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competencies as well as its standards of
ethical practice. These are transferrable and
provide a blueprint for any leader wishing
to upgrade their culture in order to prosper.
Currently, adherence to ethical standards is the
only way to move forward through the unknown.
The importance of a learning culture with your
engineering team
A learning culture is a mindful one. One that
values the positive impact of actions, over
blame. A learning culture finds meaning in
actions and feeds insights forward to develop
new ideas and strategies. Objective thinking
relies on fact finding and precision, not
subjectivity and hearsay. Many leaders are
not aware of how they fact-find for decisionmaking,
so this self-awareness is the first step.
Another effective aspect of a learning culture is
its power to engage teams in problem-solving,
creativity and innovative thinking. With remote
working and daily distractions, inspiring your
team into positive solution-focus means they
are actively thinking of new things as they deal
with homeschooling and multi-tasking.
It’s worth stating that additional stress deactivates
innovative thinking. It’s a common
misbelief that piling on pressure increases
productivity, in reality, the resulting biochemicals
cause the brain to shut down.
Coaching is one of the most effective and
scientific methods in generating new, positive
thinking which is how the most successful
businesses are able to build resilience and
come up with new solutions that help them
bounce back. Combined with a learning
culture, these ideas can be trialed and
implemented quickly, with the least internal
friction, moving the business to discover new
opportunities.
Your engineering team must become the
master of re-invention
The new leadership practices, learned
and adopted now, can sow the seeds for
exponential growth in the future. Heraclitus,
the Greek philosopher, has been quoted as
saying “change is the only constant in life.”
This current situation has presented a great
opportunity for us to adapt our mindset,
embrace change as an ongoing strategy and
develop ways that changes are continuously
adopted by teams within the business. This
strategic capability will enable the business
to leverage change in a way that leads their
market by creating new opportunities.
Many major big brands were born from deep
crises, Chevron, Toyota, Caterpillar Inc,
General Electric and Sony to name a few. To
quote another famous philosopher, Plato, who
said “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
Master these pillars and your business will be
the master of re-invention with the ability to turn
set-back into profit.
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