as engineers our most important asset is
our ability to communicate what wait a
minute isn't our engineering our most
important asset that's what we're going
to university day in day out that's what
clients surely pay for well yes and no
i'm not saying that engineering isn't
important and it isn't important you be
good at engineering because you do need
to but what they actually pay for is for
you to be able to communicate your ideas
whether that be verbal schematic written
or even spoken so there's many ways that
we produce information that someone else
with a lesser engineering ability needs
to understand so we need to be good at
engineering to better break it down into
the simplest forms so that people that
don't have the same engineering
knowledge as we do can understand it you
see day in day out we're dealing with
different peoples with different level
of engineering ability so we're dealing
with builders clients architects and
they all have a different range of
engineering knowledge so we need to make
sure that we're communicating to the
audiences that our information is
targeted for to make sure they can
understand the knowledge that we have it
really doesn't matter how good an
engineer you are if you aren't able to
communicate those ideas to someone that
needs to be able to use it your
information is really useless
unfortunately this is also something
that is not often taught at universities
so it's something that you need to learn
through experience and when you start to
work and it's something you actually
need to work on by even more so than
engineering abilities that you spent the
last four years learning so these are my
top tips for improving your
communication skills so not only can you
be more effective in the advice that you
give but also make it easier for you to
win that next job and get that next
promotion my name is brendan your
structural engineer now let's get into
it effective communication starts with
listening and understanding the audience
and the person that you're speaking to
so you need to listen and then respond
quite often as engineers we want to jump
in and help out and especially correct
things when something's been said wrong
so we all interrupt and try and correct
them as the speech is going on however
this can sometimes put people offside as
they're thinking why isn't he listening
to me i'm trying to put advice across
and he's just there correcting me he's
not actually listening to the actual
problem that i have so quite often can
be harder for you to put your ideas
across as you're not actually listening
to the issues that they're having and by
listening you can understand what their
goal is and you may better come up with
a better idea or truly understand the
problems that they're having sometimes a
client might be thinking he's got a
problem over here when the problem's
actually over there it means that not
only have you listened you responded and
actually fixed their issue this is also
good later on when you're trying to
communicate about problems and things
that you need to have in your design as
you can address them with issues that
they're having saying i've actually
thought about it i've understood what
issues you're having or what your goal
is
but however i need to do this this or
this there's never just one way that's
best for projects sometimes you might
have something that's less structurally
efficient maybe the best option
something that's less architecturally
efficient or if there's always going to
be compromises that come up with the
best solution so you need to consider
both their problems and the problems
that you're having to come up with the
best solution for that project see
active listening is more thoroughly
understanding the audience that you're
speaking to to make sure you're
addressing your communications
effectively this comes to the next part
of communication which is effectively
addressing the audience that your
communication is intended for
typically what we've done at university
is speak to engineer engineer so we're
providing technical advice
now this is important sometimes you need
to present at seminars sometimes you
need to present here like i am today or
even if you're doing something for a
certification for example you've got a
series of computation packs that you
need to reduce that someone can review
to make sure that you've designed
effectively now when you're
communicating engineer to engineer you
can make some assumptions there's things
that they know there's things that you
may not need to address you don't need
to go into that thorough detail of
exactly where you got things from but
give them enough information so they
know that you're on the right track as
you produce too much information it'll
be hard for them to digest and read and
make sure that your information is both
concise and both also technically
accurate when you're talking to an
engineer however most of the
communication that we produce is not
engineer to engineer that we've done at
university and this is the communication
that we need to work on as it's
something that we haven't really been
taught properly at university so if we
take builders for example
a builder sometimes has a lot of
engineering knowledge but it definitely
has a lot of that practical knowledge so
something that you may not actually have
and it's actually dealt with a lot of
different projects so don't dismiss him
when they're actually talking to you as
they have some practical knowledge about
how they can potentially do something
better and their builder is primarily
concerned about how he's going to put
together making sure he hasn't missed
anything on the drawings making sure
that it's going effectively together and
making sure that you don't have
congestion in certain locations for
example you've got a pan
has the reinforcement being spaced out
enough that you can put the pans in the
concrete slab so your advice should be
more about how to construct it how to
put it together and even staging so you
put this level down this level down and
this level down to get to the final
state especially if something is complex
you may need to put an installation
procedure in now just because you've got
an installation procedure it doesn't
mean it's rigid that this is the way
that it needs to be but listening to
them saying well i can't do it this way
because of these reasons and coming up
with a different methodology to get to
the same solution
now if we talk about architects
architects sometimes do have some
engineering knowledge and they've dealt
with you quite a bit it depends on what
their experience has been so there's a
bit of a mixed bag here but architects
are primarily worried about depth of
structure with a structure where do i
need to have columns what other effects
does i have on the height of the
building even talking to the things like
how you need to align columns to the
height of the building if possible but
explain with them if they don't we can
deal with it however it will mean a
deeper transfer structure on those
transfer floors and how big a
cantilevers can they have so giving them
guidance on stuff like that and even
giving them knowledge about why you're
doing it a certain way you don't need to
go in that thorough detail but giving
them some rules of thumb that they can
deal with especially on future projects
even things like giving them advice on
where to put penetrations and i've done
this through a traffic light system as
it's very visual so they can locate
where to put those penetrations so red
is a void orange is try and limit
wherever possibly green is to go as many
penetrations as i can in these locations
this gives them a visual reputation of
where they're trying to put the services
rises through their building now when
talking to developers primarily it's all
about costs so how quickly and cheaply
can we do it but sometimes you also need
