PEER-REVIEWED PAPER: SPECIAL SECTION ON EDUCATION

SUCCESSFUL CONSULTING ENGINEERING:

A LIFETIME OF LEARNING
By Patricia A. Hecker1

ABSTRACT: Individuals pursue engineering education to obtain the technical knowledge

necessary to pursue their dreams of practicing the engineering profession. However, profi-
ciency in "soft skills" may have as great an influence over an engineer's overall career
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success as technical competence. Engineering education faces many challenges. It is difficult

for institutions to provide in a typical undergraduate program a sound curriculum of engi-
neering fundamentals combined with courses in soft skills. Most of these soft skills are de-
veloped and refined over a lifetime. Ultimately, it is up to the individual to pursue lifelong
learning of these skills, and it is the role of employers and educators to instill in a student
the need and desire to hone these skills for the rest of their professional career. This paper
discusses (I) the need and importance of nontechnical skills to the consulting engineer; (2)
the importance of providing basic soft skills training in engineering undergraduate programs;
and (3) specific measures that organizations can take to promote lifelong learning of these
skills. Keeping existing clients happy and attracting new clients is a challenge for even the
most successful consulting engineering firms. Many firms recognize the influence that em-
ployees have over organizational success. It takes highly skilled engineers to attract and retain
clients. Clients want to work with multifaceted engineers who can handle the technical, com-
munication, and management aspects of a project. Engineers who are consistently able to live
up to these demands are rare, and have typically developed their skills and abilities over the
course of years of learning and practice. This broadened definition of what is important poses
a real challenge to educational institutions. "Engineering" is a broad field that includes many
specialties. Engineering students must master an array of engineering fundamentals and nu-
merous specialty courses to allow them to focus on a particular engineering discipline. Com-
bine all of this with some general studies, such as a basic writing course, and a smattering
of humanities or social science courses, and you have easily taken up four to five years of
undergraduate studies. The technical foundation that a typical engineering undergraduate pro-
gram now provides will not be enough to allow engineers to be truly effective in consulting
engineering. Most firms desire to employ new graduates with client relations skills. The
teaching of these skills has not typically been a significant emphasis of engineering education.
If the basic purpose of formal engineering education is to provide an opportunity for the
individuals to learn fundamental engineering principles, why is so much more needed by
employers? Simply put, the business of consulting engineering now demands more. Times
have changed and the changes continue at an ever-increasing rate. What made consulting
engineers thrive in the past will not necessarily lead to future success. More aggressive com-
petitors and more demanding clients require that engineers develop a whole range of skills
beyond technical competence.

THERE ARE NO INSTANT SOLUTIONS and computer-generated everything. Unfortunately, "soft

In today's world we desire and expect quick, easy so-
lutions. We can have instant meals, quick transportation,
'Vice Pres., Olsson Assoc., 11II Lincoln Mall, Lincoln, NE 68508.
Note. Discussion open until May I, 1998. To extend the closing
date one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Man-
ager of Journals. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for
review and possible publication on August I, 1997. This paper is part
of the Journal of Management in Engineering, Vol. 13, No.6, No-
vemberlDecember, 1997. ©ASCE, ISSN 0742-597X197/0006-0062-
0065/$4.00 + $.50 per page. Paper No. 15417.
62/ JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING 1 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1997
skills," particularly communication skills, take years of
practice to develop.
What are some of the nontechnical job duties that
emerge as an engineer's career progresses? Table 1 gives
just a sample of the types of nontechnical responsibilities
that might surface in a career in consulting engineering
(Fisher and Ury 1991; Mira 1995; Rees 1991).The key
to the mastery of most of these soft skills is the ability
to communicate effectively.
People develop styles of human interaction and com-
munication at a very young age-almost from birth.

