SOUTHFIELD — As an academic adviser at Walsh College Scott Wyckoff helps students use their academic careers to catapult themselves ot success.
Wednesday night, he told the Affiliate Council of The Engineering Society of Detroit how not to become “professionally obsolete” in their careers.
Wyckoff urged those attending to think of failure as a process that can be learned from, not the end of the road.
“Everything is an iterative process,” he said. “You have to keep re-doing and re-doing until you do better, or you realize you have to go in a completely different direction.”
He said a key to understanding what happened in business or a career is to “ask why until you can’t ask any more.”
And effective individuals also have to think in several ways at once — strategically, tactically, analytically, structurally, quantitatively and creatively.
So is communicating effectively — not just speaking and writing effectively, but concentrating on listening and being persuasive in communications.
“As my father likes to say, I fight for clarity,” he said.
Effective business leaders also need to make sure they continue to develop managerial, collaborative and leadership skills, Wyckoff said — “working as a team and understanding what that really means, and understanding that you will never get along with everybody.”
They must also make education a lifelong endeavor, which includes reading and networking widely, not just classes.
ESD’s Affiliate Council is comprised of the Detroit and Michigan-area chapters of more than 100 affiliate engineering, scientific, and technical societies. For more information on how you can participate in the Affiliate Council, contact Elana Shelef, ESD Director of Corporate Relations, at (248) 353-0735, ext. 119, or eshelef@esd.org.