to talk about where they should be
spending their money to make sure
they've got a good build look we're
trying to save money here we've saved
enough money here but this is where we
need to put the money to make sure the
building is robust your engineering has
a really low cost on the overall
construction of the building it's really
small and by doing simple changes you
can make great reductions such as we're
talking about moving those transfer
floors those transfer floors are really
pricey we're talking about how aligning
columns and maybe having some areas that
aren't as efficient architecturally
could have great savings on their bottom
dollar so when you're talking to
developers it should be framed around
how big destruction needs to be and how
much is going to cost and how can we
save it and moving forward we're also
pushing towards that net zero which will
become more and more important for
future projects and about how certain
changes can help reduce the embodied
carbon in the building these are things
that developers will be looking out for
on something that you should focus on
so now that we understand the audience
let's go into some tips for effectively
communicating
now the first one is avoiding those
jargon works or acronyms
dragon boats is something that we use
day in day out such as killing it
sometimes you may need to use it in a
certain context but sometimes you need
to describe to them saying just means
the weight of something for example 10
kilonewtons is roughly about one ton now
most people know what a ton is but they
may not know what a killing newton is
another thing is like knowing about
stresses you can say look it's highly
stressed but what is the impact of that
that means more reinforcement more
concrete or higher grade concrete
strengths which means more cost so
avoiding those words that could be
confusing and breaking it down to
something that is actually intended for
the audience and not using those jargon
words unless it's 100 necessary and even
acronyms sometimes we've got things like
sub
slab on ground as engineers we may know
that easily day in day out but not
everyone would know that for example a
client may not know what a sog is where
it may be just easier to go with the
full word such as slab on ground as it
effectively describes what you're
talking about as using these things
makes people have to think more makes it
harder for them to process the
information and slower for them to take
in as they may be thinking about okay
what does that word mean what does that
acronym mean instead of effectively
taking in what they're actually reading
or listening to
one big aspect of what how we
communicate is brevity the shorter it is
the better it is so wherever possible
trying to break things down into dot
points means they're really concise and
don't have a really long slab of text
that people need to read through if they
just need to quickly read something they
can just read the dot points and get the
understanding that you're trying to pass
up and
i can't emphasize this enough a picture
can make what is so much confusing text
into something that actually makes sense
we should be using diagrams and pictures
to pass on the ideas that we're doing as
engineers we're hopefully quite visual
so we can hopefully break down those
ideas into something simple that someone
else can understand so whether we're
doing drawings about certain locations
if we're doing a certain location we may
have key plants say this is the spot
that we're talking about yes you may
have some words accompanying with it but
if you just need to describe that with
words it can get quite confusing it's
putting grid line a and gridline b along
gridline 2. what does that effectively
mean where if you have a picture you can
effectively tell that story so an active
voice the verb acts upon the subject
where a passive voice the subject is
acted upon the verb so if you've got
something that feels a little bit
awkward you don't know how to rephrase
it flipping the subject and the verb
around will make it hopefully be easier
to understand and you can see which one
is better was the first one better or
was the second one better the other
great benefit that we talked about is
brevity as our friend and typically
active voices are shorter so most of the
time you want to stay in that active
voice where possible someone's ability
to read what's written on the page can
also be affected by the way that you
format it this is something been taught
at university we've always wanted to
have that justification where you've got
a straight line and a straight line as
engineers we love square things so
making those straight lines make it look
nice and pretty however by justifying
your text instead of just aligning it to
the left makes it a lot harder to read
so why is that you see when you're
reading through a sentence there's a
certain space between each word that
allows you to more quickly read
where if you've got something that is
justified from left to right they've had
to change the spacing of that text yes
it does look a little bit nice due to
the square nature however it makes it a
lot harder to read as you've got
different spacing between the text so it
makes it a lot harder to skim read so it
makes it harder for you to process
information on the page you should
always align it to the left as it'll
make it easy to read and easier for
people to understand so what tools do i
use to improve my communication skills
one thing that i know is that i'm really
bad at proofreading my document however
i'm really good at listening so what you
can do in word or other programs you can
have them play back to you the text that
you're written and you can understand
what is actually being heard so you can
rephrase it when it sounds awkward
there's also other apps that go beyond
just that spell checking and this is
something called grammarly or hemingway
i'd recommend you pick up either one of
these now these do cost a little bit to
pick up however they pick up the
difference between passive and active
voices they pick up attention when
you've used the wrong word and not
actually that it's spelled incorrectly
but it's been used in the wrong context
so they go beyond what just a normal
spell checker does they can also pick up
things such as tone is your tone
negative is your tone positive so you
can change the communication to the
atone that you're trying to aim for
something that's also really important
is not to respond right away especially
if you get angry and stand off that
angry email however that was not intent
that you were trying to communicate
across other people at the time you may
have been angry we need to stop back
listen and re-read so when you're angry
walk away from go and have a coffee
maybe write something up but come back
later reread the sentence that you've
actually written as your first take may
not have been what is actually intended
by what was said if you're having real
trouble as well he's trying to get
someone else to read it as they'll be
able to read through it and maybe change
it to be more effective so especially if
you've got something really important
it's always good to have someone on the
side that can read the communication
you're trying to write so they're making
sure that you're effectively
communicating your ideas is if they
can't understand it it's very unlikely
the other person is going to understand
it so you may want to rewrite it so
effective communication is all about
trying
reflecting and repeating and over time
and through constant improvement you
will get better being good at
engineering is more than just
communication so i recommend you watch
this video about the top 10 essential
skills that i think every engineer
should have to be successful if you're
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possible as always stay safe keep
learning and i'll see you next week bye