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O P I N I O N
What is your risk model?
In any business, there are good risks and bad risks. Find out which ones are right for you.
R ecently, I stumbled upon a group of our younger engineers who regularly meet on Friday afternoons to discuss life, family, and work. On this particular Friday they were engaged in a discussion about the risks associated with the engineering profession. Specifically, they were comparing the risks and rewards of an engineering career versus the risks and rewards related to various business careers being pursued by their peers.
Stephen Lucy
my concerns when I was at a similar point in my career. Some of these concerns are our leadership team’s fault; others were for not discerning the risks that every firm undertakes to grow and succeed. So how do we separate bad risks from “We owe it to our younger engineers to work with them to redefine their purpose and future, and to encourage reasonable risk- taking, both as engineers and as a business.”
Generally speaking, these young engineers believed that it was far easier to avoid risks by choosing another career because engineering exposed them to greater personal risks and did not offer the salaries obtained by their peers. In talking about the disparity of the risks and rewards, they cited examples of peers making twice the money without the risks or associated stress. Figuring out how to move up the food chain to be more impactful and financially successful seemed to drive this conversation. Their key question: Should we go back to school and do something else? The more we talked, the more I understood their predicament and concerns as they were some of
See STEPHEN LUCY, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER October 14, 2019, ISSUE 1316
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