two hours. I never get that time back for my "day job" or other personal commitments. I have to be content with doing less on Mondays because I was running in order to deep process the prior week and find vision for the coming one. It is a constant struggle to choose a long run versus progressing other things immediately. You have a long road ahead of you. The pressure to cheat the clock will never go away. Its how you navigate the pressure that will enable you to progress in all ...(actually only some) things. So may you find contentment as you break the idol of time and learn how to lead within the confines of reality. And as always, keep changing the world. ~ The Pretentious Engineer Quick Note: These writings come from the heart and are my own words. I don't use ChatGPT or any SEO optimization in my blog, because I think capturing my authentic voice is more meaningful than catering to Google's Algorithm. That said, if you find my writing helpful please consider subscribing as well as sharing today's post on your socials. I would rather see this grow by word of mouth through the power of community than chasing clicks. Also, if you have any questions that you'd like me to answer in a future post, feel free to comment on the post directly. I want to adapt my content to provide the most value to you on your own journey.