Why Would Anyone Go to Engineering School?

Why Would Anyone Go To Engineering School?

Remarks by
Roberto C. Goizueta

Yale Faculty of Engineering
New Haven, Connecticut
February 22, 1996

Thank you, Rick ... and good afternoon, everyone.

(Your introduction was so flowery and so Veracious that it almost sounded like a eulogy. For a second, I felt as if I should have done the honorable thing and died first!)

It's always wonderful to be back at Yale.

And it is a high honor indeed for me to be asked to deliver the inaugural Sheffield Lecture, at Yale's College of Engineering.

When you are privileged to lead an institution such as The Coca-Cola Company, awards and honors occasionally come your way.

But to be honored as a Sheffield Fellow by your alma mater ...

That is special.

It somehow makes up for all those late nights ... digging frantically through Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook ... subsisting on terrible coffee ... and cramming for the next day's Thermodynamics test.

When most alumni come back to campus, they look for the Yale Bowl, or maybe stop by Mory's, to make them feel at home.

But I always find it reassuring to see the Sheffield Chemistry Lab, still standing there ... to terrify Chem-E students of future generations.

I'm very proud of my Chem-E degree from Yale. And I'm very proud of the work Dean Bromley has done in this decade ... as Yale has restored a proper emphasis to engineering.

I think Dr. Bromley is to be commended for not only getting more Yale students into engineering but -- as he says -- getting more engineering into Yale students.

Engineering at Yale is something broader than engineering at any technical institute. The beauty of a formal education in engineering at Yale is that you get the discipline of an engineering curriculum, but you also are provided with the opportunity to stretch your mind in other directions. Such is the academic environment at Yale.

I will admit: I'm not sure how much I was thinking about stretching my mind when I signed up for "Geography Of The Tropics" as one of my electives. To be honest, I was probably thinking, "I'm from the Tropics ... so how hard can this be?"

But my entire education, as a Yale engineer, taught me much more than engineering. And I don't think the importance of that can be overstated ... because virtually nothing that I do today is, in the strictest or purest sense, engineering.

That prompts a question: "Why Would Anyone Go To Engineering School?"

And if your answer is, "To learn engineering" ... you are in for a surprise ... and you are going to be a bit disappointed.

I say this because five or ten years from now, you will realize how little you remember of the formulas and the problems that so much intrigue you, or vex you, today.

What you will remember is something far more important. You will remember how to solve problems. You will remember how to think. You will remember how to learn.

Engineering is a discipline like no other. It even has an unusual name ... "Engineering."

No other academic course is referred to in verb form. You study Chemistry ... not "Chemistry-ing." You study English ... not "English-ing." You study Economics ... not "Eco-nom-ing."

But you study engineering. By its very nature, engineering is uniquely action-oriented. And that action ... is learning.

At its heart, engineering really is the science of learning. When you study engineering, you are studying how to think. And that thinking ... just like any scientific discipline ... takes a very precise form.

As engineers, we think in four steps.

-- First, we assess the big picture. We take inventory of the

situation.

-- Second, we burrow into the details. We deconstruct the problem before us ... break it down into its parts, so we can study and solve each one.

-- Third, we follow up. We ask questions. We challenge assumptions.

-- And then, finally, we put ourselves in the mind of someone else ... the user of the machine, or product, or process in question. We see if our thinking is correct. We confirm our beliefs.

Finally, we see if it works.

Fortunately, for those of you planning to get jobs someday ... those ways of thinking happen to have real relevance in business, too.

In fact, that approach to thinking -- assessing the big picture, burrowing into the details, following up, making it work -- that's a pretty good job description for the CEO of The Coca-Cola Company ... and just about any other decent job you can name.

That's the way my colleagues and I do our jobs every day. What most people consider "management" is really engineering. We engineer new products. We engineer new investment plans. We engineer personnel moves and marketing campaigns. I sit behind a desk, but I'm really engineering.

In that regard, you could say CEO stands for "chief engineering officer." It's how I think ... how I approach what I do.

In industry after industry, chemical engineers -- and engineers in general -- have found a place in business.

That's because, above all, engineers are learners. Engineers are people who naturally learn from what is around them. And engineers are people who incorporate that learning into action ... into their decision-making and into their behavior.

The culture in which engineers thrive is, by nature, a learning culture. That learning culture is something we are trying to implement today at our Company.

At The Coca-Cola Company, we are focused on building long-term value for our share owners. And we have come to understand that increased knowledge by our people ... shared throughout our business system ... will drive tangible business improvements.

A learning culture: That is why the ability to think is so important ... and that is the head start you have as engineers.

The downside of that ... is that engineers also have a couple of handicaps to overcome.

The first one is a small one, but still valid. It's all in the semantics ... and, fortunately, it largely applies only to this country.

We call the person who runs the train locomotive the "engineer." When our hotel air conditioning does not work, we call the house "engineer."

So what do we call those who designed that locomotive or that air conditioner?

