From Engineer to Leader: Mastering the Transition with Jeremy Doran

In this episode of Innovators Unleashed, we had the pleasure of hosting Jeremy Doran, a unique professional with degrees in engineering and psychology. Our conversation dove into the challenges that engineers face when stepping into management or leadership roles. Doran emphasized that transitioning from a technical role to management often requires a shift in communication styles.

He introduced his Rhodium Rule, a twist on the Golden Rule, which emphasizes treating everyone the way they want to be treated - particularly in terms of communication. Doran suggested paying close attention to others' preferred modes of communication can foster better working relationships.

Doran also spoke about the challenges of remote work, particularly in maintaining effective communication. To overcome these obstacles, he recommended utilizing small breakout rooms during group meetings to mimic in-person interactions.

Another focal point of our discussion was upward mobility in leadership. Doran suggested that effective delegation and empowering team members can create room for personal advancement. He also proposed a shift in perspective for managers to view their team as their product, focusing on their success.

On communication, Doran stressed that it's a skill that always needs improvement and is a combination of effective transmission and active listening.

Lastly, he touched on building a personal brand within an organization and the role of curiosity in showing confidence.

Clinton Henry:  So, Jeremy, I'm so excited that you're here largely because your background is so fascinating, having a degree in engineering and also in psychology. From your perspective, what challenges do new engineers face that they may not be prepared for when they move into a management or leadership role?

Jeremy Doran: Great. Thank you for having me. First of all, transition is difficult for everyone. People get promoted to being managers because they were really good at what they did. And then they kind of get thrown in the deep end and few people get help figuring out how to be good managers. For engineers, it's a little extra tricky because the way they communicate is very good for technical things. But when dealing with managing people or having to interact with sales or marketing departments, it's very different communication style that they need to figure out how to adapt to.

Clinton Henry: And how do you recommend through your coaching that they work on adapting to that? Do you have any approaches or techniques that you think are more effective than others?

Jeremy Doran: There's a number of things. The first thing I always tell people is, I call it the Rhodium Rule. People talk about the Golden Rule and that's, treat everyone the way you want to be treated. But not everyone wants to be treated the way you are. It used to be called the Platinum Rule, but now gold's actually more expensive than platinum so Rhodium is the most expensive metal on the periodic table. I live in Rhode Island, so I really am a big fan of the Rhodium Rule. But that's, treat everyone the way they want to be treated so communicate with them the way they like to communicate. Sometimes people like for instance, I won't really pick up the phone if you give me a call, but if you send me an email, I'm happy to call you right back. And if you can pay attention to the way other people what medium they like to use to communicate, it goes a long way towards normalizing the conversations.

Clinton Henry:  I think that's really important when you're engaging with people outside of your team, but also when you're leading a team kind of customizing how you engage with the people you're managing, right?

Jeremy Doran:  Yeah. I've seen engineers who become managers and they will not go and talk to anybody in person. It just makes everyone on the team feel less important, less heard. So figuring out, it's a combination. Sometimes email is the most efficient, but sometimes it causes miscommunication. That makes it the least efficient way to communicate with people.

Clinton Henry:  Does remote work create additional challenges?

Jeremy Doran:  Oh, for sure. They say that it's only 10% of your words that communicate a lot of its body language. When you're talking on the phone, you don't get body language. You at least get tone of voice, which you don't get in email. But even with Zoom, you're only seeing half the person. And so you're not getting as many cues as you normally would.

Clinton Henry: Yeah. So, I mean, how do you address this? I mean, one of the things that I miss and I'm speaking to you obviously from my home office and I think you're speaking to me from your home office. How do you get around the fact that you're not having those watercooler or hallway conversations that you did previously when you're trying to, one, just engage with your team, but also network within your organization with the hopes of potentially maybe moving up in your work?

