EXCERPTS FROM:

Engineering Leadership - Unpublished/Draft Textbook

(c) 2013 - Richard J. Schumann, Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program

Trust
A group is an assemblage of related organisms - often used to avoid taxonomic
connotations when the kind or degree of relationship is not clearly defined.74 A team is an
assemblage of related human organisms who do collective work and are mutually
committed to a common team purpose and challenging goals related to that purpose.75
Some groups develop into teams; others do not. Trust is a critical underlying component of
positive group dynamics, development, and evolution. Tuckman (1965) defines 5 stages of
group development (i.e. the evolution of a group to a team): (1) forming; (2) storming; (3)
norming; (4) performing; (5) adjourning.76
Development of functional role relatedness
Group is greater than sum of parts
Realistic optimism
Performing

Orientation to the task

Individual desire for acceptance
Group Honeymoon phase, dreamy optimism (or profound cynicism)
Not much accomplished
Forming

Norming
Development of group structure and cohesion
Development of conflict coping mechanism(s)

Storming
Development of intragroup conflict
Reality, conflicting views, frustration

Figure 2 A Diagram of Tuckman's Stages of Group Development (minus adjourning)

74

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/group
Hill, L., K. Lineback, Turn Your Group into a True Team, HBR Blog Network, June 28, 2011
(http://blogs.hbr.org/hill-lineback/2011/06/turn-your-group-into-a-true-te.html)
76
Tuckman, B.W., (1965), Developmental Sequence in Small Groups, Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384-399
75

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The forming stage is much like dating; there is the desire of the individuals within the group
for acceptance, accompanied by nervousness, excitement, and anticipation; often during this
stage everyone is on their best behavior and there can be a false sense of euphoria or, in
some cases where group members have had poor past group experiences, pessimism.
Usually, not much is accomplished during forming. Once group members begin to relax and
drop their guard, conflicts begin to arise as misalignments are uncovered, norms clash, and
frustration sets in. Moving a group from storming to norming as efficiently and productively
as possible is essential to developing high performance. In order to move from storming to
norming, it is essential that a group develop trust. Lencioni places trust as the foundation of
an organizational pyramid, defining it as both the most critical resource and the most
powerful dysfunction of a team.77

Figure 3 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Lencioni, 2002)

Trust in another exists in the region between what one knows and what one is ignorant of
about that person.78 A leadership attitude that engenders trust in others is of critical
77

Lencioni, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, 2002, Jossey-Bass

Simmel, G., (1950), The secret and the secret society, In: Wolff KH (ed.) The Sociology of Georg Simmel,
London: The Free Press of Glencoe, pp. 307378

78

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importance and must address the reality that trust is given only after consideration of the
potential benefits and risks.79 Trust is multi-dimensional in leadership: (1) trusting in others
to perform competently; (2) trusting in others such that you can be open and honest with
them; (3) being a responsible steward of the trust others bring to the group, team, or
organization. Trust requires empowerment of those around you, and an authentic,
responsible leadership attitude. A sucessful norming stage results in the development of a
shared group structure, mutual goal(s), and conflict coping mechanism(s); these allow a
group to develop realistic optimism and perform such that their efforts become much greater
than the simple sum of the parts.
Diversity and Understanding
If leadership is the ability of an individual to influence others, then knowledge of human
nature, personality, and skills, both in oneself and in others, is of importance:
A gardener going into an orchard looks at the trees. He knows that this one is a
date, that one is a fig, the other a pomegranate, a pear or an apple. To do this, he
does not have to see the fruit, only the trees.80
A leader must understand what each team member brings to the table even before the fruits
of their labor appear. Because diversity encompasses people of different races, ethnicities,
genders, veteran status, physical abilities, creative talents, sexual orientation, political
orientation, socioeconomic status, etc., understanding and appreciating who they are is a
significantly greater challenge than that faced by a gardener walking into an orchard.
Effective leadership requires not only an awareness of this diversity, but a desire to embrace
and leverage it.
Diverse teams outperform monotonic teams as the members bring a rich mosaic of
perspectives to the creation and solution processes. Embracing diversity, however, is easier
for some than for others. The Sufi sage Saadi wrote a tale about a man whose head was
79

