In the past, when I have presented my findings on how background can affect engineering practice, the basis for my book The Global Engineer, people have at times asked if I found there was any effect from sex. Because I was focused on engineering, which does not have a large proportion of women, and because I was focusing on a deeper research method, which meant a smaller number of participants, I did not get to talk to enough women to make such commentary.

However, that was my research specifically. There are still other avenues from which we can answer this question.

First off, the titular question of this article is a compound one. We need to ask the implied prior question: is there even a difference between men and women?

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin noted that there were species that did not have different sexes, and those that did. The former were hermaphrodites – each organism had both reproductive organs – and both would become pregnant. This would mean there could be a greater rate of reproduction when sharing DNA for ongoing adaptation. The latter species, like us, with the different sexes, invested not in increased reproduction rates, but the division of labour. By having a difference between the sexes, a species can have greater specialisation, and this increases survivability.

Therefore, it is apparent that there would be a difference between men and women.

But what is the difference?

Charles Darwin was a smart man – he did not discuss the specifics of the difference – he did not have enough evidence on hand to inform the matter sufficiently well and he was not one to publish opinion as fact.

While there has been some research looking into the differences between the sexes and cognitive attributes, there has also been research into the importance of practice.

In The Global Engineer, I cited the work by Erickson and summarised in Talent is Overrated that showed the overriding importance of practice. I also cited research by Beilock that showed how our perception of ourselves affects our cognitive ability (Asian American girls could have their mathematical ability increased or decreased by making them think about their Asianess or femaleness respectively) in her book Choke.

Therefore, while there could be natural talent differences between the sexes, the major effect would likely come from effort and practice.

But if there were to be a natural difference, then what would it be?

I am reminded of a New Scientist article that my high school chemistry teacher read to the class about the notion of a pill that would make you smarter. The initial premise of the article was to ask scientists if they would take such a pill – should it ever exist. However, the question on what actually made for intelligence then presented. The answer, that all asked for the article could agree upon, was, a desire or enjoyment to think about the problem at hand. Newton and Einstein also noted the importance of spending considerable time thinking on the things they were challenged by – this is much easier when you enjoy such thinking.

So, the real question should be: do men and women have different things they enjoy thinking about?

They might, and this could be the real reason we see more women in nursing and more men in engineering.

If this is the case, then the question I originally put is meaningless. And, really, it’s about anyone enjoying engineering enough so that they are good at it.
And that should be the takeaway: do you (or anyone you might be considering for an engineering role) like engineering?
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On a related note: if you ever find yourself, like I have before, asked to talk to a group of schoolgirls about why they should do engineering, then do not start talking at them. A better approach is to ask them a question: what do you want from your career? Once you have a solid list of preferences for any future career from the group, you can then explain how engineering can satisfy those preferences. This way you can create motivation to choose engineering – regardless of sex.  

The speech addresses several key concepts:

• The separation of design and manufacturing: Can it be done or not?
• The idea that design ability is innate, potentially influenced by race or culture.
• The tension between lower costs (especially from labor) and innovation.
• The issue of stagnating productivity.

 
I've noticed that people tend to focus on different aspects of these notions, often influenced by their prior beliefs, especially those regarding globalization.
 
This newsletter is called "The Global Engineer". It emphasizes the importance of being an engineer capable of working anywhere in the world and in any role (within reason). Therefore, I do not identify as an anti-globalist. In fact, I believe globalization offers significant advantages for engineers.

• The laws of nature are universal, allowing engineers to work in different countries and leverage their qualifications for greater adventure in their careers.
• Globalization enables regions to specialize, fostering advancements and accelerating the progress of engineering, which can lead to a more engaging career for all engineers.

 
I think the Vice President's speech raises important questions about how globalization has affected engineering and what we can anticipate for the future. He rightly points out that design should be closely linked to manufacturing. I often discuss the importance of concurrent engineering. It’s refreshing to see a politician with such insights into technology — from my experience, there are only a few who possess this understanding. Given the significance of concurrent engineering, we can expect that regions previously thought of as mere manufacturing hubs will also start to engage in design work. Additionally, as wealth becomes more evenly distributed, we will see manufacturing return to other areas – maybe after going those areas still not developed.