Jeremy Doran: When I schedule a group meeting, I like to do breakouts and if there are ten people on the call, then maybe a couple of different breakouts where there's only 3 to 4 people in a room and just give them a topic that's not work related necessarily and just get people communicating. So it simulates the water cooler that you no longer have. But if you can just schedule in time to chit chat, it gets difficult if there's too many people in the group because then a couple people normally dominate it and that's why I break them out into smaller subgroups.

Clinton Henry: That's interesting. I know you deal with new managers or new leaders. And when people get into management, their goal is usually not to stay where they are. They would like to move up. Do you have recommendations or thoughts on on how they can potentially climb that ladder from being a first line manager to middle and executive leadership? What are your thoughts there?

Jeremy Doran: One thing that I tell people very often is you need to make yourself obsolete. And the way you do that is by training people on your team to do the things that you do. Delegation is something that people have tried once. They did it poorly, it didn't work. And so they just run away from it and they do things themselves. Delegation is a great way to train people. And while you're doing that, especially if they're repetitious things, you end up saving yourself a ton of time and you've just taught and empowered someone on your team. The more things you can empower them to do, the less you need to be there for the day to day and the more you can manage instead of actually doing. And once you've done that, you get to take credit for all the success that your team has and it allows you to move up. I've actually seen in organizations people stuck where they are because they're too good at what they do and they haven't taught anyone else how to do it. So make yourself obsolete.

Clinton Henry: It's so interesting. It's so counter to what we hear. People think I’m going to make myself indispensable. I'm going to do everything. And then they get frustrated because they're burned out. A lot of times when engineers get promoted into leadership, they have a hard time. I was talking about putting down the screwdriver and actually stop engineering and start being a manager. Do you have any approaches or techniques that help individuals do that or is it more of a repetition? What are your thoughts there?

Jeremy Doran:  Yeah, it's really hard because you have your self-pride and the commendations you have gotten up until that point have always been for things that you've done. Your product was whatever the rocket or the design or the paper and you were always happy with yourself and got recognition for making that product. The thing that I tell people is that's no longer the product, your team is now your product. And if you look at it that way, the way that you have success by making your product is by making your team successful. And it's a tough mind shift for people to make. But if you think of your team as your product, then it goes a long way towards where you're going to focus your time.

Clinton Henry: [ That's interesting. In your mind, what makes a effective leader?

Jeremy Doran:  I think the thing that crosses all spectrums is communication. If you can communicate well with people, whether it is your vision or it is just giving them feedback on what they've done well or not done well, communication is the key at every level. Once you start becoming a mid-level manager, moving up to a leader in the organization, it always comes back to good communication.

Clinton Henry:  And that's not just sending concise emails, there's more to it than just that. Right?

Jeremy Doran: [There is. Communication is at least half listening as much as it is what you project to other people. Sometimes that gets forgotten.

Clinton Henry:  So you're a new engineering manager. You know that communication is important. You talk about how you go to school to be an engineer and you spend all these hours and then you thrust into a new role because you're a high performer and now you're a leader. How long does it take to become an effective communicator? And how can you grade yourself and get feedback to know like, Oh, I'm where I need to be or I need to work on this more?

Jeremy Doran: You always need to work on it more. It's always a journey but I talk about engineering. It takes about 10,000 hours of studying and doing engineering until you're good at it. Most college degrees are for engineers, about 5000 hours of work, and then it's another couple of years before you're really good at engineering. So it's not like management should be something that comes naturally overnight to you. It takes work and it's going to take continuous work, but the more you practice it, the better it's going to get.

Clinton Henry: Do you think switching gears briefly as far as we always talk about brand as a leader, your personal brand is within an organization, social media like LinkedIn, is that an important part of brand or is it more just kind of internal communication and advertising yourself within the organization? What's more effective there and what do you think people should be spending their time on?

Jeremy Doran: For dealing with people inside the organization, I don't think LinkedIn or Facebook are nearly as important as if you're trying to reach people outside of your organization. But within your organization, I think interacting with people as often as you can in as many different ways as possible. So talk to them through email, on the phone. If you can get them in person, that's great. And your brand is the way that you present yourself. So it's everything from your posture, wearing the right clothing, showing that you're confident. And interestingly, I think the thing that shows the most confidence is when you're willing to be curious and ask questions about things you don't know. People who are not confident, rarely ask those questions.

