The learning never stops: lessons for engineers beginning careers during and post COVID-19

A few years back I had the privilege to give the occasional address at the graduation ceremony for the Engineering and IT faculty at @University Technology Sydney. 

As engineering students across the world continue to study remotely and hopefully go on to graduate soon, there is an argument that this point in history could be one of the most critical for our profession.

Our job as problems solvers could be more important than ever. You could argue that there’s a fair few wicked problems facing the world right now that will need creative engineers, and other professions, to be at our innovative best.

I reflected recently that the sentiment in my address rings true now just as it did when I delivered it in 2017, perhaps even more so.

As so I thought it worthwhile to republish the address now in the hope that it might resonate with some engineering students currently studying remotely looking for inspiration as to what might await them when they graduate.

For all the engineers out there beginning their careers, congratulations and buckle up – it’s bound to be an interesting ride.

Occasional Address UTS Graduation Ceremony

Pro-Chancellor Mr Robert Kelly, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President Professor William Purcell, Associate Dean Rob Jarman, members of the Academic Board, staff, graduates and their proud family and friends, it is with great pleasure that I join with you today in celebrating the graduation of this years engineering students into the influential, innovative and future-shaping profession of engineering.

My use of each those three adjectives is intentional – in case you were wondering if I’d mistaken today as the ceremony for English majors.

You’ve chosen an incredible profession, during one of the most significant periods in history. I am, frankly, even a little bit jealous, but I will get to that later. 

But first…to the graduates, today is about you. I congratulate you on your achievement and the journey you are about to embark upon. You are part of a profession that over the course of history has shaped agendas and economies just as much as it has our physical world.

It is a career like very few others – one in which your efforts can have an enormous impact on the lives and wellbeing of communities and societies tomorrow and into the future. 

Just imagine being able to assist in spurring weak economies to growth; or bringing enormous benefits to the sick, needy and disadvantaged. This is what being an engineer is all about.

Today is about what you are. From tomorrow it will be about who you are.  

To the academic staff and to the university, you also have much to be proud of today. Today is also about you.

You have readied these young people to shape our tomorrow. Our communities and economies will be reliant on the skills and thinking you have imparted to these graduates to be the shapers of the better world we so desperately need. We owe you our appreciation for the sharing of your knowledge and wisdom; for passing it on to the next generation.

To each graduate’s proud family and friends, you too are deserving of our sincerest gratitude. Today is also your day.

Thank you for the guidance and advice you have given them along the path of learning and of course the ongoing support you will provide as they embark on their career journey. As with any journey, there will be highs and lows. It is your support in being their loudest cheerleader at times of success as well as their strongest bedrock of support when things do not go as planned that will always be valued.

I am sure that you feel an immense sense of heart swelling pride as you watch your sons, daughters, partners, friends and siblings receive the qualifications they have worked so hard to achieve. I am also sure that their actions will continue to make that pride grow stronger.

 I congratulate you all on the role you have played in contributing to where we find ourselves today. Each and every role represented in this hall today is symbiotic and important.

Today is about each one of you. No-one can whistle a symphony…that takes an orchestra. Today would not have been possible to its fullest extent without you. 

 And therein lies the first piece of advice and encouragement I want to give today’s graduating class. It probably won’t be as popular as Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’ – but it’s just as important.

Look around you, at the sea of faces. You are who you are and where you are today because of the accumulation of experiences you have had along the way and the interactions and support of the people around you. Knowingly or unknowingly you have around you a team of supporters, mentors, educators and future colleagues who have all contributed to ‘team you’.

Your celebration is their celebration because your achievement/OR success is part of their achievement/OR success.

And so it will be for the rest of your career.

You will be both the product and beneficiary of being in a team. Every single ongoing achievement in your career will be better than what it otherwise would have been if you are part of a great team.

The challenges that we now face are of such complexity that all relevant domain knowledge cannot possibly reside within a single mind. To find the simplicity on the other side of complexity it will be teamwork that will make the dream work.

Sometimes you will be the leader of the team and sometimes your greatest achievement is being the support staff on someone else’s team – just ask any parent how true this is…there was someone who believed you could tie your shoelaces before you could tie your shoelaces!

Remembering this will allow you to achieve far more than what you ever could on your own. If teamwork means never having to take all the blame; it should also mean we never take all the credit.

When I reflect back on my own career, growing up in a small country town on the west coast of Ireland – I honestly did not know what I wanted to do. I knew that I had a passion for wanting to make a difference but I was unsure of the pathway that would give me that opportunity. I feel both lucky and privileged to have made the choice to become an engineer and grateful for the experiences I have had.

