A long-time executive in the petroleum industry, James R. Hutton is an ASME member and a registered Professional Engineer in four states. He holds a B.S. in engineering and business administration from the University of Texas. Hutton has written How to Sell Technical Equipment and Services, a book aimed at sales professionals and senior executives. The following article is based on a speech he gave recently.

By James R. Hutton

During my career, I learned a lot about what impressed customers and what would get the orders, and I saw many of our salespeople doing things wrong. I also observed a lot of engineers in their careers and noted that the ones with the broadest range of talents got promoted the fastest and moved the highest in their organizations.

What distinguishes a technical person and enables him to move up in management are not always his technical skills, but instead his people and communication skills.

During my travels to field offices of natural gas and oil companies, I have observed that each time a young, out-of-college engineer received a promotion, he did less actual engineering and was required to do other things in management involving people skills for which he has had little training.

The suggestions presented here are meaningful, well thought out, and things you can do if you make a serious effort. They were gathered, recognized, and identified during over 50 years spent in our industry all over the world. They are not textbook suggestions. They are not difficult to accomplish, and they are effective. They are mandatory if you really want to excel and to break out of the pack.

I have suggestions that I believe, if followed, will help you take a giant step in improving your promotability. I have arranged them in what I think is the order of importance.

SUGGESTIONS FOR CAREER ENHANCEMENT

1. Be honest and have integrity
2. Have a good reputation and keep it
3. Love your work
4. Improve your people skills
5. Be a good listener

1. Be honest and have integrity

The leitmotif or major reoccurring theme of my book is honesty and integrity. This is not a recent philosophy. I was left a strong legacy by my father who said honesty was not just the best policy...it was the only policy. My father lost his job in the middle of the Depression because he would not help steal oil from the landowner. He discovered at a pumping station where he worked that the pumps were taking suction out of the same tank that oil from the wells was flowing into. The oil was not being measured or gauged so the land owner would be paid the proper royalty. He promptly alerted the landowner of what was going on. He was laid off a few weeks later. He lost his job because he was honest.

This shows how important integrity is to me.

Here is what Warren Buffett says about integrity:
“I look for three things in hiring people:
The first is personal integrity.
The second is intelligence.
The third is high energy level.
But if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.”

From The Unwritten Laws of Engineering (an ASME publication)

“The priceless and inevitable reward for uncompromising integrity is confidence: the confidence of associates, subordinates, and outsiders. All transactions are enormously simplified when your word is as good as your bond and your motives are above question. ”

Integrity is an inside job and must be developed from within us.
Integrity is the alignment among:
• What we think (beliefs and values)
• What we say to others
• What we do

It is:
• Not determined by circumstances
• Not based on credentials
• Not to be confused with reputation

We build our integrity one step at a time over a long period of time.

When we commit to living a life of what we think, say and do, we will be a person of integrity. People who have integrity live and act in harmony with their values and beliefs. Reaching a higher level of success depends on an individual’s ability to be a person of integrity.

Why is integrity important? Trust. Without trust, we have nothing. Trust is the single most important factor in personal professional relationships. The more trustworthy we become, the more trustworthiness we inspire in others.

All of us are dismayed by the recent rash of corporate scandals.

One word of caution and I cannot say this strongly enough: Don’t allow yourself to be encouraged or convinced by your boss or your superiors to do something dishonest in your work. I say that because if later there is an investigation by the authorities, top management will often bail out on you and claim they had no part in the dishonest scheme and that you acted alone. You will be hung out to dry.
Be honest and have integrity at all times.

2. Have a good reputation and keep it

I cannot overemphasize this. Bear in mind your reputation is built up...hour by hour, day by day, month by month, year by year... over a lifetime and can be severely damaged or destroyed in a heartbeat by inappropriate behavior.

Charles W. Eliot, a 40-year president of Harvard University, had this to say about reputation:
“It is the judgment of your contemporaries that is most important to you; and you will find that the judgment of your contemporaries is made up alarmingly early, and often lasts a lifetime. Live today and every day like a man of honor.”

From The Unwritten Laws of Engineering (an ASME publication):
“In a surprisingly short period, individuals are recognized, appraised, and catalogued for exactly what they are, with far greater accuracy than they usually realize. Therefore, it behooves you to let your personal conduct, overtly and covertly, represent the very best practical standard of professional integrity by which you would like to let the world judge and rate you.”

Bear in mind that your reputation goes out in front of you — it does not follow you. The industry is small and the word gets around. Your image is created by all that you say and do both inside and outside your organization. To many people, a person’s word transcends what is put in writing. Have a good reputation and keep it.

3. Love your work

All of us have noted how much more can be accomplished if we love our work and are therefore highly motivated. We have all observed what motivated athletes can do by winning when no one gave them a chance. All loved what they were doing.

Love your work and you will accomplish much more and have a happier and healthier life.

In early history, work was considered a necessary evil. Not anymore.

Today our work defines us. Now when we meet someone new, we usually ask them what they do even before we ask where they are from.

New York Federal Judge Milton Pollack died recently at 97. Work, he often said, kept him alive.

