Excellent communication skills go hand-in-hand with technical knowledge as necessities for engineering graduates entering today’s global marketplace, experts at the annual Colloquium on International Engineering Education agreed.
“We’ve all heard that ‘knowledge is power.’ Being able to share the knowledge you have and get that across is better,” said Gene G. Oswalt, corporate treasurer for the North American division of ZF Group, which develops and produces axle systems for passenger and commercial vehicles.
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Oswalt was one of the speakers at the “Credentials for the Global Marketplace” session at the fourth annual colloquium held on Nov. 2. The three-day event, hosted by the University of Rhode Island, was held at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick.
Experts were given a chance to address their contemporaries from all over the world on the topic of workforce development.
Other presenters at the session included retired Vice President of Browne & Sharpe Manufacturing Company Phillip James and John F. Silva, director of codes and approvals for Hilti North America, Hilti, Inc.
The session was moderated by Helene Zimmer-Loew, executive director of the American Association of Teachers of German.
“High-level oral and written skills are a must,” said Oswalt.
And, the ability to make effective presentations, explain products and services and ask pertinent questions are as important, she said.
“You need to be able to bring back important information,” she said. “A lot of people can’t do that.”
A particularly significant part of communication in a global workplace is cultural sensitivity.
“There have been all these papers written and books written about how not to behave in different cultures,” Oswalt said. “It’s not just language things I’m interested in, it’s the cultural side.”
Management styles, attitudes toward authority and even the degree of a company’s willingness to exercise caution or take risks when conducting business can vary greatly depending on culture.
Communication between co-workers with different native languages can be a particular challenge.
“Things may mistakenly sound harsh,” said Oswalt, who holds a degree in German and uses the language often in her job at ZF, which has its world headquarters in Germany. “What they’re trying to say isn’t coming across – sometimes it comes out differently.”
Silva’s first job out of engineering school, in Germany, was a challenge that amounted to a second-language trial-by-fire: His officemate spoke to him only in German and made Silva answer the phone. Still, he thinks that just as important is finding common ground in a knowledge base that is vastly different on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
“There’s more to this business in getting what you want than having another language,” he said.
As significant, Silva said, are qualities like confidence, quick thinking, good listening, forward planning and honesty.
James’ preparatory school in the United Kingdom required him to study multiple languages to ready him for life in the international workplace, but he too feels that language is not the most important component.
Engineers must be able to attune themselves to the needs of an employer, a society, and be driven by a strong set of internal values, he said.
“I think it’s in the area of the ‘soft’ skills that the challenge will be for the education community,” said James.
The ability for engineers to problem-solve and function in a team environment has not always been the priority. When he was in school in the late 1950s and early 1960s, James said, “Engineers were not team players That’s not the case today. Engineers must be part of the team. ‘Velocity’ is the keyword.”
Changing times have provided another means of bridging the cultural divide: technology. Engineering students should be educated in the latest, state-of-the-art equipment and methods of practice.
Common software, he said, can provide even the most disparate seeming of teams with a means of like communication.
“The computer can help overcome some of the language barriers,” he said.
