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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Title: The paradoxical mindset of systems engineers : uncommon minds, skills, and careers / Arthur Pyster, Nicole Hutchison, Devanandham Henry.
Description: Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, 2018. | Series: Wiley series in systems engineering and management | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018016657 (print) | LCCN 2018028240 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119412151 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781119412168 (ePub) | ISBN 9781119412144 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Systems engineering–Vocational guidance. | Engineers–Psychological aspects.
Set in 10/12pt Times by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India
We dedicate this book to our families, who have patiently supported us through what seemed like an endless cycle of drafting, reviewing, and redrafting. Our spouses, Ginny, Brad, and Julia, and our children, Jeffrey, Nicole, Matthew, Xander, and Cathy, inspire us in everything we do.
About the Authors
1 Paradoxical Mindset 1
What is Systems Engineering? 3
Being a Systems Engineer 4
Book Structure 5
Career Development “Ecosystem” for Systems Engineers 10
A Short Summary of the Helix Project 10
Vignettes 13
Notes and References 13
2 Six Uncommon Values 15
The Parable of the Three Stonecutters 15
What is Greatness, Anyhow? 16
Value 1: Keep and Maintain The System Vision 19
Value 2: Translate Technical Jargon Into Business or Operational Terms and Vice Versa 23
Value 3: Enable Diverse Teams to Successfully Develop Systems 26
Value 4: Manage Emergence in Both the Project and the System 29
Value 5: Enable Good Technical Decisions at the System Level 31
Value 6: Support the Business Case for the System 34
How Others View Systems Engineers 36 Notes and References 37
Roles Focused on the Systems Being Developed 44
Roles Focused on Systems Engineering Process and Organization 47
Roles Focused on Teams that Build Systems 49
Relationship between Roles and Values 51
Art Pyster at Digital Sound Corporation 51
Systems Engineers Often Perform Management Roles 53
Seniority 54
Three Systems Engineers with Increasing Seniority 65
69
Engineering Proficiency Cluster 76
Systems Proficiency Cluster 83
Professional Proficiency Cluster 93
Example Positions 104
Systems Engineers are Π‐Shaped 106
The Whole Package 109 Notes and References 110
Case 1: Japanese Bullet Train: Fast, Frequent, Safe, and Punctual 114
Case 2: Boeing 777: Maintaining the Vision from Start to End 119
Case 3: Healthcare.gov: Disastrous Start, Incredible Recovery 127
and References 131
Exemplar
7 Three Forces
Force 1: Experiences 147
Force 2: Mentoring 153
Force 3: Education & Training 158
Force Multipliers 160
Notes and References 170
Nicole Hutchison Grows into a Systems Engineer 175
Two Datasets about Senior Systems Engineers 177 Four Questions 180
The Education of Systems Engineers 181
The Experiences of Chief Systems Engineers 187
Cathy’s Career Revisited 195
Career Maps for Pyster and Hutchison 197
Notes and References 199
9 Secondarily a Systems Engineer 201
Classic Engineers 203
Program and Project Managers 212
Notes and References 218 10
Looking Ahead 220
How a Junior or Mid‐Level Systems Engineer Can Thrive 223
How a Classic Engineer, Who is Secondarily a Systems Engineer, Can Thrive 223
How a Manager of Systems Engineers Can Thrive 228
How an Executive Can Thrive 229
Closing Thoughts 229
Notes and References 232
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Arthur (Art) Pyster has more than 40 years of experience as a researcher, engineer, educator, executive, and manager in government, industry, and academia. He has been involved with leading‐edge systems and technologies in telecommunications, aerospace, defense, air traffic control, and information technology domains and has led software and systems engineering workforce development efforts in both industry and government. Currently, he is the Associate Dean for Research in George Mason University’s Volgenau School of Engineering, where he is also a Professor of Systems Engineering. In his previous position, he was a Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Systems and Enterprises at Stevens Institute of Technology, the Chief Operating Officer of the Systems Engineering Research Center, and the Director for Academic Matters for the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). Among his earlier positions, he was the Senior Vice President and Director of Systems Engineering and Integration for SAIC and the Deputy Chief Information Officer and Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at the US Federal Aviation Administration. He is an INCOSE Fellow, a member of the INCOSE Board of Directors, and a recipient of the INCOSE Founders Award.
Dr. Nicole Hutchison has been involved in all the foundational research that provides the basis for this book. She has personally helped collect a majority of the data and conducted substantial analyses into skills, career paths, and personal enabling characteristics of systems engineers. The work focused around career paths formed the basis of her dissertation. She has 11 years of analytic and systems engineering experience. At Stevens, she has also conducted research on technical leadership and mission engineering. In addition, she was the primary architect and manager of the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) wiki through 2014, work that she has recently started supporting again. Prior to joining Stevens, she supported
many branches of the federal government, including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services through her prior employment at ANSER in Virginia. She is a Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) with roughly two dozen publications on systems engineering.
Dr. Devanandham (Deva) Henry is an assistant professor at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he leads the systems engineering program. Previously, he was a research engineer with the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) at Stevens Institute of Technology. He has supported the development of Systems Readiness Levels, the Graduate Software Engineering Reference Curriculum, the SEBoK, and the Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE). He was a key member of the Helix project for several years. Before joining Stevens, he spent 9 years with the Aeronautical Development Agency, Ministry of Defense, India, working on aircraft design, aerodynamics, performance, optimization, and project management of the Air Force and Navy versions of the Indian light combat aircraft. He was also actively involved in promoting systems engineering among the aerospace community in India.
The three authors exemplify the fact that people with diverse education can all end up as systems engineers. Pyster’s three degrees are in mathematics and in computer and information sciences. Typical of the time, he had never even heard of systems engineering when he started as a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1976. Hutchison has a very diverse education. She earned two bachelor’s degrees – one in classical studies with a Latin minor and the other in biology. She has a master’s degree in biohazard threat agents and emerging infectious disease. She earned her doctorate in systems engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. Finally, Henry also has two bachelor’s degrees – the first in physics from the University of Madras in India and another in aeronautical engineering from Anna University, also in India. He also holds a master’s degree in aerospace systems engineering from IIT Bombay in India and a PhD in systems engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.
The three authors have a combined 11 university degrees, 10 in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. Pyster has no classic engineering degree (such as electrical, mechanical, or civil) at all, coming to systems engineering first through computer science and then through software engineering. Hutchison has no classic engineering bachelor’s degree but has a PhD in systems engineering. Finally, Henry has a classic bachelor’s and master’s engineering degree and a PhD in systems engineering. As you will discover in this book, the education of these three professionals follows a pattern practiced by many. Systems engineers who started their careers several decades ago rarely have a degree in systems engineering (Pyster). They largely learned systems engineering on the job. Systems engineers who entered the job market more recently often have a classic engineering or a science bachelor’s degree and a graduate degree in systems engineering (Hutchison and Henry).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is the culmination of research we have performed over the past several years. Foundational to that research is the Helix project, which has been funded by the US Department of Defense with the participation of almost two dozen organizations and hundreds of professionals. For their support to Helix, we are especially grateful to the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering, especially Kristen Baldwin, Rob Gold, Scott Lucero, and Aileen Sedmak. The Helix project originated from a conversation with Nic Torelli, who inspired us with his wisdom and vision. We also thank all current and former members of the Helix research team whose contributions have shaped this research over the years: Pamela Burke, Megan Clifford, Peter Dominick, Ralph Giffin, Kahina Lasfer, Carlo Lipizzi, Ricardo Pineda (who is greatly missed by all of us since his untimely passing), Stan Rifkin, James Armstrong, Christina Jauregui, Monis Kamil, Sergio Luna, Shipra Manchanda, Devyani Totre, Avichal Upadhyay, and Dinesh Verma. Both Stevens Institute of Technology and the Systems Engineering Research Center have been especially generous in their support, particularly Dinesh Verma and Jon Wade.
Beyond the Helix project, we have interacted with dozens of other professionals and organizations to gather additional data and insights that are integrated into this book. Of special note is the support from the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) – especially Don Gelosh, Alan Harding, David Long, Bill Miller, Garry Roedler, and Courtney Wright.
While writing this book, we were blessed to interview several distinguished systems engineers whose contributions to systems engineering and the story of their
lives are documented throughout this book, adding texture to the points we seek to make. We gratefully acknowledge them sharing their time and wisdom with us: Michael Celentano, Gina Guillaume‐Joseph, John Hearing, Garry Roedler, Paul Schreinemakers, Jon Wade, and Courtney Wright.
– Art, Nicole, ANd devA
FOREWORD
Today’s world is ever more complex, and the increase in complexity continues to accelerate. We have a growing appreciation of the interactions, interdependencies, and complexity in the world around us: the living organisms, ecosystems, the environment, and society. In the man‐made world, we see unprecedented opportunities fueled by digitalization, the ever‐increasing rate of technology infusion, and the opportunity to connect existing systems in new and novel ways. We demand capabilities that are faster, smarter, more efficient, and more convenient, and technology allows us to deliver – end‐to‐end connected transportation enabled by autonomous vehicles; new efficiencies in energy generation, storage, and distribution unlocked by new sensor technologies and insights from big data; and innovations in personal healthcare through wearables and other technologies. But the price – and the reality – is complexity.