Frederiksen, M., (2012), Dimensions of trust: An empirical revisit to Simmels formal sociology of intersubjective
trust, Current Sociology, 60(6) 733750
80
A.J. Arberry, Discourses of Rumi (Fihi ma Fihi), 1961

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filled with imagined knowledge (and arrogance as a result). This man travelled a great
distance to visit the Sufi teacher Koshyar. Koshyar refused to teach him anything, saying:
You may think yourself wise, but nothing can be put into a full pot.81 We find a similar
story in Buddhist literature about an arrogant man who asks the teacher for enlightenment
the teacher says nothing and instead pours tea until the mans cup is overflowing. The man
cries out in alarm, whereupon the teacher asks how one can expect enlightenment when
ones cup is already full. If you are filled with misperceptions about others before your
leadership challenge begins, then it is impossible to fully embrace and leverage the power of
diversity that may have been afforded you. The dimensions of diversity will be addressed in
a subsequent chapter.

81

Learning How to Learn, Idries Shah

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Team Motivation
The most powerful motivation for knowledge workers lies within. In 1943 Abraham
Maslow, a psychology professor at Brooklyn College, published an article in which he
proposed that there exists a hierarchy of human needs such that ones relative existential
status determines ones motivations.269 These needs are defined as: (1) Physiological, (2)
Safety, (3) Love and belonging, (4) Esteem, (5) Self-actualization, and (6) Selftranscendence.

Figure 2 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Underlying needs must first be met before one is motivated by the desire for needs of a
higher level; the promise of increased self-esteem becomes secondary if one lacks oxygen,
food, shelter, and security. Some have criticized Maslows theory as an example of western

268

The Wall Street Journal, 1993

A Theory of Human Motivation, A. H. Maslow (1943), Psychological Review, 50,
370-396

269

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ethnocentrism. One argument put forward is that many collective cultures do not hold selfactualization paramount; therefore Maslows hierarchy may only be a representation of
needs as reflective of those in the United States.270
The needs of a team, and individual team members, may be unique. Environmental field
workers on a cold winter morning in Texas before sunrise may be best motivated by warm
doughnuts and hot coffee; oilfield workers offshore in the Gulf of Mexico may be enticed to
increase the km/day of pipeline laid by the sight of a paper bag filled with $50 bills flown
out to the derrick barge by the company man. A wealthy altruistic industrialist unmoved by
the recognition inherent in warm donuts, or by the purchasing potential of a fistful of $50
bills, may instead be motivated by the opportunity to improve the condition of those less
fortunate on another continent. Each need is significant and valid, but contextually unique.
Leadership requires a leader to truly connect with those whom she is leading in order to
understand their needs; this requires empathy and empathy begins with understanding.
Developing empathic understanding is a critical component of leading a team; however, it
may take patience, as individuals often take time to open up and reveal their needs
Motivation Energy
Engineering leadership involves facilitating the conversion of a teams energy to useful
work; effective conversion requires a consideration of leadership thermodynamics. The first
law of thermodynamics tells us that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it must be
conserved. Energy can, however, be changed in form. Internal energy is the energy within a
system associated with the random kinetics of molecules contained within that system (1/2
mv2) and the potential energy associated with the systems mass (mgz). The internal energy
of a system (U) can be transformed into useful work performed by the system (Wperformed)
and waste heat (Qwaste).
= !"#$%#&"' !" !"!#$% + !"#$%

270

Gert Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations, McGraw-Hill; 2005

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Fuel systems possess chemical energy that can also be converted to work. An internal
combustion engine converts the chemical potential energy in gasoline (34 M-Joules/Liter)
into work (i.e. moves your 1,500 kg automobile down the road from a - b) with waste heat
as a byproduct.

Figure 3 Converting Chemical Potential Energy to Work and Waste

Just as energy is conserved in physical systems, there is also a form of conservation of

energy in project teams. Internal energy is the driver of engineering project teams. In an
ideal world, all internal energy invested by the team is converted into useful work.
Unfortunately, similar to how a system loses energy as heat due to inherent friction and
damping within it, teams can also lose energy because of the internal dynamics between
team members and the external friction and damping phenomena imposed on the team.
This loss is inevitable but can be minimized.