J. Manage. Eng. 1997.13:62-65.

 TABLE 1. What Are "Soft Skills," and How Are They Used?
Responsibility/duty Some of the soft skills/expertise required
(1) (2)
Negotiate contracts The ability to:
• Listen actively
• Speak to be understood
• Separate the people from the problem
• Identify interests
• Invent options for mutual gain
Write proposals Ability to:
• Determine project issues, and develop a unique approach
• Write correctly and persuasively
• Portray technical issues in a down-to-earth, friendly manner on paper
• Convince others, in writing, that you are someone they will want to work with
Author studies, reports, papers, letters Ability to:
• Determine in advance what the client expects, and how the written document will be used
• Write grammatically correct, clear, concise communications that meet client needs and expectations
• Relay technical issues and topics in a straightforward, understandable manner
Supervise employees Ability to:
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• Provide constructive feedback

• Encourage excellence and continual improvement
• Provide vision and direction
• Inspire & motivate
Client relations and communications Ability to:
• Listen actively
• Resolve conflict
• Help clients determine what they need
• Share technical information with a nontechnical audience
• Make a friend
Lead work teams Ability to:
• Facilitate meetings
• Manage group processes
• Encourage participation
• Get consensus
• Lead by example
~ake presentations Ability to:
• Understand audience needs (technical, nontechnical)
• Use effective verbal and nonverbal communication in front of groups
• Appear poised, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and confident in front of others
• Organize and present materials in a concise, interesting manner

Character-driven behaviors are like weeds: deeply rooted
and difficult to remove. Mark Twain once said, "Habit
is habit and not be flung out of the windows by any
man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time." Students
must understand that once they graduate they are em-
barking on a lifetime journey of self-improvement in de-
veloping these soft skills.
WHAT IT TAKES TO BE SUCCESSFUL
Early in an engineer's career they may find themselves
increasingly presented with job tasks that are nontech-
nical in nature. School may have prepared them to cal-
culate moments of inertia or beam deflections, but were
they instructed on how to write a project approach for a
proposal or how to determine the needs of a particular
client? Probably not.
There are at least three areas that are vital to success-
ful engineering firms: client relations/project manage-
ment, marketing, and people management. The follow-
ing identifies some of the skills and competencies that
are important for each of these areas.
Client relations. In the consulting field it is almost
certain that at some point an engineer will have direct
contact with clients. Most consulting firms realize that
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1997/63
if they want repeat business from their clients, they need
to provide a high level of service. Research indicates that
clients generally define quality service as good com-
munications, building a positive relationship with the cli-
ent, collaboration between the consultant and the client,
and proactive project management (Hecker 1995). This
requires considerable skills in communications, manage-
ment, and teamwork.
When people identify with each other, they typically
share a cooperative relationship (Richardson 1987). En-
gineers can become so engrossed in finding technical
solutions to problems that they fail to understand, and
thus neglect, the social relationships involved in projects.
Building a relationship with a client requires active lis-
tening skills, the ability to show concern and empathy,
and a positive attitude. Strong rapport must be devel-
oped.
Marketing. The primary commodity that consulting
engineers have to sell is their time and knowledge. A
consulting engineer's livelihood depends on clients who
will hire him or her to work on their projects. If con-
sulting engineers are not billing time, income does not
come in the door.
What makes a client hire a particular engineer? Clients