Complex is different than complicated. Whether they be problems we face or solutions we deliver, complicated things can be broken down neatly into separable parts with simple connections and few interdependencies. A building, a bridge, or a classic jet engine may have tens of thousands of parts, but those parts come together in simple ways and deliver predictable, linear results. Complexity is defined by linkages, interdependencies, interactions, and nonlinear effects. As we tackle highly interconnected problems leveraging diverse, connected technologies, we can no longer break problems or solutions down into clean, separable parts. Interactions ultimately drive the characterization of the problem and the performance of the solution. We may not be able to control complexity, but we must accept and embrace it.
In this age of complexity, the reductionist approaches of the Industrial Age are no longer enough. These approaches have enabled us to create advanced technologies and gain deep understanding in highly specialized disciplines. As we address
complexity, it is not a matter of rejecting reductionist approaches and all that has enabled us to successfully address complicated problems. Instead, we must complement those reductionist approaches in order to better appreciate, understand, and address the interconnections and interactions defining modern problems and solutions. Doing so requires the systems perspective to see the big picture, systems thinking to understand the interactions, and systems engineering to act upon the resulting insights and deliver the right solution.
But applying systems approaches – most specifically systems engineering – is not without challenge. Systems engineering as a practice and a profession is less than 100 years old, quite young compared with formal engineering disciplines. It emerged in parallel – and largely independently – in multiple industries as we grappled with complex interactions in rockets, spacecraft, and communication networks. Today we realize that systems engineering is practiced in many different ways under many different names, all driven by the need to address complexity but often leveraging different techniques. And systems engineering is most definitely a practice rather than a discipline – a blend more art than science with processes, methods, and tools applied by a knowledgeable few but often lacking in fundamental principle and theory.
If we are to progress in a world of complexity, this simply isn’t enough. If we are to integrate technologies to deliver the capabilities we demand, we must leverage the emergence borne of relationships and interactions. If we are to avoid unintended consequences – overheating batteries and cellphone fires, software upgrades grounding airlines, or unanticipated cascading effects taking the electric grid offline – we must move from art and practice to science and discipline. To make this leap requires a defined body of knowledge, a solid foundation of theory, and a workforce educated in fundamentals and principles.
While we must advance on all three fronts, the systems‐educated workforce is perhaps our most pressing demand. Irrespective of industry or location, every organization grappling with complexity and systems today expresses a common need. Whether they call their practice product realization, capability delivery, systems engineering, or something else, they need more qualified systems engineers working alongside engineers and subject matter experts to better understand the problems they address and better deliver the corresponding solutions.
This growing demand to develop more systems engineers was the genesis of the Helix research conducted for the US Department of Defense by Art Pyster, Nicole Hutchison, and Deva Henry. Their disciplined research has revealed key insights into the characteristics that define systems engineers, the skills they exhibit, and the career journeys they take. If we are to better develop the next generation of systems engineers and address our key workforce challenges, the Helix research establishes a solid foundation upon which to build. It alone will not transform systems engineering from art and practice to discipline, but it closes a key gap and better positions us to address the challenges we face today.
Since the first Helix results were published, I have consistently referenced the paradoxical mindset and the key findings. With seasoned systems engineers, I discuss the uncommon mind they exhibit so that they can better interact with others and help develop these skills in new practitioners. With others, I highlight what
differentiates systems engineers noting that they are neither better nor worse, simply different in the way they see and think. Leveraging those differences and bringing systems thinking together with reductionist thinking is essential to solving complex problems. With managers and executives, I highlight the skills they must look for, the environment they must establish, and paths to increase individual competency and collective organizational proficiency.
Reflecting back on my somewhat accidental path to who I am today, as the son of a great systems engineer, I learned to see the world through the lens of interrelationships and systems. Had I been fortunate enough to have the insights of Helix early in my career, I would have engineered my journey, deliberately pursuing specific projects and creating opportunities – corporate and volunteer – to accelerate my growth as a systems engineer. With this information today, I am now equipped to deliberately craft the journey for team members as we work together to advance our systems engineering proficiency.
Where the insights of Helix have been leveraged, the impact is clear. Comprehensively laid out for the broader audience for the first time in this book, these insights help identify and develop essential systems engineering capabilities. Leveraged by individuals – whether young professionals or experienced practitioners – this information helps identify individual strengths and gaps as well as appropriate paths for those who choose to make systems engineering their career. Leveraged by organizations, this book establishes the foundation for identifying, nurturing, and developing the necessary systems skills – both in dedicated systems engineers and in a systems‐aware workforce – to increase the collective organizational proficiency. If embraced by enough individuals and organizations, perhaps we can address the grand challenges of clean energy, clean water, food, resource allocation, healthcare, effective transport, and more.
Whether we choose to characterize this as the age of complexity or the systems age, the simple truth is clear. Our world is defined by interactions and interdependencies. The interactions have always been there. What has changed is our ability to understand and leverage them. Our challenges have moved from the complicated to the complex. We have greater technical, economic, and social considerations as we address both bounded problems with defined requirements and fuzzy problems characterized by market behaviors and stakeholder concerns. All are complex problems requiring a systems perspective to understand and a systems approach to address efficiently, effectively, and free from unintended consequences. If we are to do so, we must increase our collective systems awareness and better the positive and negative potential of interdependencies, interactions, and emergence. To do that, it is time to understand, unlock, and leverage the paradoxical mindset.
David Long President, Vitech Corporation
INCOSE President (2014 & 2015)
PREFACE
Great systems are created by great systems engineers. They have a spark of ingenuity and creativity, the ability to craft and convey a vision, the discipline of a drill sergeant, the ability to see the “big picture” while understanding the most critical details, the writing talent of a best‐selling author, the leadership skills of a winning field commander in battle, the resource orchestration of a music conductor, a mastery of the key technologies and tools required for the systems they build, and a deep understanding of how their system will deliver value to its users. They embrace change and the challenges of uncertainty and emergence, and they know how to manage and leverage them to deliver better products and services. As you can well imagine, there are not too many truly great systems engineers. They are rare. Steve Jobs was one; Walt Disney was one; Elon Musk is one, although we doubt any called themselves systems engineers. The title systems engineer is much rarer than the practice of formal systems engineering.
Lots of people – millions of professionals – do systems engineering without ever having the title, and many are even unaware that they are systems engineers. Sometimes they are called system architects, or lead engineers, or product engineers, or a myriad of other titles; and some, of course, are called systems engineers. Few operate at the stratospheric levels of Jobs, Disney, and Musk, but they do many, most, or even all the activities highlighted in the previous paragraph. They are effective at what they do; i.e. they consistently deliver good value to their customers, employers, and shareholders by doing a variety of systems engineering activities. They play a central role in developing new products and services and in keeping existing ones current. They respond to natural disasters such as hurricanes, or man‐made ones such as mass refugee migrations, providing tools, insights, and analyses necessary to see and address the systems aspects of those horrific events.
It is natural to ask what makes systems engineers effective or even highly effective – people who are truly exemplary. Is it their personality, education, diversity of experiences, and technical skill? Is it the environment and culture in which they work? Until now there has been surprisingly little systematic research and writing on just what differentiates a more effective systems engineer from a less effective one. The Paradoxical Mindset of Systems Engineers: Uncommon Minds, Skills, and Careers tackles that shortfall head on, building on several years of research by the authors, primarily through hundreds of interviews and discussions with self‐identified systems engineers and those who work with them.
Most systems engineering books focus on methods and tools to perform systems engineering. They focus on how to architect systems, collect sound requirements, understand system complexity, decide how much it will cost to produce a new system, conduct technical trade studies, and a myriad of other activities. Many of these books are tremendously valuable, serving as important reference guides and textbooks.
What these books don’t tell you much about is the people – those who do systems engineering. The Paradoxical Mindset of Systems Engineers is different – it focuses on the people who perform systems engineering rather than on the methods and tools used to perform the work. Based in part on the largest and most comprehensive research we know of examining systems engineers, The Paradoxical Mindset of Systems Engineers offers:
• An aspiring systems engineer a way to understand what it takes to be successful and how to chart a sensible path for that success.
• A manager who leads systems engineers practical ways to understand their systems engineering workforce and ways to enhance it.
• An organization a way to focus its workforce improvement initiatives on efforts that may have the largest positive impact on its systems engineers.
• Classic engineers (i.e. electrical, software, civil, mechanical, environmental, and a myriad other types of engineers, who are not systems engineers) and program/project managers who do some systems engineering, a way to improve their systems engineering skills.
• Both individuals and organizations insights into which skills are needed for systems engineers of the future and how academia, industry, and government are all preparing to address those needs.
There is broad recognition among those who manage engineering organizations and major programs that there is a shortage of highly effective systems engineers. We have delivered dozens of talks at conferences and workshops and have visited dozens of companies and government agencies. Wherever we have gone, we have found a thirst among those responsible for systems engineers to do a better job identifying good candidates and to understand how to make their existing systems engineering workforce more effective. We hope that The Paradoxical Mindset of Systems Engineers offers valuable help to all of these audiences.