Figure 4 A System that Produces 100% Work is Mythological

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The first law informs us also that an investment of heat energy into the system (Qin) may be
used to increase the internal energy of a system (U) and/or perform work (Wperformed).
!" = + !"#$%#&"' !" !!! !"!#$%
Old school motivation looks at the first law and says the way to get more work out of
people is to light a fire underneath them turn up the heat! Often this metaphorical heating
would be accomplished through threats and coercion, the
motivational equivalent to heating a baby bottle with a
blowtorch; neither is a very good idea as both systems are
placed at risk of fracturing.
Understanding teams as thermodynamic systems allows one
to recognize the value of creating a warmer environment in which an increase in team
internal energy is facilitated. It also allows you to identify areas within the system where
internal frictional losses may occur, and where perhaps leadership is imposing external
conditions that are interfering with the conversion of internal energy to useful work and
damping team performance. A step towards effective team motivation is seeking to reduce
these frictional and damping losses; invested energy that leads to high level work and
excellent results produces extrinsic and intrinsic rewards; both are motivational factors.
The second law of thermodynamics places a significant constraint upon the first law: energy
cannot be converted to pure work without some loss to entropy. So while striving to
facilitate perfect team performance, recognize that all teams must obey the second law. Life
is not as simple as the first law would have us believe in
other respects; in fact, like Humpty Dumpty, things fall
apart and cannot be easily put back together. Consider the
Liter of gasoline in the previous example. While
combusting this gasoline and producing work and heat is a
straightforward process, consider the challenge of capturing
that lost heat, and then investing it plus the work performed by the automobile to
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reconstitute the chemical energy in the gasoline in other words put the gasoline molecules
(e.g. benzene, C6H6) back together again after capturing the carbon dioxide and water
molecules into which they had transformed. This means that transformed energy can never
be fully recovered; in fact attempting to recover transformed energy will cost you more
energy than it is worth. So when a team has gone off the rails, while its useful to learn from
the past, it may be in the best interest of all to focus on moving forward.
The chemical makeup of a mixed fuel can also change (i.e. fall apart) as a function of time.
Light ends may preferentially evaporate and exit a fuel reservoir, leaving behind a mix of
heavier molecules with less chemical potential energy. Although you might begin a new
venture as an A-Team with plenty of potential, team effectiveness is dynamic and, like
Humpty Dumpty, things tend to fall apart. Whether starting with an ideal A-team or a
random team assigned to you, leadership requires understanding its chemical makeup,
monitoring and nurturing the team to keep it together, on greased rails, and performing well
to ensure success in the long term.
Internal human motivational energy is similar to that of a physical system. Radiant energy,
such as that created by the blowtorch above, is explicit and can be looked at as a simple
extrinsic motivator that, while increasing the rate of motion of molecules within the system,
risks causing systemic damage. Internal team energy exists as potential waiting to be
applied, or as kinetic energy waiting to be focused. Understanding how to create a warm
environment and elevate the system to a higher level allows one to extrinsically facilitate an
increase in intrinsic team motivation.
In the late 1950s, a researcher at MIT, Douglas McGregor, developed a theory on internal
motivation that applies to 21st century knowledge workers and is an important facet of
engineering leadership271. McGregor wrote:

271

The Management Review, 1957, 46, No. 11, 2228

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the carrot and stick theory of motivation (like Newtonian physical theory) works
reasonably well under certain circumstances. The means for satisfying mans
physiological and (within limits) his safety needs can be provided or withheld by
management. Employment itself is such a means, and so are wages, working
conditions, and benefits. By these means the individual can be controlled so long as
he is struggling for subsistence. Man lives for bread alone when there is no bread. But
the carrot and stick theory does not work at all once man has reached an adequate
subsistence level and is motivated primarily by higher needs. Management cannot
provide a man with self-respect, or with the respect of his fellows, or with the
satisfaction of needs for self-fulfillment. It can create conditions such that he is
encouraged and enabled to seek such satisfactions for himself, or it can thwart him
by failing to create those conditions.272

