Face Time: Why Getting Engineers Out of the Lab Is Good for Business

“I think you used to do testing for my dad,” said a young man after I shook his hand at a recent conference.

My smile froze.

Come on, Ego. You can take this one, I told myself. It’s not the first time I’ve had a rude awakening tied directly to the fact that I’m now over 50 years old. Over the past couple of years, every time I scanned the attendees of conferences, it was clear mine was one of the older faces in the crowd even through the sea of masks.

It’s not just in big groups. Back home at the helm of a small business, I’m surrounded by brilliant young people, many of whom are on their first job after college.

It was a sobering realization not because I feel “old.” It’s more that I’ve spent 30 years as the face of my company, the lead out front chasing business, and the person of trust for my clients.
I’m proud to have built those relationships and I treasure them. But they also represent a serious weakness for my business. I still love what I do and am eager to be part of my company’s growth, but if I choose to do something different, my departure would leave a giant, client-facing hole.

I’m an engineer leading a team of engineers. We really hate single points of failure in our business, and I represent a screaming single point of failure. So I’ve turned to my engineering team for help, because I realized they are literally the solution. It’s time to pull them out of the lab and get them in front of the people they email and talk to over the phone as they work on specific phases of product development. I can eliminate the single point of failure by bringing in multiple new points of contact for our customers.

Back when my company was a scrappy startup, our handful of employees performed a range of roles to get us up and running. But as time went by and the business grew, our responsibilities became more specific, to the point that we lost a lot of crossover and general business knowledge. Employees were more focused on specific tasks rather than overall company function. The upside to that is I have an impressive group of experts I can turn to for a range of solutions. The downside is a bit of disconnect from the big picture.

I’m empowering my team to make new connections, to take on new responsibilities and challenge themselves to see work in a new way. I know if they feel like they’re a critical part of the process, they’re more motivated to deliver their best work.

To be clear, and to answer in writing a question I’ve gotten repeatedly over the past year since Empirical Technologies became part of the Applied Technical Services family: No, I’m not going anywhere. But I want to address a vulnerability that could negatively impact my team and my clients.

My goal is to set up clients and my colleagues for success no matter who’s leading the company. I also want my employees to find new areas of strength and interest that they can develop to better serve our clients and their careers.

In early February, Empirical Technologies senior test engineer Kristine Happach visited California with me. Over the course of three days, she joined me for eight site visits and the MD&M West conference. Happach was a COVID-19-era hire, so this was her first trip with me.

“I think the biggest surprise was how different it was (in person),” Happach said. “We have great tools with [Microsoft] Teams and Zoom, and of course phone calls and emails, but it felt more productive being there in person and seeing someone face-to-face. It’s just a lot more personal, and it’s a lot more of a back-and-forth.”

For me, it was a chance to assess my process with fresh eyes and save colleagues from the rookie mistakes I made long ago. I’ve been doing this for so long, it’s muscle memory for me to pick a rental car in a standout color, get verbal confirmation on addresses before fighting traffic, and find something tasty along the way to share with clients. It was fun to have a sidekick after so many solo excursions, and Happach’s copious notes about each meeting were of particular use to her fellow engineers. I can try to explain processes and priorities all day to my testing team, but my perspective as president doesn’t have the same weight as that of a fellow engineer.

“I gained so much knowledge and experience from this last trip,” she said. “The advantage for the engineers is it’s someone on the team bringing that information in who’s really in the lab alongside them.”

It’s not just about getting new faces in front of old friends, it’s also about showing my team that they’re much more than a cog in the wheel, that all the work they do is critical to the success of the people who trust us with their products.

“When you spend so much time in the lab and that’s kind of where your job is, it’s what you’re focused on,” she said. “But seeing clients, it’s a chance to see all the pieces working together. I see it now not just as a singular thing we’re working on, but it’s part of a big, interesting process that involves a lot of different people… as the company face changes, we change with it. We can all be the face of the company.”

It’s also about sharing my appreciation for my clients with my team. I know once they have that in-person connection, they better understand why it’s so important to keep lines of communication open and how the team’s work impacts a client’s success. Shaking someone’s hand and sharing a meal cements a relationship in a way that an email or even a phone call can’t match.

When you find a way to better engage your team in the driving mission of what they do, everyone benefits. Employees pick up new skills, clients find new connections, and the work we do becomes more than just a job.

“It’s not just an account number. It’s a face, it’s a person we met, had lunch with, exchanged ideas and conversations,” Happach said. “That makes it a lot more meaningful when I’m working on the projects here.”