1
PARADOXICAL MINDSET
It’s fun, it’s rewarding, and it’s entertaining. – Courtney Wright on being a systems engineer
In 2007, Art Pyster attended a strategy session for the then new School of Systems and Enterprises at Stevens Institute of Technology. Faculty there were largely focused on the research and educational programs of either the “Systems” or the “Enterprises” aspects of the school. In a eureka moment, one of the faculty members said we were focused on the wrong thing. “Systems” were important, “Enterprises” were important, but the true strength of the school was the “and” that joins them. It was the juxtaposition and relationship between the two disciplines that would give the new school its greatest opportunity. A similar truth can be said about systems engineers. Systems engineers are “and” people. They understand the “big picture” and the details. They communicate well with engineers and executives. They know how to analyze complexity and how to design for simplicity. They balance budgets and make technical trade‐offs. They appreciate both the abstract and the concrete. The term we use for this uncommon and proficiency is paradoxical mindset – the ability to comfortably hold in your head and balance seemingly competing or contradictory concepts. Highly effective systems engineers are masters of paradoxical mindset. Systems engineers play an increasingly important role in the twenty‐first century because systems are ever more interconnected, more complex, and more challenging to secure. Systems are changing at an astonishing rate in ways that are impossible to predict when first conceived. Cars today routinely have tens of millions of
lines of software and dozens of microprocessors. They are becoming so “smart” that early self‐driving cars are in experimental use today and within a few years of being practical. The US National Academy of Engineering’s Fourteen Grand Challenges for Engineering in the twenty‐first century are really about creating and managing large complex ecosystems to solve such problems as providing access to clean water, preventing nuclear terror, and making solar energy abundant and economical [1].
Strong, highly effective systems engineers are required at the center of virtually every new and evolving product, service, and enterprise – that is, every system – in every business sector around the globe. Systems engineers understand how the various pieces fit together, where the technical risks are, and what customers want and need. They oversee the selection of critical technologies and decide the trade‐offs between highly demanding safety, security, and performance requirements. They determine which aspects of a system are so complex that they pose potentially crippling challenges to success and then develop strategies to manage that complexity and overcome those challenges. They look at the characteristics of a proposed system and define the engineering processes and organizational support needed to successfully develop it. They nurture systems engineers who are junior to them and guide development teams.
Highly effective systems engineers are multidisciplinary by nature – they are experts in a few technologies and system types, and critically, they understand just enough about every technology and discipline that are central to the systems on which they work. (Recall they are and people.) The term T‐shaped has sometimes been used to describe such people – they have depth in (at least) one technical area (the vertical stem of the “T”) and have a broad set of skills that cut across many disciplines at least lightly (the horizontal bar of the “T”) [2, 3]. However, for systems engineers, being T‐shaped is not enough. We prefer the term Π‐shaped (pi‐shaped) because systems engineers really have two “stems” – the first reflects depth in at least one technical area – the same as for T‐shaped people. The second stem reflects the systems engineering discipline – an understanding of how to manage technical risk, architect systems, establish requirements, and a myriad of other topics. Π‐shaped systems engineers have even greater demands placed on them than T‐shaped classic engineers. (We use the term classic engineer throughout to refer to engineers who are not systems engineers.)
Systems engineers have a deep understanding of the way in which a system might be used – they are the keepers of the system vision. Their value and the ubiquitous need for systems engineering expertise is reinforced in the 2014 report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement through Systems Engineering, which states:
systems‐engineering knowhow must be propagated at levels [in the US health‐data infrastructure]; PCAST recommends that the United States build a health‐care workforce that is equipped with essential‐systems engineering competencies that will enable [healthcare delivery] system redesign. [4]
Healthcare is only one of dozens of business sectors where aspects of what systems engineers know and can do must become ubiquitous among all engineers and technical experts.
If you recognize the importance of the activities described here but are not deeply familiar with the term systems engineer, you are not alone. Most systems engineers go by other names – product architect, product platform engineer, chief engineer, lead engineer, system architect, product engineer, and many other titles driven by such factors as company culture, business sector, and geography. In interviews that we conducted with more than 300 self‐identified systems engineers, fewer than half said they had ever held the official job title of systems engineer! But “a rose by any other name” – the people who perform all the demanding activities described above, no matter their titles, are systems engineers. Furthermore, millions of classic engineers and project managers are, in effect, secondarily systems engineers – often without realizing it. Electrical, civil, software, environmental, and numerous other engineers and project managers occasionally do systems engineering while spending most of their time designing circuit boards, writing code, conducting material stress calculations, getting budgets approved, or performing other traditional discipline‐specific activities.
Because systems engineers are so important to the successful development, manufacture, deployment, operation, and evolution of products, services, and enterprises around the world, it is vital that they be good at what they do. This book systematically walks through a series of topics explaining what enables systems engineers to be highly effective. It looks at what they do, how they are educated, what typical career paths they follow, the environments in which they work, their personal characteristics, and many other factors that influence their professional lives. The chapters are laid out in a logical order for you to gain an increasingly thorough understanding of these factors, how they influence effectiveness, and what you can do to improve your own effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around you. The last chapter of the book offers specific recommendations that you can follow to become a (more) highly effective systems engineer.
WHAT IS SYSTEMS ENGINEERING?
The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) [5] says that systems engineering is a perspective, a process, and a profession. The INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook [6] includes three representative definitions:
(a) Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems. It focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, and then proceeds with design synthesis and system validation while considering the complete problem: operations, cost and schedule, performance, training and support, test, manufacturing, and disposal. Systems engineering integrates all the disciplines and classic groups into a team effort forming a
structured development process that proceeds from concept to production to operation. Systems engineering considers both the business and the technical needs of all customers with the goal of providing a quality product that meets the user needs.
(b) Systems engineering is an iterative process of top‐down synthesis, development, and operation of a real‐world system that satisfies, in a near optimal manner, the full range of requirements for the system.
(c) Systems engineering is a discipline that concentrates on the design and application of the whole (system) as distinct from the parts. It involves looking at a problem in its entirety, taking into account all the facets and all the variables and relating the social to the technical aspect.
Based on this extended definition of systems engineering, the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) [7] identifies the overall goals of any systems engineering effort to be:
1. Understand stakeholder value
2. Select a specific need to be addressed
3. Transform that need into a system (the product, service, or enterprise that addresses that need)
4. Use that system to provide the stakeholder value.
Throughout a system’s lifecycle, many individuals and teams perform the systems engineering activities necessary to achieve those goals. These individuals are systems engineers even if they are not labeled as such by their organization. (Throughout, we use the term organization generically for a systems engineer’s employer. The organization could be private or public, a parent enterprise, or just a unit. Sometimes we are specific, for example, referring to a company or a university, when the particular type of organization is known.) In addition, there could be more than one individual who performs those activities. Hence, it is common for such systems engineers to be hidden in plain sight
BEING A SYSTEMS ENGINEER
It is in some ways both alarming and dumbfounding that a profession with millions of practitioners worldwide has no general agreement on what criteria should be used to decide if someone is a legitimate member of that profession! Yet, that is the state of systems engineering today, although this is less a problem than it was 20 years ago. Most engineers earn a bachelor’s degree in some engineering field, which becomes their professional label for years and perhaps for life. According to the World Economic Forum, in ten of the most well‐developed countries, over 1,800,000 students graduated with engineering degrees in 2015 alone [8]. Those graduates almost certainly identify themselves as mechanical engineers, bioengineers, electrical
engineers, and a multitude of other discipline titles. Moreover, the world recognizes their identity in that way. Yet, very few earn a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering. In 2009, there were only 11 US universities that offered a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering [9]. Professionals usually start off doing something else and gradually become systems engineers. This career migration is normal for systems engineers but anomalous for how other engineers progress in their careers – a fact that confuses many.
Given that most systems engineers begin their careers in another profession and that most practicing systems engineers do not ever have the formal title systems engineer, it is natural to ask how one spots a real systems engineer. If The Paradoxical Mindset of Systems Engineers does nothing else, we hope it helps the community answer that question. We explore this question in depth over the course of the book, but we could begin by defining a practicing systems engineer simply as someone who performs systems engineering activities most of the time in their current professional life [10]. This somewhat tautological definition begs the question – which activities are systems engineering activities? Chapter 3 answers that question by identifying the major systems engineering activities and grouping them into 15 different roles that systems engineers perform. Hence, the definition of a practicing systems engineer evolves into something more satisfying:
A practicing systems engineer is someone who performs one or more of 15 specific roles most of the time in their current professional life.
Of course, unless you peek ahead now to read Chapter 3, the specifics of those roles will just have to wait.
BOOK STRUCTURE
Chapter 1:
Paradoxical Mindset
This chapter, which you are reading now, in combination with the Preface, provides an introduction to the book and walks through its structure.
