ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT

AND LEADERSHIP
Where did we come from?
Where are we going?
How do we get there?
Professor Thomas W. Eagar
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

If its green, its BIOLOGY

If it stinks, its CHEMISTRY
If it doesnt work, its PHYSICS
If it works but no one knows why, its
ENGINEERING

The scientist explains that which exists;

The engineer creates that which never was.
Theodore von Karman

Engineer - Noun
(from French to contrive)
Builder of military engines
Person who designs, invents,
or contrives
Person who runs or supervises
complex technical machinery
Person engaged in occupation
requiring special skill
Person who carries through
an enterprise or brings about a
result, especially by skillful or
artful contrivance

Military engineer
Schemer
Railroad engineer
Sanitary engineer

-----

Engineer - verb

To contrive or plan out usually with

more or less subtle skill or craft; to
guide the course of: manage or
supervise during development

 Ingenieur: from old French engeigneur a war machine

All of these words derive from the Latin
genius meaning
- A divine spirit presiding at birth
- A talent, natural gift

 ENGINEERING IS THE APPLICATION

OF SCIENCE FOR HUMAN BENEFIT
ENGINEERING = PROBLEM SOLVING

Scope of Engineering
If Engineering = Problem Solving
-

Does this mean any problem?

or only problems dealing with a

technology component

There is with scientific men, a general

awakening to fact that the highest destiny of
science is not to accumulate the truths of
nature in a form no one but the select few
can utilize, but that the search for truth can
be combined with a judicious attempt to
make the truth serve the public good
Prof. William H. Walker, 1911

Engineering involves the application of:

Tools

Scientific and mathematical principles, to the

What?

Design, Construction and Operation of

- Structures
- Equipment, and
- Systems, in an

How?

- Economic
- Efficient
- Socially responsible manner

From MIT Committee Report on Hiring and Promotion of Faculty

Interested in Big E Engineering, September 15, 1996

The Scope of Engineering

Engineering Science < ==== > Engineering Management

History of Engineering

1802 - West Point Academy - U.S. Army Corps of

Engineers - military engineers
1824 - Rensselaer School - For the purpose of
instructing personsin the application of science
to the common purposes of life
- First school of Civil Engineering

Engineering Disciplines
1824
1865
1865
1873
1885
1888
1893
1910
1958
1974

Civil Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Mining Engineering
Metallurgical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Naval Architecture
Aeronautical Engineering
Nuclear Engineering
Materials Engineering

History of Engineering
1873 - 1917 Harvard tries to purchase MIT three times.
Supreme Court of MA says the land grant charter cannot
be transferred - Harvard starts their own school of
engineering - now the Harvard Business School
1941 - 1945 Science and Engineering help win WWII
1950 Alfred Sloan of General Motors endows the
Sloan School of Management - Department of Business
and Industrial Management becomes the Sloan School of
Management
1957 Russians launch Sputnik - U.S. sees a
science/technology gap

Durable Qualities All Engineers

Should Have
A good grasp of engineering science fundamentals
-

Mathematics
Physical and life sciences

A good understanding of the design process (i.e.

understand engineering)
A basic understanding of the context in which
engineering is practiced
-

Economics
History
Manufacturing
Customer needs

Durable Qualities All Engineers

Should Have
Good communication skills
Written
Verbal
Graphic
Listening
An ability to think both critically and creatively independently and cooperatively
Flexibility - an ability and the self confidence to adapt to
rapid/major change
A profound understanding of the importance of teamwork
Source: Boeing

Undergraduate BS Engineering Degrees

Worldwide Total
China
Russia
Japan
United States
South Korea
Germany
Mexico
India
United Kingdom
France
Total of Top Ten
Prepared from NSF data Table 4-15 by D.T. Moore, OSTP, September 1999

866,771
148,600
131,800
102,951
63,400
41,300
39,800
34,200
29,000
23,300
20,600
634,951

% of BS/BA Degrees
13.8
45.7
32.4
19.6
5.4
21.0
18.7
17.9
28.0
9.3
18.9
73

Undergraduate BS Engineering Degrees

(In order of % of Total BS/BA Degrees)
China
Russia
Slovak Republic
Singapore
Finland
Czech Republic
South Korea
Columbia
Croatia
Japan
Belgium
Worldwide

148,600
131,800
3,624
1,676
3,804
4,338
41,300
11,036
1,549
102,951
2,513
866,711