4. Improve your people skills

A few years ago, I was playing golf with a retired senior executive from a major oil company. While waiting between holes, I asked him a few questions about his career and what experience gave him the most satisfaction. He told me that during his last few years, he spent several hours each week on a committee whose only job was to evaluate the outstanding performers and recommending who among this select few would be promoted and move up to even bigger and better jobs and to eventually run the company. He went on to say that invariably those not selected for promotion failed due to shortcomings in getting along with people or in their people skills. He said all were competent technically in their fields. All the engineers were excellent in their disciplines. The geologists, accountants, and lawyers knew and did their jobs well technically, but the failure of almost all of this group to move still higher in the organization was due almost entirely to their inability to communicate well, to manage people, and their inability to get along well with their colleagues, their superiors, and their subordinates — their failure in the “people” category.

To me, it seems that people with only technical skills reach a plateau in their careers and unless they possess other talents outside their disciplines, they top out and don’t move up.

5. Be a good listener

In 1973, I went with the local manager to call on the maintenance foreman of a large overseas oil company.

On his desk was a plaque with an inscription in Spanish. Since I did not read Spanish, I asked him what the inscription said. He said it epitomized his life history. Then he translated it for me: “Everything has been said, but since no one listened, I must start over again.”

After I heard the translation, I told our host that it also epitomized my life history and it still does today. People, in general, just don’t listen — and people, in general, do not know how to listen. Most people are lousy listeners, but technical people cannot afford to be poor listeners.

The eye has been the favored child in school while the ear has been left to fend for itself. The neglected ear performs poorly in the world where it must work overtime. It is estimated that we listen at about 25 percent efficiency. How we do our jobs, how we get along with other people, how we get along with our superiors, what we eat, the medicine we take, what we do to our hair, what we wear, how we furnish our homes, the moral codes we adopt, how we vote — are all greatly influenced by the way we listen.

One hundred technical workers in 47 states were asked to rate reading, writing, speaking, and listening in order of their importance on their jobs.

The results were:
Reading 4%
Writing 11%
Speaking 22%
Listening 63%

These statistics probably apply to most groups.

To better understand what is being said, keep in mind something about the person talking because everyone, when he is speaking, is to a large degree talking about himself. The speaker will unconsciously reflect into his words his inner feelings, his idiosyncrasies, his preconceptions, his assumptions, his background, and his prejudices.

A good example of poor listening by most people is what happens when several individuals from the same company or group attend a meeting with a customer or with their own colleagues. When you caucus later to discuss what you heard in the meeting, you will invariably have as many versions as you had people in the gathering. Sometimes there is such a divergence that you are quite sure that some of the individuals were in a different meeting altogether.

Some suggestions for improving your listening skill:

• Bear in mind listening is hard work and requires real effort
• Pay attention to the speaker and put his needs first
• Let him know that you are listening
• Be empathetic and responsive
• Look at the speaker and stay alert
• Listen for ideas
• Suspend your own judgment while listening
• Ask clarifying or follow-up questions when the speaker stops talking

We often fail to listen because:

• We are too busy.
• We already have our minds made up.
• We are uninterested or day dreaming.
• The problem is either too simple or too complex.

To show how important listening is, consider the following:

This is a true experience. Several years ago (in 1968) we were working on a large project in the Soviet Union. Other firms were involved and their presidents were leading the discussions. Following the conclusion of one of our negotiating visits, I was traveling to London where I lived and at the Moscow airport encountered one of these presidents whom I knew. The plane was not crowded, seats were not assigned, and when we boarded the flight I sat down across the aisle from him. As soon as we were airborne, he invited me to move over and sit by him. I began the conversation by asking a question about his career, where he grew up, etc. When he finished responding, I asked another question. This was repeated during the next 3 ½ hours. I made a few comments, but mostly I asked questions and listened intently to his replies.

Upon our arrival, he was met by his London manager and continued back to the U.S. A week or so later, I had lunch with this London manager. He told me that his president said I was the best conversationalist he had ever met. The only thing I did was to ask questions, to listen, and to let him know that I was listening.

Even today, even today, because of the answers I received, I probably remember more about this president than 98 percent of the salesmen who ever called on him — even those who saw him over a long period of time.

As you consider whether or not you can apply any of these suggestions, please bear in mind: The road to success is always under construction.

CONCENTRATE ON COURTESY

Being courteous is a successful component of all relationships, both personal and business. Here are a few points to keep in mind.

Improve your letter writing skills. Very few people seem to be able to write letters anymore. Perhaps e-mail has contributed to this. Letters you write are a reflection of you and your company. Take the time to make sure that all names and titles are spelled correctly, and check to see that your grammar and spelling are correct.

Confirm in writing all important information to avoid any misunderstanding. Always highlight the subject of your letter, along with the purchase order number, the name of the plant, and the contract or job number.

Send out the right signals and you will get the right signals back. A salesperson can send out the right signals by being responsive to the customer’s needs and requirements, speaking softly, never stringently, and by expressing sympathy for hardships when things go wrong. This type of salesperson will get the right signals back.

Keep all your promises. The smaller the promise, the more important it is to keep because someone who takes care of the small commitments he makes will certainly take care of the bigger and more important matters to which he agrees. Make note of the promises you make so you do not forget them.

Keep in touch. If you cultivate, early on, this habit of keeping in touch with individuals as they move up in their company, you will, in later years, find that you have a lot of friends in very important and high positions in their organizations.

Improve your telephone manners. Answering your own phone sends a powerful message and a favorable signal. If you don’t return all calls, sooner or later, you will miss talking to someone you should have and really wanted to talk to.