Chapter 2: Six Uncommon Values
What characterizes the value – the positive impact – that systems engineers have on programs and organizations? That characterization is in terms of a taxonomy that is based on interviews with more than 300 systems engineers, who were asked to articulate their primary contributions to their organizations. For example, two primary values that a systems engineer typically delivers are (i) keep and maintain the system vision and (ii) translate technical jargon into business or operational terms and vice versa. Moreover, the values are not completely orthogonal. Each reinforces the others. In this chapter, we examine the values not just in isolation but also as a reinforcing set.
Chapter 3: Fifteen Roles
Systems engineers fill positions in companies, such as chief systems engineer or product architect. These are job titles that human resources departments recognize or that appear on business cards. Every company has its own set of titles – there is no standardization across companies or industries. To make it possible to clearly and succinctly talk about what systems engineers do across wide swaths of the community, we identified 15 distinct roles that systems engineers typically play. We cannot say these 15 roles are inclusive of everything a systems engineer does, but they appear to cover the vast majority of their activities. A person occupying a single position usually performs several such roles and may perform classic engineering roles as well. Over the course of their careers, systems engineers will typically hold many positions, each with a different combination of roles. This chapter explains each role and how they often combine into positions, elaborating with examples.
Some positions and some roles are performed more often at the beginning of a career and some after years of diverse experiences and increasing responsibilities. People progress from junior to mid‐level to senior systems engineers, changing the focus of their activities to reflect their developing skills, perspectives, and wisdom. Chapter 3 offers criteria to categorize people as junior, mid‐level, and senior systems engineers.
Chapter 4: A Systems Engineer’s Proficiencies
Think about a great family doctor that you have known at some point in your life. That physician has a deep knowledge of medicine and medical techniques, a friendly and warm personality that puts you at ease, keen powers of observation to spot problems when you are not able to properly articulate symptoms, strong office management skills to keep the practice orderly and profitable, and excellent communication skills to explain the diagnosis and recommended treatment. While strength in those proficiencies serves the family doctor well, another physician working in a research lab at a major pharmaceutical company would need a different mix of proficiencies to be successful. For the latter, probably more important is the ability to design and conduct experiments and clinical trials, to effectively communicate research findings to peer groups, and to manage large laboratory environments. Each physician has a profile reflecting their strengths and weaknesses in several proficiencies that in combination determine their overall effectiveness in the roles being performed. For a family doctor, a weakness in bedside manner or an inability to explain their diagnosis and treatment can significantly harm their practice – not so much for a research physician toiling deep inside a pharmaceutical company.
A systems engineer playing one or more roles has mastered a specific set of proficiencies to a certain level just as a doctor has. Of course, doctors and systems engineers need to master different proficiencies because they do different things – although you would expect some proficiencies to overlap. The fundamental premise of this book is that systems engineers are unusual – in ways that make them extremely valuable to successfully conceiving, building, deploying, maintaining, and evolving complex systems. This chapter introduces the various ways in which the
community has historically identified and modeled the proficiencies of systems engineers. We follow this with the specific set of proficiencies that enable systems engineers to deliver the values described in Chapter 2 when performing the 15 roles identified in Chapter 3.
Note that we have used the term proficiency here and do so throughout the book. A proficiency is a set of related knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and cognitions that someone has. In common usage, the term competency is sometimes a synonym for proficiency; however, there is an important but subtle difference. When people say someone is competent, they often mean the person is at least minimally effective at doing a job. On the other hand, when someone is said to be proficient, they often mean the person is well beyond minimally effective – perhaps even highly effective. A well‐known model for adult skill acquisition by Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus has five levels or stages – novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert, where being proficient is viewed as a higher skill level than being competent [11]. We chose proficiency because we are exploring what enables systems engineers to be highly effective – not just minimally effective. We also offer a second reason for using proficiency rather than competency. Early in our research, we found that most people interviewed had their favorite competency model, and the specifics of that model seemed to constrain broader discussions with them. Using proficiency instead of competency appeared to expand their mental model in ways that were insightful.
Chapter 5: Hidden in Plain Sight
Three case studies illustrate the criticality of systems engineers hidden in plain sight; i.e. they are key individuals who perform systems engineering, often without the title systems engineer. We first present two short case studies of highly successful past system developments and then a case study of a third system that began quite troubled but quickly recovered. The case studies examine the values delivered by systems engineers, the roles they played, and the proficiencies required for those successes. These real examples illustrate how systems engineers make a difference:
• Japanese Bullet Train: Fast, Frequent, Safe, and Punctual
• Boeing 777: Maintaining the Vision from Start to End
At any point in time, a systems engineer has a particular proficiency profile (or just profile), i.e. a specific level of strength in each proficiency identified in Chapter 4. (Throughout the book, primary technical terms are presented in italic small uppercase letters.) That profile reflects what to expect from someone who is tasked to perform a particular set of roles. Ask someone who is weak in an area, such as technical leadership, to perform a role that requires superb technical leadership, and the risk to the project jumps substantially. That person will either rise to the occasion,
growing and stretching to raise their proficiency level, or else they will disappoint. This chapter explains how to build a personal profile for an individual. For key positions, such as chief systems engineer or system architect, an organization can develop recommended profiles, which reflect what the organization expects from the best people occupying those positions or perhaps publish exemplar profiles of the best people currently occupying those positions – the organizational leaders. These profiles can become a North Star for anyone seeking to advance to those key positions. We offer an imperfect yet useful rubric for performing a self‐assessment when completing a profile. This rubric can be used not only for self‐assessment but can be completed by peers or supervisors to validate the systems engineer’s personal profile. Within limits, it is even possible to aggregate profiles of individuals to gain a perspective about the strengths and weaknesses of a group of systems engineers.
Chapter 7: Three Forces
Everyone’s profile changes over time as a result of exposure to three primary forces – experiences, mentoring, and education & training [12]. People respond differently to those forces based on individual characteristics and the organizational environment in which they work. Is someone ambitious, creative, and a self‐starter, or is that person laid back, unimaginative, and a follower? This chapter explores these three forces and how different individual and organizational characteristics are force multipliers that either strengthen or weaken forces. For example, some organizations supercharge the impact of these forces with in‐house training programs, tuition reimbursement for advanced degrees, formal mentoring programs, rotational assignments, and a variety of other techniques. Other companies let their people sink or swim, with little structured formal help. In this chapter, we explore a variety of ways that systems engineers encounter these forces and offer some thoughts on their relative utility. Over time, with proper planning, sound execution, and some good fortune, systems engineers can apply the three forces to advance their careers.
To help visualize career paths, which are so heavily impacted by the forces, the chapter introduces a simple way to document, visualize, and analyze paths in a career map (or just map) – the precise combination of experiences, mentoring, and education & training that a systems engineer goes through during their career and the resulting profiles they achieve. The map focuses on those aspects of a career path that are most important to identify, manage, and achieve career objectives. When doing career evaluation and planning, it is very powerful to have a clear understanding of how you got to where you are and where you hope to go. A clean visualization of that information is invaluable for personal reflection and to aid in discussions with supervisors, mentors, and others who can help guide and influence your career.
Chapter 8: Successful Careers
As described in Chapter 6, an organization can develop recommended profiles for specific positions. Moreover, that organization can also aggregate the career paths of all people in the organization occupying a specific type of position, identifying
patterns of positions, educational milestones, lifecycle phases in which they have been immersed, and other information that would be useful to individuals seeking to plan their future. Chapter 8 elaborates on these activities for both individuals and organizations by leveraging our analyses of systems engineers who have risen to senior positions and are relatively successful, e.g. chief systems engineers (CSEs) – people who have formal responsibility to oversee and shepherd the technical value and correctness of a system. CSEs typically coordinate with many other systems engineers who have smaller scopes of responsibility. Sometimes a senior person will have the title lead systems engineer, chief engineer, chief product engineer, or many others. In Chapter 8, we examine the career paths of senior systems engineers, based primarily on a sample of around three dozen CSEs we interviewed and on an analysis of the applications of more than 2500 professionals who have been certified by INCOSE. For more than a decade, INCOSE has certified practicing systems engineers with respect to a combination of knowledge, experiences, and professional references [13]. While there is certainly no guarantee that the people interviewed and the certified professionals whose data we analyzed are truly representative of the larger global population of professional systems engineers, the analysis offers an interesting peek into the characteristics of a substantial set of relatively successful systems engineers.
Chapter 9: Secondarily a Systems Engineer
Many classic engineers, project managers, and other professionals spend part of their time doing systems engineering activities even though they do not identify themselves as systems engineers. They are secondarily systems engineers. For example, a software engineer may help develop the architecture of the system into which the software will fit. A mechanical engineer with a systems orientation may work on the overall verification strategy for the system or help shape the requirements that will flow to a mechanical subsystem. In fact, there is a growing movement among educators to weave aspects of systems engineering into the education of all engineers. This movement reflects a widening recognition that twenty‐first‐century engineers need to understand and routinely apply many systems concepts in their daily work. In this chapter, we look at which profiles are desirable for several types of engineers and other professionals, offering insight into how they might advance their careers.
Chapter 10: Thrive
This chapter offers specific recommendations to consider as an aspiring systems engineer, organizational leader, or executive in the context of a world with rapid advances in technology, globalization, business models, etc. The chapter anticipates what systems will be like in the future and what type of systems engineering and systems engineers will be needed to conceive, build, and sustain those systems. It then offers specific recommendations to thrive in that emerging world.