 Little did I know at the time that my career, i.e. engineering, would enable me to work on four continents or to work with one of the worlds most inspiring architects, Frank Gehry, designer of the Dr Chau Chak Wing building here at UTS as I breathed life in to the architects sculptural forms .

I chose a profession that would take me to a global position in which I would be responsible as Chief Innovation Officer for shaping the innovative thinking of thousands of others, in the only professional services company ever to be rated in the top 5 most innovative companies in Australia. It is a group of 7500 creative minds that each day deploy their intellect and creativity to design the infrastructure that keeps our cities moving, and pulsing with water, energy and data.

I am often asked why now, in this moment in history, does an engineering company need someone in charge of innovation as part of its strategy and leadership? Surely innovation is something we all innately do and understand? Surely it something that comes naturally within the profession of being an engineer?

 The answer is a little complicated but I believe it is instructive and influential to what we need engineers to be in the future. We live in a time unlike any other in the history of mankind. Comparisons are often made to other periods of significant change, such as the industrial revolution, a golden age of advancement in many of the fields of engineering, or the renaissance.

 Whilst these were all times of immense transformation, I believe that the change we are seeing now is of an even greater quality and intensity.

The very nature of problems is changing. In the past the problems we solved were often complicated, but were well defined. They had boundaries with specific outcomes to be achieved. Today, thanks to the digital world, we can now see the interdependence and the inter-relationship of all things. We have greater foresight into the consequences, both intended and unintended, of our efforts. No longer is the input data nice and structured. No longer are the goal posts fixed.

No longer are all outputs or inputs within our control, and yet we still need to address the parameters and find elegance in a solution that will often be at the intersection of where things pull apart.

Right now, at this time, I believe we need engineers to be more innovative than ever. The laws of physics and engineering, which are in fact the laws of nature, give us the mindset and passion for finding balance and restoring equilibrium to the environment and the world in which we live.

 Innovating is a verb and not a noun. It is a doing word.

Its a way of thinking and a way of creating something better for us all. It is a mindset disposition that is deeply cultural. It is about thinking what might be rather than what is. It is unleashing your imagination and blending it with your deep technical knowledge to find new ideas and new solutions to the world’s most confounding problems.

We are at a time in history when the physical world can take on new meaning and new amplifications through the digital world, where consumer behaviour changes rapidly and supply chains are in a constant state of flux as they are redrafted around the world.

Innovating means staying relevant in a highly volatile and uncertain world where we no longer know the solution before starting and finding the right problem is the problem itself.

An innovative mindset is no longer an option but a necessity in the toolkit of today’s engineer.

Your tools need to be the sharpest they have ever been if we are to find the answers to the energy and water crises our communities face, the answers for climate change and climate resilience, aging populations and burgeoning cities.

Of all the professions it is the engineer who is educated in the sciences from which the solutions to these problems will emerge. It is both our burden and our passion that makes this profession like no other.

If at any time you choose to leave engineering and pursue another career path, the statistics show you seldom come back.

Engineers are now in high demand by organisations from many other industry sectors, but choose wisely as you are unlikely to find any other career that can be so impactful to so many people’s lives than the profession you are in right now.

When I prepared this occasional address, I wrote a letter to myself, my twenty one year old self, a ‘Dear John’ letter (although far more cheerful) containing advice accumulated over thirty years of mistakes, failures, successes and celebrations. After numerous redrafts, I distilled that same letter down to four key points which I would like to share with you now:

·      First – never stop learning. See your career as a lifelong continuum and partnership between you and the infinite body of knowledge that exists to be learned. Your life and your impact will be the richer for it.

·      Second - Seek out people who inspire you and learn from them. Listening with intent to the stories of others is a skill to be developed and nurtured.

·     Third -  Collaborate selflessly. Put self-interest to one side as little good has ever come from putting self above others. Share your knowledge with the courage of your conviction that in doing so, your interests will be looked after in the long run.

·      And last - Constantly see the bigger picture of the impact that you have on the world around you and behave in such a way that the people sitting in this audience will be as proud of you today as they are of the actions you undertake during the coming decades.

In concluding, I congratulate you once more on your achievements today and the achievements you are yet to accomplish as part of thousands of incredible teams.

You have made everyone proud; and I know you will continue to do that as you shape the world and communities we need tomorrow.

Don’t resolve to make a difference ‘one day’. Make this your ‘day one’ of making that difference.

Thank you.