Why Teach Organization Design to Undergraduate Engineers?

Educated as an engineer and with many years of managerial experience, I joined the faculty of the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology in 2001 as Professor of Management Theory.  With my 27 years with Philips Argentina, eight years with Whirlpool finally as CEO and Chairman of the Board, and my interest in philosophy - particularly Mario Augusto Bunge’s systemism approach, I brought a certain perspective and confidence to the role.

Asked by the Dean to write a proposal for the course, I scanned the shelves of bookstores and libraries for an approach that would appeal to engineers.  Fifteen years before I had read a book by Elliott Jaques and now his more recent Requisite Organization jumped off the shelves into my hands.  It was as if the Gods had sent this book as a gift at just the right moment.

Elliott Jaques’ original consulting, research and theory development had been in an engineering company, The Glacier Metal Company.  Over many years he consulted to the CEO and to every level of the company collaborating with the CEO in developing rigorously defined and tested concepts that fit together in a system.  Jaques often said that engineers were the first to understand and apply his concepts because engineers were trained in scientific method, had well defined concepts, and demanded testing and practical application.

And thus so, his approach appealed to the engineer in me.  I thought if I had read this book as a young engineer that I would most likely have won my successes with fewer bumps and scratches.  I also  thought the course would appeal to the engineering student’s mindset, and of immediate importance to the engineer in the Dean who had to approve the course.

I proposed that this Management Theory course would help newly employed engineers to get “snapshots of the future”:

• Perceive the difference in their future reading between solid, research-based management writing and the fluff and fads filling the shelves.

• Understand their employing organization’s overall design and the roles within it -- especially those of his/her manager and the manager’s manager and that of peers.  It would help him/her see that his first role out of school, often that of Analyst, would likely be “compressed” by a supervisor trying to act as a manager but also in stratum I with all of the accompanying stress and dysfunction.  The concepts would help him understand and mitigate the damage.

• Understand larger project dynamics often better than his manager might, and if his advice were tactfully given might help him gain recognition for his wisdom and maturity leading in turn to early promotion.

• Be more effective in his/her collaborative work

• Manage their own careers much better

While textbooks in management theory include smatterings of all the major management theories and concepts, I felt that if we took that approach as so many schools do, that our graduating engineers going out into the world would have no real practical tools they could use.  I encouraged the Dean to approve my course design which taught exclusively the requisite organization or stratified systems theory of management.  And luckily approve it he did. Years later I had to defend the course when the School of Administration was founded within ITBA, but with good reputation and allies I prevailed once again.

From 2001 to the current year 2015, I have taught the course 28 times to a total of more than 2000 students.  It’s a required course for industrial, chemical, oil and gas, electrical engineers and for those from the School of Administration; and it’s an elective for IT, electronic, and mechanical engineers.  While early on a larger percentage of students had work experience, I estimate that only about 20% have work experience today.

Features of the course

In the 17 week semester, I build an overarching message teaching the values, temperament, critical thinking, patience in working with uncertainty-- all befitting a competent professional engineer --  while the major content focus is teaching organization structure and how to work effectively within it and management one’s own career.

There are the normal readings, lectures, cases and quizzes; but importantly there is a team project for 25% of the grade where five or six students interview managers in a large organization to diagnose the extent that they use the principles taught in the course and report back to the class on their experience.

It turns out that students show most interest in how the layers of work complexity are related to the concept of felt-fair-pay.  Perhaps this may be due to anticipating their own earning potential over the years.

Recommendations

Schools of of engineering and professors teaching non-technical, broader context courses might wish to consider the following ideas, some of which we have been able to implement at ITBA and some suggested by colleagues at the Global Organization Design Society.

• First include courses in organization theory and behaviour in the curriculum.

• Staff them with professors who have been general managers themselves in engineering-based companies

• Pilot the courses to fine tune them and then make at least one a required course

• Fill the courses with stories, cases, role playing, and projects that will prepare them for their first five years of employment.

• Keep in touch with your graduates and draw on them to be a source of practical teaching materials, provide visits, interviews and cases for current students and to advise on trends in the profession.

• Research major career paths, interview senior successful engineers who have reached Director, VP or even CEO levels plotting their careers on the Progression curves showing age and level of work complexity as they move through their careers.  If anonymous, also track salary levels by age and level to create a database for the school.

• Interview / collect data from a sample of your graduates about about role conflicts, management and structure problems every five years.  Give special attention to the first five years investing effort in documenting frequent obstacles and challenges graduates have had, and writing cases helping students to think through best ways to work through the issues.

• Be on the watch for how requisite organization and work levels principles can be build into other school courses wherever project management is taught.

The Global Organization Design Society has an on-going program to encourage teaching of work-levels based organization design and management in professional schools around the world.  I am pleased to be a part of that effort.

I heartily encourage you to create a free registration on the society’s website, http://globalro.org  There are many free books, videos and other materials for your use.  Academics and their graduate students qualify for free access to the Society’s online professional development where you can learn the basic concepts within about 10 hours.  Write to [email protected] for your free access.  Additionally academics receive major discounts to the society’s clinics and conferences.  I hope to see you there.