CAREER DEVELOPMENT “ECOSYSTEM” FOR SYSTEMS ENGINEERS
Figure 1.1 reflects the ecosystem in which systems engineers advance their careers [14]. This is the primary story of The Paradoxical Mindset of Systems Engineers. An effective systems engineer consistently delivers value while working in roles and positions assigned by the organization. Proficiency is impacted by forces that an individual encounters – experiences, mentoring, and education & training. The individual systems engineer conducts personal development initiatives and can take advantage of organizational development initiatives to improve proficiency. These initiatives generate forces that impact proficiency. The individual systems engineer has personal characteristics that influence the impact of forces. The organization has organizational characteristics that influence the impact of the forces. Both personal enabling characteristics and organizational characteristics impact consistent delivery of value. Among all these influences and impacts, the challenge for the individual systems engineer and the organization is to improve the proficiency that enables consistent delivery of value to the organization.
Our research has shaped these perspectives, relationships, and insights into a theory we call Atlas, which explains what makes systems engineers effective. The name Atlas was chosen for two reasons: (i) systems engineers figuratively carry the systems world on their shoulders, and (ii) this theory euphemistically is a set of maps or guides that help systems engineers reach their career destination. This book is largely a telling of Atlas in a style intended for broad readership. We reference both Helix and Atlas throughout. It is worth reinforcing that Helix is the project in which we conducted most of the underlying research for this book. From Helix’s inception, Pyster, Hutchison, and Henry were the primary project researchers until Pyster left the project in summer 2016, followed by Henry in summer 2017. At the time of the writing of this book, Hutchison remains on Helix as its principal investigator.
Atlas is a theory of what makes systems engineers effective. Much of that theory was developed as an explicit product of Helix. There are many definitions of theory Borrowing from Merriam‐Webster, here it means “a set of observations and principles that can be used to explain and predict a class of phenomena” – in this case, the phenomena of systems engineers performing effectively, delivering value.
A SHORT SUMMARY OF THE HELIX PROJECT
Because the data collected and analyzed by Helix is so central to this book, a short description of the project and its data is helpful. Systems engineering is a critical discipline for the US Department of Defense (DoD), and yet DoD does not believe its systems engineering workforce is large enough and effective enough for the many challenges it faces. To help address that belief, DoD has funded Helix through the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) [15]. The project name, Helix, came from the view that we would be figuratively examining the “DNA” of highly effective systems engineers. Several technical reports, conference papers, and one journal
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possible herself.
“What has happened?” I asked of a bystander.
“They do say as Mr. Voller ’ave ’ad a fit and died, and the doctor be examinin’ ’im now.”
In a few minutes an individual whom I took to be the doctor appeared at the vestry door.
“Will some of you run and fetch a stretcher and help to carry him home?”
“ ’e’s dead, then, doctor?”
“I am afraid so.”
“ ’ave ’e ’ad a fit?”
“Heart disease, I think,” answered the doctor, gravely.
Full of importance, several young men hastened off for the stretcher, and in their hurry to oblige became jammed at the wicketgate.
The whole thing was a very serious annoyance to me, and I walked off across the fields in a high state of indignation with the departed Mr. Voller.
That such a nobody should have been allowed to obstruct the workings of a great policy was irritating. I only hoped that it would be a lesson to Mr. Voller in his progress through the underworld to be less inquisitive.
I grew more and more indignant with the shade of that estimable gentleman as the day went on.
I walked over to Lye again in the evening, when the Rector preached a sermon on the instability of human hopes. He alluded to the late Mr. Voller with much feeling. From the gossip in the churchyard after service I gathered that the doctor had quite made up his mind that death was due to heart disease.
This was fortunate, but Mr. Voller had spoilt my plans.
I returned to London disconsolate. If there should be the least suspicion that Mr. Voller had been poisoned things might become very complicated. Although it was quite improbable that I should be suspected, it would be too risky to attempt the same procedure again. It was impossible not to be amused at poor Mr. Voller’s ill fortune. When the humour of the affair got the better of my irritation I laughed heartily.
I did not learn the result of the inquest for two or three weeks afterwards. When I ventured into the neighbourhood again I was intensely relieved to find that a verdict had been returned in accordance with my expectations. Mr. Voller was a most respected character, and the only people who might be expected to bear him a grudge were the small boys who misbehaved themselves in church.
If it struck anyone to wonder what a half empty glass of water was doing there they no doubt came to the conclusion that, feeling faint, Mr. Voller had poured it out to drink.
It was now the Rector’s turn. I began to feel quite annoyed with the old gentleman. He was giving me a great deal of trouble, whilst if he had gone off at the right moment I should have been on the best of terms with his memory. Things were made more difficult by Sibella, who was a hard mistress to serve, and who took leave to suspect my reasons for going out of town so constantly. She had had a strange instinct about me from the moment she had surrendered. She vaguely felt that something was wrong, although she had not the slightest idea where to look for it. I was obliged to warn her that jealousy will fatigue passion sooner or later.
It was late in November before I ventured again into the vicinity of Lye. Armed with my small phial of digitalis I spent one or two weekends in the district without other results than a little more private information about Mr. Gascoyne’s home life. It was the most difficult case I had yet attempted. Nothing gave me any assistance.
One day I was chatting with the landlord of the inn when the Reverend Gascoyne passed the window. It was about half-past four in the afternoon, and I had presumably come over to the village to fish. As a matter of fact, my nature is too fastidious for so brutal a sport. I cannot bear to inflict suffering for mere pleasure, and I am quite unable to understand the brutality and grossness of a nature that delights in it.
I had been careful, however, to master its jargon, and there were two or three shining specimens at the bottom of my basket to give evidence of my prowess.
“There goes the parson,” I said, carelessly.
“Ah! ’e be going to take tea with old Mrs. Finucane.”
“Indeed?”
“Wet or fine, twice a week, ’e goes over and drinks a cup of tea with ’er, and reads to ’er for an hour or two. ’e be a good man, be the parson.”
“Who’s old Mrs. Finucane?”
“ ’Er husband were organist, and when ’e died—though, by the way, ’e were younger than Mrs. Finucane, and they do say were at college with the parson—well, when ’e died it were found that Mrs. Finucane were a pauper, and wur as like as not to ’ave to go to the workus, but the parson, ’e says to the Squire, ‘If you’ll put down a pound a week for life, I’ll put down a pound a week for life also,’ and so ’twas done. Sir Robert couldn’t for shame’s sake refuse, seeing that Mr. Finucane had saved his son’s life, and so Mrs. Finucane be comfortable enough, ’er cottage being ’er own. They do say that the Squire wur none too willing to do it, though.”
“Does Mrs. Finucane live in the village?”
I knew it was quite unnecessary to ask exactly where she lived, as every villager loves to maunder on, and give any inquirer details concerning his neighbours gratis.
“She lives in the cottage just before you come to the ’ill. You’ll know it, for it be covered with red berries.”
I went and had a look at Mrs. Finucane’s cottage. It was called ‘The Glebe,’ and had a mass of creeper with red berries over the front. Through the bars of the high garden gate I could just see a little green with the bare flower-beds of winter round it. I inspected the house from every point of view.
Where the yew-hedge which surrounded the garden was somewhat thin I could see through and into the pleasant parlour. On this cold autumn day a bright fire was burning in the grate, and drawn up before it was a little table with a chess-board, on either side of which sat Mr. Gascoyne and Mrs. Finucane. By this table was a smaller one with a cosy-looking tea-urn on a snowy cover, flanked with plates of hot toast and muffins. It was a homely and pleasant sight to contemplate, and reminded me of one of those inimitable scenes of village life which more than one of our lady novelists has depicted with so much spirit and truth. Strange it is, but such literature as Miss Austin’s Emma and Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford has always charmed me more than any other, on the same principle, I
suppose, that a complex character responds to simplicity Country folk do not appreciate rural sweets as does the knowing Cockney.
It seemed impossible that I could gain admission to the house. It was as secure from any intrusion as if it had been a royal palace guarded at every gate. From my point of vantage I watched the movements of the two inside carefully. I was screened from the observation of the village. In a minute or so they abandoned the attractions of the chess-table for those of tea and muffins.
The Rector was apparently as capable with tea and muffins as with partridge and port. In fact, to see him at any meal was to receive an explanation of his florid complexion and ever-increasing portliness. He was one of those people—and they are legion—who for the want of a little vanity abandon themselves completely to the pleasures of the table. Vanity has its uses, and should by no means be discouraged in the young. Many a man and woman has been saved from a drunkard’s grave through the fear of losing a good complexion. In not a few cases gluttony has met its match in vanity when all other remedies have failed. Vanity has made cowards appear brave, and the miser ostentatious. Charity would be an anæmic spinster were it not for her servant, vanity; and she is as often the parent of moderation as of excess. With a little proper vanity the kindly Rector might have preserved a greater measure of youth and sprightliness.
