Samurai or Firefighter - What Kind of Engineer Are You?

The following is a summary of Episode 58 of my podcast, The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast. I will summarize the main points in this post; however, you can also listen to the show through the website or by subscribing on iTunes. I offer a career-changing tip at the end of each podcast session.

In this session of The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast, my co-host Chris Knutson and I are going to discuss two different approaches to work as an engineer, the firefighter approach and the samurai approach. The basic difference being a reactive or proactive approach in the way you work.

Listen to this session and learn the different advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches:

Approaching your Engineering Career with a Firefighter Mentality

Benefits:

1. You are trained, poised, and ready to save the day (yours or someone else’s!) when called upon.
2. You are knowledgeable and skilled because you put a lot of effort in understanding the tools of your craft.
3. You are mentally bulletproof because you understand how to control your mind and anxiety and develop courage in the face of fear.
4. You’re a planner and risk assessor, not just for yourself, but also for others and your team.

Disadvantages:

1. You have a lot of “off” time and periodic episodes of chaos because you are always waiting or anticipating the next crisis to come up.
2. You are always thinking, planning, and assessing the dangers that lie all around, which may prevent you from being able to see the positives and opportunities that are out there.

Approaching your Engineering Career with a Samurai Mentality

Benefits:

1. You are calm and you don’t easily get riled up.
2. You work on your schedule without distraction (may not always be realistic) and focus on one thing.
3. You are proactive and you prepare for what’s coming in the future.
4. You are creative and innovative since you schedule your tasks with ample time before the deadline giving you opportunity to be creative and make your engineering work stand out.

Disadvantages:

1. You don’t always respond well to pressure or think on your toes.
2. You are too calm or not aggressive enough.
3. You can miss opportunities if you are too laid back.

Ideally, as an engineer, you want to possess characteristics of both a samurai and a firefighter. You should be able to handle adversity and at the same time, you must be able to create the space to be creative and productive. You should strive to be able to do both of those things and balance them in an effort to be a successful engineer, which I would define as an engineer who achieves his or her goals.

What are the challenges you feel you’ll have while developing the skills and habits of a samurai and/or firefighter in your engineering career?

Anthony Fasano, PE, author of Engineer Your Own Success, found success as an engineer at a very early age and now writes and podcasts to help other engineers do the same. Visit Anthony’s website at EngineeringCareerCoach.com to access all of the free engineering career resources he has created to help engineers succeed.