The second handicap is much more fundamental. Today's business environment values pure "engineers" less than it did a generation ago ... because today's environment demands something more.

Yes, today's environment does demand disciplined thinking ... and that's the thinking of the engineer.

Yes, today's environment does demand the ability to assess the big picture, burrow into the details, follow up, and ensure functionality -- and that's the thought process of the engineer.

But the curse of the engineer is this: He or she learns to approach problems in a methodical, disciplined way ... but methodical, disciplined people can be slow when reacting to change.

Engineers can find it very difficult to trust their instincts.

The engineer's handbook ... has no chapter entitled, "Trusting Your Gut Feelings."

A story from our business illustrates what I mean.

Several years ago, our Company was presented with an opportunity that packaged consumer-goods companies can only dream about.

The Berlin Wall was down ... and a new market had opened up. East Germany had 17 million people, who drank a lot of really terrible soft drinks produced by the state system. They hadn't had an ice-cold CocaCola in 40 years. But older East Germans remembered it ... and the younger ones had always heard about it.

Suddenly, in the winter of 1989 ... six years ago ... that market was there for the taking.

And with the meticulous discipline of the engineer ... with an unyielding eye for detail ... taking care to ensure the utmost accuracy ... the most efficiency ... the most effectiveness ...

... we would be breaking ground on our first plant ...

... right about now.

This would have been the case because back in 1989, the engineer could see that East Germany had no convertible currency -- we didn't know how we would get paid for our products.

The engineer could see that business regulations were in chaos --if not non-existent. The engineer could see that the stability of the German mark was in question, and the real estate market was less than certain.

And, of course, the engineer would have seen that the state-owned bottling plants that came up for sale were not optimally located, from the point of view of distribution costs, or designed for the greatest production efficiencies.

But also back in 1989 the historian could see that Germany had long been a proud and unified nation. The political scientist could see that there was a strong desire to make unification work, both in East Germany and West Germany.

The economist could see that land values would never be lower than right after the fall of the Wall ... and that real estate was more likely than any sector to hold its value in the newly-unified economy.

And the MBA ... or maybe I should say the astronomer ... could see that in business, the stars only line up for an opportunity like that for an instant ... and then it is gone.

And so, ... the engineer would have said "no," but instead we said "yes." Immediately, we rolled into East Germany ... literally handing ice-cold Coca-Cola through the holes in the Wall ... while we purchased the entire -- albeit inefficient -- existing soft drink bottling network in the five eastern German provinces.

And we've never regretted it. Today, we lead our nearest competitor by an ever-widening margin. The east German market was there for the taking ... and we took it.

That decision was not what you would expect from a pure engineering standpoint. But when you think about it, that decision, in a broader sense, was engineering ... because it came from learning how to really think.

It is my belief that businesses which will be successful in the years ahead are those which will be able to cope with, or manage, change effectively. Historically, how complexity got handled determined performance ... but now, and in the future, fast change ... even chaotic change ... will pose an equal, if not a greater, challenge.

What I am espousing is to shorten our reaction time to these changing conditions, by using our instincts and experience ... as well as our perception and understanding of shifting relationships. If businesses cannot manage these changes effectively, at the very least, they will have to accommodate them ... if they are to continue to prosper.

We will never be able to change the winds ... but it is within our power to adjust the sails. Companies which do so -- and do so quickly -will be the most successful in this world of the future.

Colin Powell likes to talk about his formula for decision making, where zero is no information ... and 100 is complete information. General Powell says the tingle to act is usually around 60 -- because if you wait until you know everything with complete certainty ... you've probably waited too late.

Is that engineering?

I think so. Since the Renaissance, engineers have considered not only scientific law, but empirical experience. What does experience tell us? It tells us not only when to hesitate but also when to act.

The problem is that experience can't be taught in school -- not even at Yale. Experience is something you have to live through, and instinct is something you must develop.

But if you learn how to think ... if you learn to think as a true Renaissance engineer ... you will acquire and sharpen the instinct you need.

That's why you go to engineering school. And more importantly, that's why you go to engineering school at Yale.

Despite those grades they insist on sending you every semester ... ultimately, it's not about your last test score. It's about genuine learning. It's not about equations ... it's about inquisitiveness. It's not about lectures ... it's about learning how to think.

If I can give young engineers one piece of advice ... it's to put down the engineering books once in a while. Try something different. Take some courses you think you don't need.

(I was most of the way to all economics degree before my fiancee suggested that I cut it out and get a job!)

You are fortunate to live and study in one of the most stimulating and exciting learning environments in the world. Don't take it for granted. Take advantage of it.

Get off Science Hill. Tackle subjects you don t know well. Take classes with people who are not just like you. Force yourself to learn to think in new ways.

You will embody the learning culture. The culture of the engineer. And you will be the better for it.

Why do I say that? What will it get you?

Will it get you a better job? Well ... maybe.

Will it land you a better career? Probably.

Will it offer you a better life? Absolutely.

Thank you.

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