Why Engineers Need Great Communication Skills

Not too long ago, I was called in to help a pair of struggling engineers at a very large California Engineering firm. After a series of interviews, their company was in the final five bids and due to make their pitch the next day. It was very important city bridge construction project for them and everyone at the company had put a lot of time into the RFP’s and research and they really wanted to win that contract.

I was actually onsite working on a different presentation project that day when both the CEO and the head of the marketing department came to see me and asked for my help. They said that they did not know what exactly was wrong with the current bridge presentation or even how to fix it but that they were afraid it was going to be “a costly bomb” for the company in it’s present form.

“We don’t know why it doesn’t work”

When I asked what they felt the problem was from their perspective, both the boss and the head person from marketing shook their heads and said that they “did not know exactly why the presentation wasn’t working, it just wasn’t working.” They just knew “something just isn’t right” and that the pitch was “not going well.” They were clearly frustrated.” I said I would be happy to take a look at their presentation and see what I could do to help.

With the entire senior C level and marketing staff sitting in the room, I asked these two engineers if they would please run their presentation.  As I watched, it was clearly quite technically proficient with really good ideas and concepts. It had a nice Power Point.

But for some reason, their presentation felt absolutely flat. There were all the facts in the presentation but their wasn’t anything compelling about how they were delivering those facts. This is not an isolated incident. Many many engineers struggle with this same issue.

Engineers are often brilliant about solving a problem and also poor at communicating their ideas

Like scientists and technology folks, engineers can be a challenging group as they are often quite brilliant in their research and analysis of the facts, but often quite poor in communicating their ideas. This presentation was no exception. It was full of details but nothing that would get an audience excited about choosing them as their engineering firm over their other final four competitors. .

Loss Of Opportunities

This is an important observation. If you are a great engineer and you or your team have an  exciting way to solve a problem or execute on a potential project but you cannot communicate the key points of your solution, your are not likely to be chosen for the contract.

 In addition, if you give a poor presentation, you risk not only making a bad first impression but also losing important valuable new contracts or other opportunities from that potential client in the future.

Key Mistakes Engineers Make:

It’s Not Just The Facts

One of the reasons for this is that they want to get everything they know about their subject all in, all at the same time. In this case study, the key mistake these engineers had made was not in the facts themselves but in communication how they felt about those facts. It was clear to me that they were also bored and it was coming out in their flat delivery of the information.

So after the first run through of the presentation, I asked one of them, “So tell me, why are you an engineer?” He gave me a totally blank stare and said “What?” with that tone that tells you the subtext, “What kind of dumb question is that? That’s totally irrelevant.”
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Undeterred, I asked again. “Let me ask the question another way. You chose the profession of engineering and you’ve been doing it for quite a long time. You must like something about it. What is it?”

At this point he rolled his eyes, laughed and said flippantly with a noticeable edge I his voice, ” Well I don’t know, I used to build with Leggos as a kid. Is that what you mean?”

I  continued to press him, , “Well yes and now those leggos weigh fifteen tons. So tell me, why are you an engineer?” I could tell by the way he gritted his jaw tightly and from the color was rising up his neck that he was  getting frustrated with my line of questioning. There was a long silence.

Why Do You Do What You Do and What Are You Passionate About?

Suddenly Jeff got very emotional, his face began to get red and he spoke in an entirely different more emphatic and passionate tone which rose at every statement: “I’m an engineer because when I build a bridge, that bridge will be here long after I’m gone. When my kids walk across that bridge, they will be able to say, “My Dad built that bridge!” and when I’m in an airplane thirty thousand feet in the air and I look down out the window and see my bridge, I can say “That’s MY bridge!!”

At that, Jeff stopped and brushed away a tear welling up in his eyes. The entire room of people including the CEO, his boss and the marketing people were both silent and spellbound at this sudden passionate outburst from their engineer.

I could see he needed a moment to collect himself, so I turned to the other engineer named Barney. I asked him, “So Barney, what do you think. Would you agree with Jeff on this one?”

Barney laughed and said, “Yeah. Everything. Only I’d be seeing my bridge while blowing by it at seventy five miles and hour on my motorcycle!” We all laughed at this clever comment and the tension in the room was now broken.

How To Insert Passion Into Your Presentation

I knew we were getting somewhere now. So I said, “Great! That’s what we are going to talk about!” I proceeded to explain, “In this case when you get down to the final five being considered for any project, you are all roughly equal in the running. You are all technically proficient and any one of you could do the job.”

I continued, “In order to get your potential client’s real attention and buy in though, you need to give them something to remember about you and your company that distinguishes you from your competitors. In this case, I believe what we need to tell them is not only the facts of how you are not only going to solve this bridge construction project, but also how you feel about the larger topic of building bridges and leaving a legacy that you can all be proud of.”

“I believe that this client is looking not only for a competent engineering firm but also a firm that shares their commitment and passion about leaving both a beautiful and lasting legacy in the construction of their bridge.”

Creating a Strong Opening And Close To Your Presentation

I explained to both engineers that we were now going to take what they had already written and overlay their competent facts with information about how they  and their company feel about the passion for both competence and legacy. I could see that both engineers had not the slightest idea how we were going to do that.

So I began to explain, “That statement you gave a minute ago about your passion for building bridges, that’s how we are going to open the presentation.” Then I asked them some more questions and each answer we inserted into another point in the presentation. By the end their presentation, the closing statement not only had all the facts about competence but also passion about why they were the best choice for the project.

Results

In the end, they got the contract and were all very excited and happy. But they all admitted that while financially it was important win for them, the most important lesson they had all learned was how to take their lifetime of experience and passion for bridge construction and turn that into a winning presentation for their company.