J. Manage. Eng. 1997.13:62-65.

 tend to assume that engineers are technically competent.
Being a great communicator, a great manager, and a
great team player can make the difference as to whether
a client wants to work with a specific engineer. Imagine
you are a client and you have the choice between work-
ing with the following two engineers:
Engineer A: Technically sound. Quiet, introverted, not a
proactive communicator. Speaks when spoken to. Speaks
in technical terms you do not always understand. Does
not show much interest in you personally, but seems to
care deeply about the technical aspects of his work.
Engineer B: Technically sound. Quiet, introverted, yet
keeps you informed. Calls you to keep you updated and
to get your input. Speaks in technical terms, yet has a
way of summarizing that helps you understand the issue.
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Takes a personal interest in you, seems to care about
your opinions and concerns.
Which engineer would you hire for your next job?
One of the biggest mistakes professionals make in
selling is that they assume they know all the answers,
and fail to listen (Boress 1995). In order to successfully
bring in work a consultant must have (or develop) chem-
istry with the client, understand their needs and desires,
know that the client is committed to action and able to
pay, understand and be able to influence the decision-
making process, and be able to finalize the agreement.
This takes considerable interpersonal and communica-
tion skills.
People management. Today we readily acknowledge
that on successful projects people can make the differ-
ence between success and failure (Culp and Smith 1992).
Put differently, most problems that occur on projects are
not technical in nature, but the result of some breakdown
in communication between people. In a team approach
decision making is shared, information and ideas are ex-
changed freely, goals are mutually determined, and in-
dividuals have ownership (Albrecht 1986). People work
with each other to allocate resources and to solve prob-
lems. It is the rare manager who is able to effectively
harness all of this people power effectively. Effective
managers need to promote collaboration, motivate their
staff, provide honest feedback, promote beneficial
change, and be inspirational. Strong communication
skills are essential to effectively accomplishing these
tasks.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ENGINEERING
EDUCATION?
Many people are presently concerned that engineering
schools are not placing enough emphasis on soft skills.
However, while most of society is not consciously aware
of it, we rely on the technical expertise of engineers for
our everyday living. For our safety and well being,
newly graduated engineers must have a solid understand-
ing of engineering fundamentals. An engineering under-
graduate program should serve primarily for the mastery
64/ JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1997
J. Manage. Eng. 1997.13:62-65.
of certain technical skills of the profession. These skills
are the foundation for a career as an engineer.
It would be ideal if undergraduate programs could also
provide a basic foundation in soft skills. However, this
probably is not realistic. As a result of the Civil Engi-
neering Education Conference (CEEC 95) actions were
recommended for general engineering curriculum, in-
cluding faculty development, use of guest speakers as
role models, and integration of teamwork and leadership
skills in design and lab courses (Russell et al. 1996).
Instructors who effectively model these skills will further
demonstrate their importance and augment learning. It is
also important that engineering educators stress to stu-
dents that they will need to work on improving these
skills for many years. Adoption of these recommenda-
tions would be a positive step toward improving engi-
neering education.
However, learning cannot stop with graduation. Con-
sulting firms need well-rounded engineers who are solid
communicators and people managers. Consulting firms
must strategically build on the foundation started in
school. Since firms need and expect their employees to
be outstanding service providers, the firms must be the
catalyst for this continual learning.
How can firms contribute to this learning process?
Here are some specific ideas of what firms can do to
encourage this kind of skill building.
Make improvement a requirement. Employees must
understand that their college degree was not the end of
their learning, it was only the beginning. The organiza-
tion needs to integrate and reinforce the learning of soft
skills into all aspects of employment. It takes a great
deal of initiative, time, and effort to improve. If em-
ployees are told this is important, but they see no benefit
in putting in the effort it will take, it's likely they won't
make progress. Firms should recognize and reward im-
provement of these skills in both the performance ap-
praisal and compensation programs.
Insist that senior staff model the behavior. According
to Bandler and Grinder (1979) "modeling," or trying to
pattern your actions and behaviors after the effective
styles and methods of others, is an useful learning tool.
Senior staff must reflect the behaviors you want others
to emulate. Keep in mind that recent graduates may have
more formal soft skills training than some of your senior