He was nevertheless a pleasant sight as he sat before the blazing fire and chatted and drank his tea with the old lady. I stood and watched them through the gap in the hedge till the light faded. Then a little maid brought in candles, and, drawing the curtains, shut the pleasant interior from my sight.
I was afraid there was no chance of making Mrs. Finucane’s hospitable teapot or genial muffins and cake useful to my scheme, for although such luxuries are poison, it is a slow process.
Occupied with these thoughts, I strolled down the village street. I could reach the road back to the inn where I was staying more quickly by passing through the churchyard, and as I reached the church door a sudden impulse urged me to enter. The gloom was rendered more profound by the faint suggestion of fading daylight lingering about the building. I was not at all disturbed by thoughts of
Mr Voller’s ghost, but made my way without trepidation into the vestry. There stood the glass of water and the bottle, and I was about to repeat the experiment which had been so successful in the case of Mr. Voller when something shining lying on the floor attracted my attention. I went towards it and picked up a fluted silver cigarcase. I carried it out of the church, and, opening it, found it full. I went back to my quarters for the night before I made a thorough examination of my find. As I had hoped, it proved to be Mr. Gascoyne’s. His monogram was on the outside. I turned it over and over in deep thought. I remembered reading, when I was studying poisons in my house in Clapham, of one used by the Red Indians, who, soaking the end of a cigar in it, were in the habit of asking an acquaintance who had offended them to take a friendly weed, with— from their point of view—very desirable consequences.
I had the strongest objections to using the medium of the glass of water again. It might strike someone that it had played a part in the death of the verger.
On arriving in town I consulted the book in which I remembered to have seen the information as to the Indian poison. It was as I thought; the end of a cigar dipped in a decoction of the Grobi root was sufficient to induce stupor ending in death if immediate measures were not taken to rouse the patient. I knew where to obtain the Grobi root, which is also used medicinally by the Red Indians.
Down by the docks there is a narrow street full of shops devoted to the sale of curios from foreign parts. I had gone there during the days when I was racketing about town to purchase a monkey for a chorus girl who demanded its immediate production as a pledge of affection. It was whilst I was in the shop that I had heard the aged proprietor explaining the properties of a small dried bundle of herbs which hung from one of the low rafters. At the first mention of the word poison I had listened intently, whilst apparently interested in the other articles scattered about the shop.
It was possible that the plant was no longer in its old place. At the same time it was not the sort of thing which was likely to be largely in demand, and it might hang there through a generation without being disturbed. I knew that the proprietor was a great dealer in Chinese
cabinets and curiosities of all kinds. I decided to buy Miss Gascoyne something very rare, and took my way to the East End in a state of suspense as to whether the business had been moved. As I entered the street, however, I saw the cages and bird-stands outside the door as of yore. So little had changed that it seemed to give me assurance that the magic root was hanging in the old place. As soon as I entered the shop I looked anxiously at the place where it had been, and gave almost a sigh of relief as it caught my eye.
The wizened little old proprietor hastened forward from the back of the shop where he was inspecting some articles which were being displayed for his approval by a sailor. The latter, in no way disconcerted or offended at being left with such scant ceremony, took up a newspaper which lay on his patron’s desk and settled himself to read till such time as the proprietor should be free again. I explained that I wanted a Chinese cabinet; something quite new and original. The old man looked around puzzled.
“They’re very much of a muchness,” he said, “especially in our days, when we dealers have got to be as careful as the public that we are not cheated. There was a sailor as used to do the China trip twice a year, and he brought back some of the quaintest looking cabinets as ever I saw, but it turned out that he bought ’em all in this country, and that’s the way we’re took in.”
It did not strike the old gentleman that if the articles were genuine it could not matter very much whether they were bought in England or not.
I objected to everything which was shown to me, and made every effort to get him to go to his storerooms upstairs, suggesting that he might have something put away. He denied this, and continued to grope about amongst his treasures, while the bunches of Grobi root dangled temptingly above our heads.
While he was meandering I examined them very carefully, and studied how I could detach one of the bundles in the shortest space of time. Finally, the old man remembered that he had something which might tempt me in his back premises, and he went shuffling away to look for it.
As soon as his back was turned I took my penknife, which I had already opened in my pocket, and, glancing swiftly at the sailor
occupied with his paper in the corner, reached up my hand and cut the string by which the bundle of dried root was attached to the ceiling. I thrust it into my great-coat pocket and looked again at the sailor. He appeared to have been quite ignorant of my proceeding. It was some minutes before the old gentleman shambled back into the shop, bearing in his hands a box of some scented wood, from which, where it had lain buried in cotton-wool, he lifted out a miniature cabinet of exquisite workmanship.
“I had forgotten all about this. I’ve had it by me for years.”
I shrewdly suspected that it was one of those things which had been brought to the old man by someone of whose honesty he was doubtful.
I haggled with him a good deal over the price, but finally took it away, having paid a very reasonable sum, and having in my greatcoat pocket the Grobi root.
It was a drawback that it was impossible to test the efficacy of the poison taken in the particular way in which I intended.
I made my decoction, and, steeping the end of one of the cigars in it, dried it and returned it with the others to the case. I then went to the village of Lye, and, entering the church one evening, stole into the vestry. Unperceived, I placed the cigar-case on the table behind a pile of books.
I had well considered the disadvantage of my scheme, which was that the Reverend gentleman might hand his cigar-case to some friend, who would have first choice, and might select the prize. It would not have done to place two poisoned cigars in the case, as the fact of two gentlemen lighting up and swooning away could not fail to attract attention and rouse suspicion.
It was with a sigh of satisfaction and relief that I opened The Times one morning and read in the obituary notices that the Reverend Henry Gascoyne, Rural Dean, and Rector of Lye, had succumbed to an apoplectic stroke.
Chapter XX
The rest of the winter I was able to devote myself to Sibella, who grew more beautiful in my eyes every day. She was bewitchingly decadent, and her decadence was independent of extraneous aids to beauty. I was careful not to be seen too frequently with her in public, and permitted Sir Anthony Cross to do all the drudgery. Lionel was quite unsuspecting, and inasmuch as I never omitted an opportunity of obliging him I verily believe that the poor fool believed me to be attached to him.
I well remember how one evening, when Grahame was present, Lionel became quite sentimental over our school days, and talked as if we had all three been the greatest of chums. A smile played round Grahame’s dignified mouth as his brother-in-law meandered on about “those dear old days.”
“Do you remember when I was training for the mile, and had that accident?” Lionel asked.
We both of us nodded.
“That was a very mysterious affair,” he went on. “I could have sworn as I went down that I tripped over something which struck me across the leg.”
“Imagination,” suggested Grahame.
“I don’t know, but it has always seemed to me most mysterious.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to account for sensations at such a moment as that,” I said, indifferently.
Lionel went on with his reminiscences. He recalled the first day he had ever been to the Hallwards’, which, considering that he must have remembered how badly he and Sibella behaved to me on that day, was not a brilliant exhibition of tact. At last he concluded:
“And now Sibella and I are married, and we are all jolly together.”
Coming from anyone else the remark might have sounded jovial; coming from Lionel it sounded foolish.
“Yes,” I said drily, “we are all jolly together.”
For one moment Grahame looked at me curiously, but shrewdly suspecting that my liking for Lionel had not grown much with years, put down the emphasis in my voice to that fact.
I was angry with myself for having made such a slip.
Lionel was soon in the throes of an election struggle, a sudden death having removed a well-known party hack to a greater majority than it had ever been his lot to be numbered with on earth.
As much to his own astonishment as to that of the wire-pullers of his party Lionel was elected. It was a political surprise, for the seat was hardly likely to have been wasted on a nonentity had a victory been probable. Lionel took all credit to himself, and the cheers of approval as he was introduced to the House made him quite delirious with vanity. His old father, who was dying by inches, was so delighted that he immediately handed to his son a large slice of the wealth for which he was greedily waiting. The infatuated young man was somewhat sobered by the reception of his maiden speech, which was such as not even the most self-satisfied of beings could have assured himself was flattering. Sibella somewhat annoyed me. She was for the time quite impressed by her husband’s meretricious triumph. I believe she thought that she had underestimated him, and that he really was a person of great intellectual attainments. She began to talk to me of conscience, of remembering her duty, and indulged in all the usual female preliminaries to a retreat; but long before she was ready to make an effort, and show me the door, I had managed to demonstrate to her that her husband had gone as far as he was likely to go. In fact, Lionel himself was incapable of playing a serious part for long, and associated himself with the heir to a dukedom whose election to the House of Commons had been an insult, and who was prepared to hobnob with a stable-boy in default of the society from which he had become somewhat of an outcast. His friends had hoped that a political career might whitewash him, and were now only too anxious for him to lose his seat before some irretrievable scandal occurred. Lionel was quite content with his friend’s exalted position, and imagined that he was the companion of the very cream of the popular House, a delusion in which I encouraged him on every possible occasion.
Familiarity with political life likewise disillusioned Sibella, and she was too acute not to learn very speedily that to be the wife of a Member of Parliament need not necessarily carry with it social advantages of any kind.
