Leading An Engineering Career on the Razor’s Edge

The following is a summary of Episode 84 of our podcast, The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast. You can also listen to the show through the player below, the website, or by subscribing on iTunes.

In this session of The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast, Chris Knutson interviews Paul Rulkens, an expert in high performance, who talks about the razor’s edge, some strategies on continuous improvement, and the power of knowledge that comes from reading books. Paul explains why any of us would want to be pre-eminent (hint: it accelerates your engineering career or business). And Paul also shares with us the “master key” for unlocking success — one object we all want on our key chain.

Here are some of the key points Paul discussed in this episode including:

Ideal clients are attracted to you because you are an expert in the field, but if you do great work, you will attract more clients; this is a great way to accelerate your career.
What is pre-eminence? Stand apart from others. (“stand apart like a tall giraffe surrounded by field mice”)
What is the “razor’s edge”? It means you do not have to become twice as good in order to double your results, but be a little better in a few things that really matter.
Know what your razor’s edge is and focus to improve 1% everyday.
When you visualize what success is, you suddenly see people, ideas, and circumstances that can help you achieve your goals.

Master key to unlocking success:

Identify – Ask yourself which one skill you need: Which one skill if I have right here, right now would have the biggest possible impact in my career?
Copy – Steal, run, and use: Look at other successful people who possess those skills already and start to pick their brains. Ask: What do they do differently?
Move into action – Start to take action to build that skill. Do the 1% rule – if you improve by 1% every single day, you will double the results after 17 days.

Two elements of high performance and pre-eminence:

Universal component:

Clarity – have clarity on what success looks like so you can have the vision to do different things

Build your strength – improve on your strengths rather than weaknesses

Specific component:

Clarity – be very clear of what success look like

Focus – focus on one or two things and determine how to get there as fast as possible

Relentless execution – building success habits to make that happen

How high performing individuals/companies differ from low performing ones:

They are very good at what they do
They are very good at marketing themselves – being pre-eminent in the industry

Mindset of working on your business versus in your business: (Listen to Paul’s analogy of a hamster wheel)

In your business – you become better and better at what you are doing
On your business – you become strategic, make much more impact on what you are doing

Three activities that you do when you work ON your business:

Marketing
Innovation
Strategy

Two keys on value creation:

Know the distinction between need vs. want. Once you are pre-eminent in your niche, people come to you to have conversation with what they need.
Move to a place where people love what you do (example of Joshua Bell, a famous violinist, playing in a subway).
Focus on improving your services and relationships.

Have you determined your razor’s edge?

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.