I don't believe we will see the old design leaders reclaim their dominance. Despite Japan's recent economic challenges, it has not lost its engineering design capabilities developed in the mid-20th century - capabilities that the rest of the world learned. Instead, we are likely to see more regions cultivate their own ingenuity. Engineers everywhere aspire to do more; they seek to innovate, and as I argue in "The Global Engineer," anyone can develop the essential skills needed.

I agree that many managers often prioritize low costs over investing in innovation, viewing the latter as an expense rather than an investment. This perspective is common among shareholders as well. Al Dunlap, known for his aggressive cost-cutting strategies, serves as a poignant example; despite his controversial practices, many supported his approach.
 
However, innovation should also focus on cost reduction, as improving efficiency can enhance our quality of life without necessitating a trade-off. The use of low-cost labor is often a case of arbitrage that may eventually become unfeasible, yet it has helped lift around 400 million people out of poverty globally, making it difficult to argue against from a moral standpoint. However, we must consider the long-term effects: as skills develop in less affluent regions, those areas may no longer remain inexpensive.

The Vice President also suggests that the preference for low-cost labor over innovation has contributed to stagnating productivity. While this viewpoint may resonate with those outside the engineering field, engineers understand the principle of diminishing returns. Increased productivity typically arises from larger, more efficient production systems, but eventually, it becomes challenging to scale much more, leading to a slowdown in productivity growth. Therefore, attributing stagnation to a drop in innovation caused by globalization is misguided.
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In summary, while the Vice President raises valid points about the importance of keeping production close to design and the role of innovation, the assumption that any location can inherently excel in innovation is flawed. There must be continuous investment in this capability at the societal, organizational, and individual levels. You can take responsibility for your own development. Then you can leverage globalization to further enhance your skills even more. You can also lobby your respective organization an government for such investment – you can also expect less opportunity as an engineer when your country chooses not to engage the rest of the globe.

We think it shouldn’t; engineering should be governed by fact. But you have probably still encountered times when decisions, once made, seemed to be more politically founded than factually founded.
 
Why is that?
 
I am going to answer this question right now. It will be based on my experience, but informed by all the theory on engineering practice that I covered in my book. You can listen to a 10 minute summary of it here if you want a quick review of the main points – and get some context from what I am about to write next.
 
Attachment
 
The first big driver for politically founded decisions in engineering is attachment. That’s where someone simply likes an idea (often their own) more than others. It is this emotional motivation that drives them to champion an idea in a political manner.
 
Recall that attachment is like a form of fixation, but fixation is usually more cognitive: you just have an unconscious assumption in your mind, and it can only be undone when someone points it out. Once someone does point it out, you usually feel a sense of opportunity and creativity coming from the new perspective. But this is not so with attachment: because emotions are involved, people will become irrational – and political.
 
Therefore, to stop politics in engineering, you need to remind everyone (maybe yourself) about the importance of things like data, first principles and trials. Better yet, don’t let these be forgotten in the first place. When there are plenty of results from physical testing, calculation, simulations, analyses and so on from the onset, the information can either mitigate a person’s emotional tendencies or provide the solid basis others need to challenge someone else’s emotionally based notions pragmatically.
 
What stops people considering only the important facts?
 
Lack of shared situational awareness
 
I have seen times when the ultimate culprit was a lack of shared situational awareness. This is especially so when a person in a senior level does not have complete understanding of the issues at hand. They will then make decisions based on what they think are their amazing insights – AKA ideas formed in a state of ignorance. Given how “amazing” these ideas are, they naturally expect others to implement them straight away, and then expect to see results within a week. Others, who know the flaws in these ideas, but do not have the data on hand to support them, often then find they can offer only an opinion. As well informed as this opinion is, it is, until data is at hand, only an opinion. It then becomes a battle of seniority and rhetoric to see which idea comes out on top i.e. politics.
 