Clinton Henry: That's a great thought. You worked at a very large organization. Schneider was one. How did you get yourself out there to climb that ladder? Was that just with your management peers or how did you structure that? Because I know you think like an engineer, but also like a psychologist so how did you approach that?

Jeremy Doran: Well, it started early. I'm the youngest of ten kids. And what I realized is that if I say something with enough confidence, then people would listen to me. But being the youngest, I had to have a lot of confidence in what I said and in one of the first weeks at work, everyone who was managing us went to a conference. And so someone took a phone call and had a question about how long it would take to ship a product somewhere, and no one knew the answer. I said, Tell them two weeks. They're like, Great two weeks. And then they hung up and they said, How do you know? I'm like, I think it's probably 3 to 4 days. But if you tell them two weeks and it gets there sooner, they'll be happy. They're like, Great. And then anytime someone had a question, they would look at me for an answer, even though I was just as new as they were. So showing that you have confidence, using it wisely and not throwing yourself under the bus with it, it goes just such a long way. Then once people start looking to you to answer things, then it builds on itself as long as you can provide answers.

Clinton Henry: I love that you brought up the youngest of ten because I think this shapes a lot of your perspective on life in general, but specifically being a leader. What have you learned from being the youngest of ten aside from the have a lot of confidence that has helped you want to be an excellent manager leader, but also a very strong coach?

Jeremy Doran: The difference in everybody is pretty striking. There's ten of us and the way I learned to interact with different people in the family was different because what worked with [inaudible]. I learned to pay very careful attention to what people do and then work with them in a way that is comfortable for them. So it really taught me to pay attention to people.

Clinton Henry:  And then so how did dinner work with ten kids? Like, did you starve or did you have to be the fastest? I was one of four and this is why I have a challenge with waiting to be able to stop talking to get my word in. So I always coach like wait until they're finished speaking because I was used to just trying to get my thought and at the dinner table. So how does that scale up to ten? I'm still very stressed.

Jeremy Doran: Food wise, there was a system. Everybody had their own system. You were always going to get at least enough food, but you weren't always going to get exactly the food that you wanted. So the dinner always started with my father at the head of the table and it went counterclockwise. So my brother Tim was always the first one at the table. He always sat in the second position so he would get the first choice of chicken or pork chop or whatever it was. As the youngest, I was never able to get there fastest. I didn't have the longest arm, so I couldn't reach for things in the middle of the table. What I learned to do was ask for things that no one else wanted. Mom would always make two vegetables. One was corn because everyone would eat corn. And then the second one was open to suggestion. I always suggested lima beans because I love lima beans and no one else does. So on Lima Bean Day, I got as many Lima beans as I wanted. That was an early lesson on finding a niche. If you can find a niche that you like and love and can profit from that other people don't necessarily want to be in, it's a great example.

Clinton Henry: That's brilliant. One of the techniques that I always talk about to people is when you're new in an organization is to go and talk to everybody and ask what some of their biggest challenges are. And usually you'll hear 2 or 3 people say the same thing. And it's like, that's a hard problem and nobody's solved it. If you go in and basically take the lima bean problem and nobody wants to deal with that problem and solve that, you become a hero within the org. So that's very insightful. I think everybody can learn a lot from that.

Jeremy Doran:  I'm going to start using the term the lima bean problem now.

Clinton Henry: I love that. Please do. Look Jeremy, I really appreciate you hopping on and give us an insight first on transitioning from being an engineer to being a leader but also what it takes to be a compelling and strong leader. And then obviously your perspective from obviously being a leader, but also what you dealt with growing up in life and being the youngest of ten has shaped a lot of your perspective. And so hopefully that's helped our audience and expanded your influence and reach as well. So thank you so much. I really do appreciate the time.

Jeremy Doran: Great. Thank you. I appreciate you having me.