Q & A Table of Contents
Can Civil Engineers Be Civil?
From: Tran, Scotland
Question: I am a civil engineering student writing about "The Civil Engineer
As A Negotiator."
My hypothesis is: "The process of formal Civil Engineering education does
not prepare graduates adequately for the process of negotiation in the work
environment."
Could you tell me, Steve,
1. The extent to which negotiation forms an important part of the (civil)
engineer's role, and
2. Your professional point of view about the importance of negotiation in
the work environment
Response: 1. Negotiation is fundamental to the professional life of any
person who needs to sell an idea, convince members of a team to work together, or
develop solutions to both simple and complex problems. A civil engineer
certainly needs to be able to negotiate effectively in each of those
circumstances.
While the common view of engineers is that they spend all their time playing
with numbers and the tools of their trade, unless they can bring their
skills to bear to solve the problems with which they are presented, they
cannot do their job effectively.
Thus, if a municipality needs to improve its infrastructure, the civil
engineer who's given the task has to work with community groups, businesses,
whoever is going to undertake the construction project, etc. to develop a
solution that will not only work from an engineer's perspective, but also be
workable for the other parties involved. This requires effective
negotiation skills.
2. One cannot be effective in a work environment which involves dealing with
other people without effective negotiation skills. Unless you work alone,
with no clients or customers and no colleagues, you must be able to
negotiate to solve problems, to reach agreements, to get people committed to
implementing projects.
While it is certainly not the only one, negotiation is a fundamental core
competency in the workplace. One could say that negotiation is a core
competency in virtually every kind of job: you may not need to be a good
statistician to be a good salesperson; you may not need a high level of
leadership skills to be a surgeon -- but no matter what you do, you need to
be able to reach workable, wise, durable agreements with other people -- and
negotiation is the mechanism by which people trade bargaining chips with
other people in a civilized manner.
Good luck with your thesis and in your work as an engineer.
Steve
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