I fancy Lord Gascoyne had been a little surprised at Miss Gascoyne engaging herself to me, for to his aristocratic prejudices a Jew was a Jew, however charming he might be. He was perfectly prepared to be quite civil to the race, and would have denied it nothing but an entrance into the blood circle. I was, however, indirectly a member of his family, and when it dawned upon him that should he and his heir die I was, after Mr. Gascoyne, the heir, he was compelled to change his attitude. I think he determined, if possible, to bar me out by a family of stalwart sons and daughters. Luckily, so far, Lady Gascoyne showed no signs of increasing the obstacles in my path.
I spent the remainder of the winter thinking out the completion of my design. Of course, the Earl would have to go first. It would leave me several years to deal with his heir, and in the vicissitudes of a boy’s life there must be innumerable occasions when death may accidentally step in and claim him.
There was at this time a talk of sending Lord Gascoyne to a large dependency as Governor. The rumour threw me into a state of the greatest anxiety. If he betook himself and his family to the other end of the world he might have half a dozen children round him before I could interfere.
Luckily the project fell through for the time being, but his abilities and personal dignity marked him out as a man to whom the offer was certain to be made again.
Lionel Holland had a great ambition to know Lord and Lady Gascoyne. Lord Gascoyne, at all events, was born a freeman of that inner ring which, for all his fine acquaintances, had so far held Lionel at bay. Some of them had been civil to Sibella, for she, like Grahame, had a natural distinction which people were impelled to admit. When, however, it became a question of accepting Lionel also —and he was by no means the person to stand aloof—they drew off. His vanity refused to admit that he had been snubbed, but inwardly he was conscious that there was something wrong.
He had therefore fixed on the Gascoynes as people who would be able to secure him an introduction to the highest circle of the social heaven. It was in vain that I assured him quite frankly that I was not on terms of intimacy with them or any of their friends, that, so far, I was not married to Miss Gascoyne, and that my Jewish blood made me more or less of an outsider in the family. He looked upon this as affectation.
“Why, you might be Lord Gascoyne! You’re as good as any of them.”
“I shall be when I am Lord Gascoyne, but so far I am only plain Israel Rank. No, I won’t call myself plain, for that would indeed be affectation.”
“You’ve been to their house.”
“Once or twice.”
“You’ve dined there.”
“Once only.”
“People of that kind don’t ask a man to dinner unless they look upon him as one of themselves.”
“Except for political motives,” I murmured.
He was too dense to see the point, and persisted.
“An acquaintance like that wants nursing,” he said patronisingly, much as an old hand might have done to a young man just starting in business.
As a matter of fact, he was exactly suggesting what I was doing, but my methods were superior to his, and I should never have thought of describing them with such a lack of taste. His inability to see this was the secret of his non-success with the particular class he was anxious to cultivate.
I heard from Miss Gascoyne constantly, and my letters in reply to her high-souled, dignified, yet tender epistles were masterpieces in diplomacy—an unkind critic might have said in hypocrisy.
I cannot help wondering as I sit here writing these memoirs what her feelings are at the present moment. I am afraid that she is one of those extraordinary characters who literally cannot love where they do not respect. She will have the pleasure, however, of glancing over her letters written to me at this time, for I have left her the task of examining my papers and destroying such as I thought fit to keep.
Sibella’s letters I always destroyed. This is an act of justice to any woman with whom one is conducting an intrigue which should not be neglected. Not that Sibella had written many letters. As I have pointed out, there was a curious vein of caution in the Hallward family. In fact, much as I know she must be suffering, she has not made the least sign since the law took charge of my affairs. I believe that she still has faith that I shall extricate myself somehow. Poor child! Jack Sheppard himself could not do much inside the condemned cell of a modern prison. I have given the matter of escape thought, but considering how easy it is to cage a human being, it is somewhat surprising that there should ever have been an age in which the escape of criminals was comparatively frequent. I have also wondered whether, if a murderer were to display signs of madness between conviction and execution, the law would carry out the penalty. It might be worth the while of a smaller criminal to make the attempt. In my case I cannot help thinking it would be somewhat undignified to linger in the public mind as an individual who was mouthing through the remainder of his existence with straws in his hair. Besides, it would be a satisfaction for the public—who have been made uncomfortable by such wholesale murdering—to be able to say, “Poor creature! he was mad.” On the whole, I would sooner live as the wicked Lord Gascoyne than with a reputation for insanity. Moreover, my simulation might not be effective, and if a report got abroad that I had made myself ridiculous by feigning madness it would be intolerable.
Chapter XXI
Lionel Holland was, of course, mistaken in accepting as genuine my indifference as to whether the Gascoynes were civil to me or no. Since they had asked me to their house it was necessary I should become as intimate as possible, and Lionel could not know how I had schemed and intrigued to make myself acceptable in their sight. I had nibbled all round their circle, so to speak, unobtrusively attempting to identify myself as much as possible with the people they knew. This was a matter of no little difficulty. I was compelled to make it known how near I stood to the succession. This gave me a certain sort of position, and at least tolerance, as more or less one of themselves by the exclusive set in which the Gascoynes moved. They still, however, showed no sign of great friendliness. Of course, the important person to conciliate was Lady Gascoyne. She did not belong to the difficult set by birth, and was naturally nervous of doing anything which might show her as a novice in the art of social selection. Not that she was in any way a snob; indeed, far from it.
She evidently liked me. I was the sort of personality that the heiress of enterprising American ancestors—the wrong word; her forbears could hardly be described as ancestors—would like. I had, however, so far not interested Lord Gascoyne, whose sympathies were limited. He had asked me to the house in a purely formal way, and as a member of the family who had a right to be so asked.
So far I had, as it were, been conducting reconnaissances round the network of his character and temperament in order to discover his vulnerable point. It was extremely difficult. He was one of those self-contained Englishmen whose sense of duty comes somewhat as a surprise in conjunction with an apparently unenthusiastic temperament. The very person to be a royal substitute in a dependency. Enthusiasm is the greatest curse that can befall a reigning Sovereign, and a really sincere, enthusiastic monarch is
distrusted by no one so much as by his own subjects. In his presence I at once suppressed the artistic side of my character, and pretended to a reserve and coldness in no way natural to me. Such topics as were discussed I treated with as much pure reason as was consistent with a respect to aristocratic prejudices, an attitude eminently conciliatory to the English noble, who is never so happy as when he flatters himself that he is displaying liberal tendencies. There did not, however, appear to be any likelihood of my being asked to Hammerton, and even my confession that I had visited the place as a tourist failed to elicit the desired invitation He was, because of his limitations, the most difficult person I had yet had to deal with. At the same time, my being on visiting terms with Lord and Lady Gascoyne, and admitted by them to be a relative, gave me a social status which I had not before possessed.
It was highly necessary to be swift with his lordship. I must say that I had less compunction about removing him than I had had about any of the others. He was so entirely impersonal in his relations with the outer world.
I think his wife was in love with him. He was the sort of man women love desperately where they love at all; for the simple reason that they are never permitted to become really familiar. They are always in the presence of their reigning sovereign. A very wholesome thing for most women, and especially corrective for an American woman. It had been, I fancy, a great change for her, inasmuch as before marriage she had ruled her father absolutely. It was a little surprising that Lord Gascoyne should have condescended to mingle his blood with what was, after all, quite a plebeian strain. It was the more surprising as he was in no need of money, and I discovered afterwards that at his request her enormous dowry was settled absolutely on her children. I wondered very much if the dowry would revert to the American relations should she die childless; also if, in the case of Lord Hammerton outliving his parents, but dying a minor, the money would pass to the Gascoyne family. It would certainly be amusing were I to inherit the American dollars.
The great thing, however, was to secure an invitation to Hammerton. If I could only render Lord Gascoyne some service, or
place him under an obligation to me in any way, it would probably follow as a matter of course.
An idea struck me. There was the portrait of Lord George, the one thing saved from the wreck of my uncle’s home. I knew that Lord Gascoyne took the greatest pride and interest in the portrait gallery at Hammerton, and that there was no portrait of Lord George Gascoyne, my own immediate ancestor, among the family pictures.
Finally, seeing no way of approaching the matter as if by chance, I wrote and offered him the portrait for the collection at Hammerton, and he replied asking me to come and see him.
I went, and was shown into his private sanctum. He was, considering his temperament, quite profuse in his thanks, but would at first not hear of accepting the portrait as a gift.
“As you say, it is not by a great name,” he said; “but at the same time it is a very good name, and is worth money, and more than money, to me.”
I gave him to understand that if he declined it as a gift it would hurt my feelings, as I should conclude that he did not care about accepting anything at my hands. This I conveyed to him in as tactful a way as possible. He saw, however, what I meant, and graciously accepted the picture.
“You must come down and see it hung.”
He could not very well say less, but by the expression of his face I wondered whether a vague suspicion of my motive had not, even as he spoke, entered his mind.
However, the invitation was given, and I intended to avail myself of it. I had no intention of allowing the matter to slip his memory.
“It must be a week-end,” I said smiling, “for, you know, I work hard all the week.”
“Lady Gascoyne shall write and ask you. She is at Hammerton herself at present.”
It was quite unnecessary for his lordship to inform me of Lady Gascoyne’s whereabouts, for I followed the movements of his household as closely as he did himself.