To confront this issue, you can put the effort into creating a document that summarises all key information. It might be a briefing document for a meeting, or it might be an ongoing log that all involved people are alerted to each time it is updated. The important thing is that people will review the content prior to formulating their ideas and putting them forward. Ensure that the document has the following:

• The context of the challenge so people can understand systemic issues and the goal
• Any analysis that has been conducted (numerical or analytical)
• Any test results from physical testing
• Records of all prior meetings on the topic
• Items that remain unresolved – this could be a risk registry

 
Then ensure that, before anyone starts giving opinions, they have been given ample time to go over this document.
 
The assumed need for an immediate solution
 
Another cause of attachment overriding fact-based thinking is the assumed notion that the final idea to be implemented must be identified straight away. Think about a time when you were in a meeting (formal or informal) discussing the solution to a problem and it was assumed that only one idea could be selected at the end of the meeting and that idea was the one that would be implemented. It’s likely not that hard. In fact, you have probably now realised that most meetings you have to come up with a solution to a problem are like this.
 
Make it a goal not come up with the idea that will be implemented, but to come up with a collection of ideas (not too many) to be evaluated further. The best one being selected later. This encourages the perspective that all ideas are selected based on facts – because they are tested further to collect evidence. Also, if there is any remaining attachment, then at least there is a greater chance, after this initial meeting/conversation, for anyone’s idea to be selected – and the motivation to push politically for an idea is reduced.
 
A general lack of first principles
 
The above points have likely implied the importance of first principles. Indeed, simply ensuring people always consider first principles from the onset, will help them become more objective.
 
An informal selection process
You have likely heard of a selection matrix. Where each option is rated against others along criteria that have been developed earlier for the respective problem. The option that rates the highest is the on that should be chosen.
 
When you use such an approach, people can no longer lobby (politic) for an idea as easily. Instead, all are involved in a more disciplined approach to select the preferred option.
 
Note, this is not simply for ideas to solve engineering challenges. It can be used for almost anything, and is the basic approach Daniel Kahneman proposed for selecting new employees.
 
A lack of evolution
 
A formal selection process can also encourage evolution. In The Global Engineer, I talk about coevolution being a major part of engineering – where our understanding of the problem evolves as we evolve the solution. This phenomenon, when accepted and then leveraged, can also help reduce politics in engineering.
 
If an option, after being put through a selection matrix does not come out on top, or, even if it does, but it has some weaknesses against some criteria, then there is an opportunity (if not an obligation) to evolve the design. This would focus on better satisfying the criteria with lower scores.
 
When you do this, two things happen:

1. The solution selected, which might not be the one that first came out on top, will be even better.
2. Each option will have had input (ideas) from others as they think of ways to improve it. This means each idea now has multiple “owners”, and that means it is less likely that one person will have only one option they are attached too – thus less need for politicking.

 
 
 
All of the above comes back to the way engineering problems are viewed and solved in a company. That in turn comes back to culture. If you are in a position to change the culture by mandating practices like that above, then the responsibility is yours. If you work for a company or manger that does not follow such pragmatic procedures for decision making, and politicking has become the norm, then it is probably time to find another place to work – you are unlikely to learn much in your current role and you are unlikely to be having a good time.
 

You have likely heard of design for manufacturability, design for sustainability, design for servicing and design for recycling. You can also work out what each is about. You have likely also heard of “design for X”. Where you substitute X for whatever is important to you.
 
But have you heard of “design for design”?
 
It seems an odd concept, but you have probably already done it. Maybe it was for the best, and maybe not – but I will talk about that later.
 
In design for design, we make a design decision early on in the engineering process so that the rest of the design task is easier. For example:

• A team designing a race car on a limited budget (for both time and money) specifies that they will design a space frame instead of a monocoque. Thus, the analysis process and adjustments of the design to accommodate ongoing changes in other subsystems are easier. Making the overall design project easier.
• An engineer who needs to develop a seal between two existing parts decides on the use of silicone tooling and polyurethane so that a complicated shape can be made that works around those other two parts. The seal might be more expensive to produce and maybe more time consuming to install, but the design process is now faster and easier because there is only one part to be designed as opposed to three. This implies that time or design budget were limited.

