Are you a risk taker?

I recently read an article (well, a rather incomplete one) about risk tolerance being a differentiating factor between leaders and managers. Leaders take risks and inspire others with their vision, while managers handle managing the activities to bring out the vision. How about also relating risk tolerance to the difference between those who stand out and those who blend in with the rest of the pack?

First off, what is risk tolerance?

In lay(wo)man terms, I take it to mean your ability to handle risks and not be averse to taking them. 

To be able to stand out in your organization, you need to be willing to put yourself out there, which is inherently a risk. Think about it. When you put yourself out there, regardless of the type of situation, you do have the chance to fail. But, that’s not as important as is the opportunity to succeed.

Many of us, when faced with new situations tend to see the negatives first and let them stop us. Yes, this includes me. Instead what we should do is combine risk tolerance with risk mitigation. Look at the both the pros and cons, and devise a plan to overcome any foreseeable setbacks as they come. Make your risks smarter and work for you.

Risk.

Can you handle it?

I'm constantly telling my friends to stop sitting around and waiting for their career, or their life, to happen. To succeed you need to make the conscious decision to own your life and your career to ensure your future success and happiness. It takes some self reflection to really determine where you want to be in life and what you need to do to get there. And to be honest, it’s not always an easy thing to do; I struggle with it, too.

It's not always easy to figure things out, but there are some questions that I have asked myself throughout the years that have really helped. I'll share of few here with y'all since I'm a cool person.

1. What is your personal definition of success?

I just can’t stress how important this is, I really can’t. What success is to me is not what it is to you, and what success is to you, is not success to your neighbor. Let’s stop comparing ourselves to each other and come up with our own personal definitions of success. When you do this, the end goals that you are striving for are of actual significance to you.

2. Do you have your priorities in check?

Have you reconciled your priorities in regards to meeting your goals? Do you need to shuffle priorities around to achieve your goals? Are you okay with moving some things to back burner while pushing others to the foreground? Is it worth any of the strains of priority shifting? Yes. No. Maybe you need to reshape your goal to be more inline and in sync with your priorities.

3. What are your resources and how can you use them?

Resources come in many flavors: educational opportunities, professional organizations, even your coworkers. To achieve your end goal, you need to identify these resources and their benefit to you. What training classes do you need to take? What certifications would be beneficial to you? What professional organizations should you take a part in? Who is in your network? But don’t be a user, though. Don’t be a person that tramples upon others and actually expect (or demand) their respect at the end of the day. It doesn’t work like that. Respect and a polite demeanor go a long way. Trust. 

4. Are you willing to deal with your own flaws?

You need to “get over yourself.” We are our own worst enemy. We all have our flaws and we need to learn coping mechanisms to overcome them. If you are not willing to recognize your flaws, how can you expect to achieve your goals? Many times it is our own action or inaction that is preventing us from reaching our goals. We tend to mask our faults and misplace the blame to external sources. In order to succeed we need to recognize who we are to realize who we want to be.

5. Can you deal with failures?

Crap happens. It really does. You’ve gotten everything all laid out, everything is working to plan, and someone pulls a loose thread and everything becomes unraveled in a blink of an eye.  Been there, done that. We all have. If you really want to get to where you want to be, you can’t live your life wallowing in what could have been. Pick yourself up, figure out what went wrong and why, and remedy it. And if it’s something that is out of your power to fix, figure out how to make the situation work for you. Don’t let the system work for the (wo)man, make it work for you.

To close out, I’d like to remind y’all this awesome quote by John Lennon “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” Goals and priorities shift over time, and by no means does this make you a failure.

- Engineering Diva

Check out my blog at engineeringdiva.wordpress.com

Facebook is too loose, LinkedIn is too tight, Twitter is too useless. So where do engineers, technicians, and entrepreneurs with hands-on skills go to find kindred spirits that can help them realize new products, processes, or businesses?  A few credible sources such as IEEE Spectrum, Professional Engineering Magazine, and ASME's magazine have broached the topic recently to see if engineers and social networking can not only coexist, but thrive and prosper in a productive manner. I think the answer is a resounding yes, but that's what ELFS is all about - bringing engineers together to get stuff done.  But take a look at these articles to see for yourself, and to also discover other places where people like us can get together online.

IEEE Spectrum - Online groups and sites are cropping up to cater to specialized interests

ASME - Engineers Make Practical Use of Social Media

PE Magazine - Social Net-Working

What do you think?  Can engineers make valuable use of social media to further technology and practical innovation? Or is it just a time-waster and real innovation only happens offline?