Coaching/Front Office Hires & Promotions 2023

[das (david shive)]

@Texifornia

I’ve been in organizations that were obsessive about quantifying everything. Everything needed a “metric”.

I remember an argument with a denizen of “Mahogany Row” about why we couldn’t automate or at least train new engineers to invent stuff at an ever increasing rate. I asked if I should call him at 3:00 AM when I was awake and sketching out the mechanism that solved the problem that had been churning in my head for weeks or more.

As I raised thru the ranks of one of the most engineering-centric corporations in the world (Lockheed Martin), I was struck by the words of the CEO, Vance Coffman, when he was talking to a bunch of us that had just been promoted into the junior executive ranks. My boss at the time was cut from the classic “what gets measured, gets done” model. Coffman, instead, said to us, “you are here because of your engineering, technical and business prowess, honed over years of training and experience. Any time you spend measuring and validating beyond 80% confidence is wasted time and effort. Don’t do it. Trust your experience.”

When I spent some time at Skunk Works, they talked about the same speech he gave them. Except he said the criteria was 60%.

These were some of the most impactful words I’ve heard in my career. And the context in which he said each is compelling and telling.

[VirtualBob]

This reminds me of something I learned a long time ago while developing chemical process plant design software. One of the piping engineers on our team gave us the three rules of constructing those mazes of pipes you always see at refineries and such:

1. Cut it to spec
2. Beat it to fit
3. Paint it to match