 
You have likely noted in the above that there is some external reason that mandates the design be completed quickly. Therefore, the engineer makes decisions that will make the design process faster. You could also argue that this is actually part of the development of the design brief – and not design. But given things such as coevolution, there is actually no clear definition of when the brief development ends, and the design process starts. And one could argue that a design brief could also be designed – potentially another example of design for design that has been happening in engineering all along.
 
And this all seems reasonable – although not always ideal – it would be good to always have the time and resources to implement an optimal engineering solution.
 
However, what about times when design for design is not reasonable?
 
And have you been guilty of this?
 
Some other examples of design for design:

• An engineer dislikes sheet metal parts – such parts are not precise and this engineer has mild OCT – so all parts are designed for machining.
• An engineer enjoys designing with surfaces in CAD so creates parts with convoluted shapes that justify the use of surfaces. The official reason for the convoluted shapes is aesthetics and stress minimisation.
• An engineer in a design house contracted to develop a tool set for a market niche chooses to design new metal forgings (as opposed to just custom over-mouldings for existing forging) because they are excited by the notion of designing hand tools from scratch.

The above examples show that sometimes design for design is not about making the design process easier, but, instead, about making the design process more enjoyable.
 
By the way – I have witnessed all of the above examples firsthand.
 
So next time you are making some early decisions for how you will go about tackling an engineering challenge (and designing for design), ask yourself if you are doing it to make the process more efficient or just more enjoyable.

If you have read my book, then you will know that first principles are at the core of good engineering practice. They provide you with excellent constraints when making decisions. This in turn means you can focus your energies on other well less defined decisions.
 
An illustrative example that given by Gordon Murray when he was explaining his thinking process, involved the specification of a steering shaft in F1.
 
It was quite common for engineers to simply specify a nominal diameter – 25mm (around 1”) for example. That was because that was what everyone had done, it seemed to work, and it was thus easier to do that on all other cars.
 
However, that meant you could either be carrying excess weight. Or, it might even mean that you were close to failure and steering could be lost part way through a race. Neither option is ideal. So by taking a relatively small amount of time to calculate the diameter that would be able to transmit forces required, one could, in such an instance, know that they have an optimised and safe design.
 
That’s the power of being a mathematician as an engineer. You optimise.
 
But, there is also something more; something nearly magical. You gain great insights when you use first principles. Insights that can almost make you look like a magician.
 
Back to steering columns.
 
When Gordon Murray started to analyse the steering column, he realised that there were two types of loads: bending and torsion. Bending was mostly from the driver leaning on the steering wheel. Torsion was from the column’s main purpose: steering.
 
From this insight, which was provided by the use of theory and mathematics, it was possible to re-frame the problem. There was to be a structure designed to support radial loads, and the shaft was to be optimised for transmitting torque. This allowed for further optimisation of the overall design.
 
And it all started with the decision to use first principles and mathematics.
 
So by being a mathematician as an engineer, you can also be a bit of magician.
 
But it can also stop you from being a fool.
 
I also mentioned in my book when I was designing a dynamometer for model solar boats. They were small vehicles designed by students. So, it seemed to me, it should not be too much of a challenge to have a design where the water flowed under a stationary boat. That would allow for the boats to stay tethered in one place under a lamp (emulating the sun). Then, students could experiment with different configurations for different solar conditions. It all seemed like an easy way to offer great outcomes.
 
But then I decided to apply some first principles.
 
This was to choose the right pump. And, as it turned out, I needed a pump that could move 1 tonne of water every second!
 
I felt embarrassed.
 
But the senior technician, who was to organise the implementation of the dynamometer I designed, was grateful that I at least did the calculations – later, but before we actually started any construction. It seems many other engineers he had dealt with were neither mathematicians nor magicians.
 
And you now know what that leaves!
 
So, make the choice now to use first principles to guide your engineering decision making. Do some mathematics. And then make the most of those extra magical insights you will gain.