McGregor was referring to the hierarchy of needs as defined by Maslow; once lower needs
are extrinsically satisfied by the fundamental contract which exchanges work for needs (i.e.
food, shelter, security), then management must seek to leverage the intrinsic drive of the
individual for recognition, belonging, and self-actualization, in order to achieve optimal
performance from that individual. Direction and control are essentially useless in
motivating people whose important needs are social and egoistic. Both the hard and the soft
approach fail today because they are simply irrelevant to the situation.273

272
273

Ibid
Ibid

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Figure 5 Maslow's Hierarchy: Intrinsically and Extrinsically Satisfied Needs

As a proposed solution, McGregor put forward Theory Y, which states: (1) management
is responsible for organizing the elements of productive enterprise (money, materials,
equipment, people - in the interest of economic ends); (2) people are not by nature passive or
resistant to organizational needs; they have become so as a result of experience in
organizations; (3) the motivation, the potential for development, the capacity for assuming
responsibility, the readiness to direct behavior toward organizational goals, are all present in
people; management does not put them there; it is a responsibility of management to make
it possible for people to recognize and develop these human characteristics for themselves;
(4) the essential task of management is to arrange organizational conditions and methods of
operation so that people can achieve their own goals best by directing their own efforts
toward organizational objectives.
At the University of Rochester in the early 1970s, Edward Deci uncoved some additional
insights into the mechanics of intrinsic motivation.274 Working within accepted management

274

Deci, E.L., Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 8, 217-229 (1972)

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(Theory X) approaches of the time that assumed the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation to be additive, Deci set up a series of experiments wherein subjects were
subjected to various scenarios to test extrinsic and extrinsic synergies. Deci found that
monetary payments in excess of what is required to survive (i.e. in excess of Maslow base
needs; McGregors carrots), and threats of punishment or negative feedback about
performance (i.e. sticks) do not work as motivators; verbal reinforcements do.
So if these old-school Theory X assumptions and tactics are so incorrect, why are they still
so often employed? Autocratic leaders believe strongly that only through prescribed policies,
procedures, rules, and goals, enforced by supervision, direction and control, can an
organization be effective. The autocratic leader believes this style is highly efficient; and it is.
But, it is also clearly ineffective and results in minimal or no innovation, and virtually no
personal or organizational change, growth and development.275 Writing more recently
(1998) in a Harvard Business Review article titled How to Kill Creativity, Theresa
Amabile summed up this work by McGregor, Deci, and others: (1) creativity requires
expertise and motivation, so rethink the way you motivate and reward to encourage
creativity; (2) intrinsic motivation is key to fostering team creativity extrinsic motivation is
often at the root of creativity problems in business; (3) money does not create passion it
does not convert work from dull-to-interesting; it can seem like a bribe to perform an
unappealing task. Intrinsic motivation often involves changing the working environment: (1)
provide challenge; (2) provide freedom; (3) provide resources; (4) enhance work-group
features (e.g. create diverse mutually supportive teams); (5) provide supervisory
encouragement; (6) provide organizational support (macro-environment). The autocratic
leader does not typically set out to kill creativity; but his vision of efficiency leads him to
engineer an environment toxic to creative knowledge workers.276 In the 1930s, Merton wrote
about the law of unintended consequences; within Mertons framework, theory X managers

275
276

Encyclopedia of Leadership, 2004

Amabile, T., How to Kill Creativity, Harvard Business Review, September-October 1998

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through ignorance, error, immediate interest and lack of basic values can firmly pave the
road to motivation hell with good intentions (Merton, 1936).277
Tapping into intrinsic motivators allows the individual to experience pleasure when work is
productive, which provides positive feedback. Conversely, when work is not productive, the
intrinsically motivated individual will feel naturally bad about this, which provides negative
feedback. Neither of these intrinsic feedback forms needs to be explicitly delivered by the
engineer leader. What is provided through leadership is the ability to influence how an
individual looks at work, and the empowerment to provide self-paths and self-corrections.

277

Merton (1936). The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action, American Sociological Review, 1,

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