45.7
32.4
31.1
29.9
25.2
21.5
21.0
20.4
20.2
19.6
19.5
13.8

Too long have our schools of applied science and

technology been regarded as affording an inferior
substitute for classical colleges. Too long have
the graduates of such schools been spoken of as
though they had acquired the arts of livelihood at
some sacrifice of mental, intellectual culture, and
grace of life
Francis A. Walker
President, MIT, 1891

Masters Degree Comparisons

MS Engineering

MBA

Two years
Immediately after BS
No work experience
Paid stipend/tuition
$55K starting salary
No decision making
responsibility

Two years
2-5 years after BS
2-5 year work experience
$60-70K in debt
$70-105K starting salary
Decision making
responsibility

Which of these degrees does society value most

highly?

The fundamental problem with

Business Schools is that they
teach management and not
leadership.

A leader seeks to help others;

A manager seeks to control others.

LEADERS VS MANAGERS
The Generalstab tried desperately for a
hundred years to train up a generation of
leaders for the German army; but it never
worked, because the men who delighted
their superiors, i.e., the managers, got the
high commands, while the men who
delighted the lower ranks, i.e., the leaders,
got reprimands.
Hugh W. Nibley

LEADERS VS MANAGERS
Leaders are movers and shakers, original, inventive, unpredictable,
imaginative, full of surprises that discomfit the enemy in war and the
main office in peace. For the managers are safe, conservative,
predictable, conforming organization men and team players, dedicated
to the establishment.
The leader, for example, has a passion for equality. We think of great
generals from David and Alexander on down, sharing their beans or
maza with their men, calling them by their first names, marching along
with them in the heat, sleeping on the ground, and being first over the
wall
From Leaders to Managers:
The Fatal Shift
Hugh W. Nibley

LEADERS VS MANAGERS
For the manager, the idea of equality is repugnant
and even counterproductive. When promotion,
perks, privilege, and power are the name of the
game, awe and reverence for rank is everything,
the inspiration and motivation of all good men.
Where would management be without the
inflexible paper processing, dress standards,
attention to proper social, political, and religious
affiliation, vigilant watch over habits and attitudes,
that gratify the stockholders and satisfy security?
Hugh W. Nibley

How can you determine whether you

want to work for a company before
you even walk through the
doorway?
Look for the number of assigned
spaces in the parking lot.

LEADERS VS MANAGERS
Managers do not promote individuals whose
competence might threaten their own position; and
so as the power of management spreads ever wider,
the quality deteriorates (if that is possible). In
short, while management shuns equality, it feeds
on mediocrity.
On the other hand, leadership is an escape from
mediocrity
The leader being simply the one who sets the highest
example
Hugh W. Nibley

LEADERS VS MANAGERS

True leaders are inspiring because they are

inspired, caught up in a higher purpose,
devoid of personal ambition, idealistic, and
incorruptible.
Hugh W. Nibley

A LEADER
Gets the Right Things Done
Does More Than is Required
Balances Professional and Personal
Responsibilities
Respects the Contributions of Everyone
Contributes to the Community
Takes Initiative
Follows Others When Not Leading

It must be considered that there is nothing

more difficult to carry out, nor more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to
handle, than to initiate a new order of
things.
Machiavelli

The mind is not a receptacle; information is

not education.
Education is what remains after the
information that has been taught has been
forgotten.
Robert M. Hutchins

Character is the aim of true education

and science, history, and literature are but means

used to accomplish this desired end. True
education seeks to make men and women not
only good mathematicians, proficient linguists,
profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights,
but also honest people with virtue, temperance,
and brotherly love. It seeks to make men and
women who prize truth, justice, wisdom,
benevolence, and self-control as the choicest
acquisitions of a successful life.
David O. McKay

Before I came here I was confused about this

subject.
Having listened to your lecture I am still
confused, but on a higher level.
Enrico Fermi

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the

ability to hold two opposed ideas in the
mind at the same time, and still retain the
ability to function. One should, for example,
be able to see that things are hopeless and
yet be determined to make them otherwise.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

The object of a liberal education is not to

teach the young all they will ever need to
know. It is to give them the habits, ideas,
and techniques that they need to continue to
educate themselves. Thus, the object of
formal institutional liberal education in
youth is to prepare the young to educate
themselves throughout their lives.
Robert M. Hutchins

If you want to be successful professionally,

First, learn to do your job in 40 hours per
week, and
Then, work 80 hours per week.