staff. Most younger employees expect to work in a team-
oriented environment where decision making is shared.
If your senior staff members display a more traditional
management style, or if their communications skills are
not up to par, younger staff may seek happiness· else-
where.
Consider whether your senior staff model the behav-
iors that you want your younger staff to emulate. If not,
some intense, high-level training may be in order.
Expand teamwork beyond engineering projects. Find
ways to involve staff in group activities that may be
unrelated to the engineering discipline. Most firms have
unresolved issues that tend to get ignored because no
one has the time to deal with them. Some examples
might be standards for specifications, guidelines for field
 personnel, or cataloguing of drawings. Young staff could
work on teams to address these types of issues. This
builds communication and teamwork skills and has the
added benefits of allowing more involvement and input
into operations.
Provide a library of available reading. Firms should
make some small investment each year in books related
to self-improvement on topics such as communications
or management. It is important to catalogue each pur-
chase, perhaps on a "library" database software pack-
age. Once it is on computer, continually make employees
aware that you have these resources, and encourage their
use. Consider starting an internal "book club" where
members take turns reviewing each new book the firm
purchases. This facilitates the sharing of new ideas, en-
courages others to read, and helps improve presentation
skills all in one activity.
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Teach your employees to be good service providers.
The first step is to determine what your clients feel con-
stitutes "good service." It is likely that your clients will
stress communication. Many do not consider client ser-
vice as a skill that needs to be taught-but it is. In order
to provide good service, your employees need to know
what good service is as defined by your clients, and how
to meet those expectations. Consider developing your
own internal "client service university."
Provide training. Employees should receive training in
particularly important competencies, such as presenta-
tions skills and conflict resolution techniques. How com-
fortable are you with having an employee's first presen-
tation occur with a job on the line? This approach is
probably not in the best interests of the organization, and
puts great pressure on the employee. Undoubtedly, at
some point engineers will have to deal with concerned
clients, annoyed contractors, or even irate citizens while
working on projects. It is important that before your jun-
ior staff finds themselves in these situations, they have
some acquired some conflict resolution skills. Both of
these subjects are best learned through role playing, and
tak~ years of practice. Since both senior and junior staff
r.eed to work on these skills, some internal training in-
volving all staff at least once a year will provide a non-
threatening way to learn.
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1997/65
J. Manage. Eng. 1997.13:62-65.
Encourage involvement. Get staff involved in the en-
gineering profession as well as the community. This is
a great way to build confidence and communications
skills, and has added benefits, such as technical devel-
opment, networking, and positive public relations.
IN CONCLUSION
A successful engineering career usually requires much
more than technical knowledge. Engineering education
programs face many challenges to expand their role to
provide both technical learning as well as training to
young engineers in soft skills. These skills are critical to
an engineer's future effectiveness and success. Because
these skills cannot be mastered in a day, organizations
that employ engineers are also faced with the challenge
of how to train and refine soft skills. Since these skills
are vital to organizational success, firms must take it
upon themselves to see that employees have the oppor-
tunity to master these skills.
APPENDIX. REFERENCES
Albrecht. K. (1986). Personal power. Shamrock Press. San Diego,
Calif.
Bandler, R., and Grinder, J. (1979). Frogs into princes. Real People
Press. Moab, Utah.
Boress. A. S. (1995). The "/ hate selling" book: business-building
advice for consultants, attorneys, accountants, engineers, archi-
tects, and other professionals. Am. Mgmt. Assoc., New York, N.Y.
Culp. G., and Smith. A. (1992). Managing people (including yourself)
for project success. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, N.Y.
Fisher, R.. and Ury, W. (1991). Getting to yes: negotiating agreement
without giving in. Penguin Books, New York. N.Y.
Hecker. P. A. (1995). "Client perceptions of service quality in con-
sulting engineering: a multiple case study," thesis. Doane College,
Crete, Neb.
Mira. T. K. (1995). Speak now or forever fall to pieces: the art of
public speaking. Random House, Inc.• New York, N.Y.
Rees, F. (1991). How to lead work teams. Pfeiffer & Co., San Diego,
Calif.
Richardson. J. (1987). The magic of rapport: how you can gain per-
sonal power in any situation. Meta Publications, Capitola, Calif.
Russell. J., Yao, J. T. P., Farr. J. v., Bishop, J. C., and Walesh. S.
(1996). Consensus: students need more management. J. Mgmt. in
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