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OPINION
We have a responsibility to take the lessons we learned from older generations and refine them to prepare a new generation for success. Growing the next generation of engineers
A s CEO of a consulting firm, son of baby boomers, and father of an 18-year-old starting her post-high school education, I have been thinking about how we prepare our own next generation of leaders. Specifically, what type of relationship do we need to foster between my generation, Generation X, and the next generations (millennials and Generation Z)? How should that differ from the expectations our seniors had for us?
Mike Nunley
In my work experience, the baby boomers who were my mentors had a strong work ethic, tended to stay with the same employer for a very long time, and felt strong loyalty to their bosses, clients, and colleagues. Work-life balance and personal satisfaction seemed to take a backseat to a “team mentality” and to job stability for this generation. They spent a lot of time teaching and mentoring, but they also expected us to work a lot of overtime and do “whatever it took” to deliver a great product and meet budget and schedule. We were encouraged to ask questions, but were taught to come into their office with an organized list of questions, get answers, then perform our own independent research to get to the next stage of a report or design. Most of our training was through detailed markups of our reports and plans
by our supervisors, or field visits during construction, with less emphasis on organized internal or external training classes – this was a real “on the job” education. So, how should we use the lessons from our training to build the next generation of engineering leaders? What can we learn from our mentors, our own generation, and these new generations? Here are the key areas we need to focus our efforts: 1. Delivering on work-life balance. Our generation is more focused on keeping our personal time sacred than our predecessors, and our junior staff have the same mindset. For example, we have
See MIKE NUNLEY, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER AUGUST 22, 2022, ISSUE 1454
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