At Christmas I paid a flying visit to the Gascoynes in the South of France, and was welcomed with a curious quietness of passion by Miss Gascoyne, and like a son by her aunt and uncle.
Miss Gascoyne always exalted me, mentally if not morally, and even in the latter direction she led me out of the limitations I had laid down for myself, and beyond which it would be dangerous for me to venture. I am quite capable of great moral enthusiasm, and it has always been my habit to keep out of the way of those likely to infect me with strenuousness.
She talked of ideals quite simply and earnestly, and without the least suggestion of cant, and I was obliged to find some aspirations suitable to these occasions. Being a woman in love she was content to warm her romance at a very small fire, and, further, to imagine it a very big blaze.
I was terribly afraid of being found out by her in any way. I knew that once we were married she would die rather than admit that she had made a mistake. Her loyalty would amount to fanaticism, but she was a woman who could take strong measures before the irrevocable was accomplished. Her attitude has been that of a medieval saint matched with a Cenci. She has held her peace, and she has professed to believe what she knew to be false; whilst at the same time she has suffered agonies of abasement.
Nearly all women, however, are deceived in love. It is their pastime. Some never discover the fact, and dream their lives away from their marriage-day to the grave. If Miss Gascoyne hardly possessed the phlegmatic instinct which would enable her to join the comfortable ranks of the latter, she was none the less dwelling in a fool’s paradise during those winter days on the Riviera. Those who considered her cold would have been astonished had they known all. She was a concealed volcano.
I returned to town a little exhausted by the rarified atmosphere of reverential romance in which I had been living, and looking forward with a sense of relief to the decadent fascination of Sibella.
Miss Gascoyne with her Utopian dreams about the life of usefulness we were to lead required the natural antidote, and, strangely enough, the first whiff of the perfume Sibella used, wafted to me across the room as she rose to greet me, banished all sensation of ever having been bored by Edith, for I never admired her so much as when I was in the company of Sibella. In the same
way I never longed for Sibella to such an extent as when I was with Edith.
Amongst the letters which I found waiting when I reached my rooms there was an invitation from Lady Gascoyne asking me to give them the following Saturday to Monday at Hammerton.
From the tone of her letter it was obvious that she had been only too anxious to second her husband’s invitation. To do her justice, she had no class prejudices, and such exclusiveness as she displayed arose from her desire that her husband should think her in every way fitted to her position.
In my daily letter to Miss Gascoyne I mentioned casually that I had been invited to Hammerton. I knew that there were few things which would please her so much.
It was a bitterly cold evening in January when I reached Hammerton station, and it was snowing fast when we drove across the stone bridge which spanned the old moat and turned in at the gates.
There was just time to dress for dinner, and, getting into my evening clothes as quickly as possible, I descended and found that the only member of the party who had made his appearance was a young American millionaire who was being introduced to English society. I thought him particularly stupid and offensive, and was glad when Lord Gascoyne and the other guests quickly followed and we went to dinner.
We dined in a long, narrow room with a vaulted ceiling and gray antique stone walls covered with tapestry. The mixture of a feudal past with modern luxury was exceedingly grateful to a fastidious taste. The servants came and went through a low arched door, which must have been built during the early days of the Norman Conquest. The walls were covered with antique implements of battle, whilst imposing suits of armour loomed out of the shadows, their polished surfaces reflecting here and there the blaze from the enormous logfire in the vast chimney-place. The party consisted of about half a dozen people besides myself. There was the young millionaire I have already mentioned, and who, I believe, was destined by Lady Gascoyne for Lady Enid Branksome, a pretty, fair-haired girl, who was staying at Hammerton with her mother. It is surprising, when
one comes to think of it, how few young Americans marry English noblewomen. It would be interesting to inquire whether this reticence is caused by a disinclination to live in America—where, of course, precedence and rank would have to be dropped—or whether the American young man does not care to buy anything in the shape of a title which is not hereditary. It would certainly be incongruous for Lady Enid Branksome to degenerate into plain Mrs. Puttock of Philadelphia. It would seem almost a murder. The Branksomes, however, were poor, and Mr. Puttock was a multi-millionaire. He was obviously much taken with Lady Enid, who, on her side, was evidently torn by the convicting claims of love and interest; for young Sir Cheveley Drummond was also of the party. This had been a great tactical error on Lady Gascoyne’s part, for he seemed to find greater favour in Lady Enid’s eyes than did the fat, unhealthy cheeks and vacuous expression of Mr. Puttock of Philadelphia. At the same time, a glance at Lady Branksome’s face impressed one with the idea that the Lady Enid would most probably be made to do what she was told.
I have nearly always found house parties somewhat dull, unless there happened to be present a personality of new and surprising interest, and personalities do not frequent country-houses. But for the work I was engaged on I might have found the Saturday till Monday at Hammerton as dull as anything of the kind. It was, however, of absorbing interest to me to be in the house with two people whom I had decided on removing. The position pleased me. This absolutely modern company in a medieval castle, and with a medieval criminal in their midst, was truly interesting. Lady Branksome was evidently doubtful about me, but noting the Semitic cast of my features, and hearing that I was on the Stock Exchange, concluded that there could only be one reason for my being in such company, and that must be enormous wealth. Having several other daughters just ready to burst from the schoolroom into the ranks of the marriageable, she was tentatively affable. She was the sort of woman I always found it very easy to get on with; of the world, cynical and good-natured, very strong-minded, and willing to live and let live. She was at the same time most intolerant of people making fools of themselves, and had no intention of allowing those who were
dependent on her to do so if she could help it. Providing she was assured that I had no intentions, she would be perfectly friendly, even when she discovered that I was comparatively poor. Indeed, I gathered in the course of a conversation with her, that she had quite a weakness for adventurous young men. Probably it was because she understood them so well that she was such an expert in keeping them at a distance. During dinner, however, and pending inquiries which would no doubt be conducted when the ladies were alone, she treated me as a person rich enough to be conciliated. A very different woman was Lady Briardale. However rich a man might be, he was nothing to her unless he could show a pedigree. She evidently thought very little of Mr. Puttock, and less of Mr. Rank, who looked a Jew. She probably regarded it as a slight that she should have been asked to meet two such absolute nobodies. She had never heard of anybody called Puttock, or Rank. They were not names at all. They were merely ciphers by which the lower classes were differentiated one from the other. She would probably have thought it more convenient if the lower classes had been known by numbers like cabs and convicts; and, after all, they were not so interesting as convicts, and not so useful as cabs in her eyes. She was evidently somewhat annoyed that I should talk so well, a fact she might have forgiven if others had not paid me the compliment of listening. Indeed, she became quite civil to Puttock, who, she perhaps felt, showed himself conscious of his inferiority by holding his tongue.
Sir Cheveley Drummond, whom I knew to be entertaining, but who was quite taken up with Lady Enid, completed the party, which did not promise much amusement.
After dinner we all sat in the picture-gallery. The last time I had seen it was in company with the gang of excursionists, and I laughingly recalled the fact to Lady Gascoyne when she was showing me where the picture of Lord George had been hung. Lady Briardale was apparently a little astonished when she heard that Lord George was my ancestor, and that I had presented the picture to the collection. Lady Branksome had evidently recalled my name.
“I have been wondering, Mr. Rank, where I have heard of you, and I remember now that it was from my youngest boy. He met you
at supper one evening. I didn’t ask where,” she said parenthetically, “but he talked of nobody else for days.”
I remembered young Gavan Branksome, a nice, fair-haired youth, who had attracted my notice by being somewhat like Grahame Hallward.
“I have not seen him since.”
“No; he is in India. Did you like India, Sir Cheveley?” she said quickly, stopping the love-sick warrior as he was making his way across the room to Lady Enid.
Poor Sir Cheveley was forced to pause, and whilst Lady Branksome detained him, Mr. Puttock sank into the seat which Lady Enid had left vacant for Sir Cheveley.
“Charming man, Sir Cheveley,” said Lady Branksome, with almost a laugh when he finally moved away. “I’ve known him all his life, and he was always attractive, even when he was sixteen.”
I am sure she was perfectly honest in saying that she liked Sir Cheveley. She probably liked him as much as, in her heart, she disliked Mr. Puttock.
Poor Sir Cheveley’s disappointment, however, did not prevent his being excellent company in the smoking-room.
I sat up in my own room thinking matters over till a late hour. Before I arrived at Hammerton I had had vague ideas of pushing Lord Gascoyne down a disused well, or something of that kind, in which an old feudal castle like Hammerton might be supposed to abound. On consideration, however, I came to the conclusion that Lord Gascoyne would be a very difficult person to push anywhere he did not mean to go.
I was naturally afraid of poison in such a case. It would only be possible to use it whilst I was in the house, and that was dangerous. My growing proximity to the succession was bringing me nearer and nearer to the perilous land of motive. Violence, unless I were given an extraordinarily good opportunity, was out of the question. The cigar would not do, either, for, strange to say, Lord Gascoyne hardly smoked at all. Cigars and pipes he never attempted, and I noticed that as a rule he merely lit a cigarette in order to keep his guests in countenance.
