Welcome to the Impactful Engineering newsletter, where you’ll gain access to actionable tips, strategies, and the mindset for an exceptional career. Every newsletter you will learn a new skill, key mindset, or overall perspective that will empower you to reach your goals and increase your impact.

The Power of Collaboration: Leveraging Ideas for Successful Engineering Solutions

"You can take multiple pieces of ideas in a team, to create the best all encompassing idea to solve a problem." - Steve Maxey, Episode 23

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You’ve come up with an answer!

It’s all too common to love your own ideas. You have the expertise and experience. You have a solution to solve the problem being discussed. You’ve thought of everything and see there’s little risk to your solution. Everyone should be as excited as you are to have direction with a great answer to the question at hand! The problem is, everyone else loves their idea as well. So what next? How does the team buy in on the direction needed?

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Take Action: Offer your idea as an option, but intentionally consider others’ perspectives 👇

This is what you do in this situation:

When it’s your turn to offer an idea, offer it up as a potential path, but ask for ways to improve it. You’ll be surprised that more often than not, you’ll receive positive input that will strengthen your baseline with other ideas.

When it’s others’ time to share their ideas. Listen intentionally how their idea is better than yours. Offer input to strengthen it, but keep it their baseline direction to solve the problem. Now here’s the most important element in being an impactful engineer:

If you want to build the best team relationship possible, always default to using other people’s perspectives. Even if you THINK your concept is superior. If theirs will get the job done effectively, then you will all win in the long run by yielding to your team’s idea. You must also give it your all in making it the best version of the solution. This is how you will influence a team to be fully committed to the plan.

The Impactful Engineering Project's purpose is to bring awareness, access, success, and mentorship to all new and aspiring engineers. But it doesn't stop there. What we talk about on this podcast applies to seasoned engineers as well.

The community that will be built from this project has the potential to change the lives of everyone who is a part of it. We sincerely hope to reach and help as many people as possible. Your participation will bring the project to life.