Engineering and the other-directed personality type

New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote last week (February 10, 2012) about the historical context of personality types - - The Crowd Pleaser.  Brooks summarized the work of author David Riesman in his 1950 classic The Lonely Crowd.  The central theme in the article and book is different eras nurture different personality types.

The industrial era favored the inner-directed personality type.  The inner-directed person was guided by a set of strong internal convictions, like Victorian morality.  The inner-directed person was a hardy pioneer, the stolid engineer or the resilient steelworker - - working on physical things.  This person was often rigid, but also steadfast.  This person was my grandfather farming 100 acres in central Missouri at the turn of the 20th century.  Engineering in this era was always an inner-looking profession - - no environmental assessments, no public meetings, no complex network of stakeholders - - introverted people for an introverted process.

The other-directed personality type emerges in a service or information age economy.  In this sort of economy, most workers are not working with physical things; they are manipulating people.  The other-directed person becomes adept at pleasing others, at selling him or herself.  The other-directed person is attuned to what other people want him or her to be.  The other-directed person is a pliable member of a team and yearns for acceptance.  He or she is less notable for having a rigid character than for having a smooth personality.  Some of the other-directed world sounds shallow - - and it probably is to some degree.  But the reality is we live in a madly complicated world where adapting to a changing world is a critical career skill.  For better or for worse, the United States has been in a period of deindustrialization for the past 25-years - - we don't make things; we provide the global economy with services.  Engineering, especially consulting engineers, is less about things and more about service.  As you swim up the engineering value added chain, the journey becomes less about engineering and more about how well you manage and serve individuals and groups. 

Engineering faces a transition - - from our inner-directed world of only things to a more other-directed world of intertwined complex problems that will require a combination of social skills/policies and innovative engineering.  The word "combination" is important in this case where inner and other perspectives from individual engineers or teams of  engineers will be critical.  We need to blend our past collective personalities - - proudly pragmatic, problems-solving, unideological - - with a future of selling our ideas (e.g., more funding for public infrastructure and more freedom for public-private partnerships) and ourselves.