Navigating The Void – Skills Growth without a Syllabus

Michael Walker, P.Eng., PE, PMP, Canada

Michael is a Senior Project Manager located in Regina, Canada, with 18 years of consulting and construction experience. Working at Associated Engineering, he helps his clients deliver a variety of municipal and nation building projects and programs across Western Canada, including work for private corporations, municipalities, provincial and federal governments including clients such as Parks Canada. These projects include traditional delivery models, as well as P3 and Design Builds.

Michael has a long history of contribution to FIDIC and ACEC-Canada through presentations, conference participation, committees, and working with DFS to deliver the FIDIC Future Leaders Management Certificate program. In these areas, Michael works to assist the progression of the industry to provide better value to clients and fellow consultants through training and the promotion of the growth of communication and other critical skills for business and life. In addition to his continued work as the Canadian representative for FIDIC’s Future Leaders Committee, Michael is an observer for the Capacity Building Committee and participates in the ACEC-SK Careers in Consulting Committee, which both aim to attract, advance skills, and retain people in the industry. Attending multiple FIDIC Conferences in person and virtually, Michael looks forward to attending in person and bringing his wife and three kids to the next conference to catch up with the many friends they have made over the years.

Kindergarten, grade school, university, then what? With my own children starting their journey of formal education, and myself having many years since my last course at university, I have been thinking more about the lack of structure that causes issues and stress for many young graduates in our industry.

Personally, I have been lucky to have a strong presence of “mentors” and structured growth throughout my career, provided either through individuals that had taken an interest in my success and growth or through organised plans provided by my employers. Unfortunately, this is not the case with many new graduates and especially intermediates, and I have received feedback that there is no “guide” or “syllabus” available for them to expand their skills after graduation.

It seems that these individuals are conditioned through formal education to see the logical progression of their learning but then are thrust out into the world without a path to follow. While some like myself find this wide-open space with a surplus of options very inviting, I cannot help but sympathise with those that did not have the assistance that I had.

So, what are we to do? I am personally not fond of the victim mentality for this case, where we could simply avoid the problem or blame our educational institutions for sending these people out into their careers without a guide of what to learn, read, and listen to.

Equally unproductive would be to blame our senior colleagues or firms for not providing this guidance as if they should have known that it was desired.

No, I would prefer to find a solution for this and help show these individuals that there is a surplus of information and options out there, and the risk would be that the syllabus could confine their growth to a single path.

I recently had the pleasure of reading a book (referred to me by a colleague) which contained a modified version of the Mark Twain quote:

“Don’t let schooling get in the way of your education. ” I found this usage of the quote in Jim Kwik’s book “Limitless”, and while I had heard this quote many times before, almost in a new context. It was years ago when a former colleague of mine encouraged me to stop complaining about having to find an organised course to expand my skills and start to read a variety of books, rather than just focussing on my technical knowledge. Following this advice, I have expanded my overall education and found that I could create my own path.

This is where I would call on the seniors in the industry to assist and encourage the continued effort of the juniors as they find their own route down the many paths. This can be achieved through discussions on the value of reading or even having a variety of books available at the firm that a curious junior can borrow and read (communication, negotiation, influence, insurance, risk, decision making, etc.).

One of the best discussions that I had on this topic of encouragement is when I attended a conference where they provided a copy of the book from one of the speakers, and in talking to the CEO, I put my copy of the book back, stating that I would buy a copy of the audiobook so I could “read” it during my drive or next flight easily. He very politely picked up the book, put it in my hand and said: “Take this, and put it somewhere in your office, and lend it to anyone interested in bettering themselves. Also, make sure that you expense the cost for the audiobook to the company.”. I questioned the value of this, and he replied: “Of the hundred people here, maybe half (50) will open the book, half of those (25) will read the first chapter, half of those (12.5) will read half the book, and half of those (6.25) will finish the book. At $20 per book, our cost will be $2,000, but the value that the firm will get out of those 6.25 people that read the entire book will provide the firm with an overall 10-100 times ROI at a MINIMUM ($200,000+ Revenue increase). This is the best money the company can spend, and an extra $20 for your audiobook is a drop in the bucket for the value that we BOTH will get. The fact that you will take in the knowledge in any form will put you in the top 10% of everyone here today.”. So… I read the books.

While this is not the likely path that you assumed this article would take, I commend you on being one of the 6.25% (if the CEO’s math was correct) that continue reading these articles and passing the knowledge onto your firms. This is important, as I have learned over many years that we as individuals do not need to learn all aspects of our industry ourselves or learn it from the start.

There are plenty of books (good and bad) that have been written on many subjects that we could all improve upon. The best path for growth is to teach your colleagues to shift from a “knower” to being “learners” who will continually expand their expertise and can share with others to expand their network intelligence. Reading a book is not hard to do, but starting the momentum is critical.

To close, I would like to thank you for investing in yourself, your firm, and your industry. I would like to challenge you to pass on some of the knowledge and books that you have read to the next