New Page 0

Engineering and Sales Personalities

Bob Jordan, PE

March 2007

In my years of working in engineering, being in school, observing behavior on the job, participating in the marketplace, and holding leadership positions at the junior, middle and senior management levels, I have drawn the conclusion that there are two different mindsets between engineering and sales professions.

See if any of this rings true in your experience…

Engineering, Operations, Finance	Issue	Sales and Marketing
Systems Oriented	Process	Random
Data Driven	Conclusions	Intuitively Driven
Methodical	Pace	Impulsive
Slow	Decision Making	Fast
Frugal	Spending	Reckless
Honorable	Reputation	Glad Hander
Reserved	Passion	Emotional
Hard	Making Friends	Easy
Written	Communication	Verbal
Avoids	Risk	Embraces
Day and Night	Working Hours	Day and Night
“Applies in any industry”	Standards	“Doesn’t apply to our industry”
Wants to satisfy	Customers	Wants to satisfy
Liberal or Conservative	Politics	Liberal or Conservative
Both moral and immoral	Morals	Both moral and immoral
Less willing to extend themselves	Finances	More willing to extend themselves
The absolute standard	Facts	Suspicious of them
Doesn’t see it more often than not	Big Picture	Sees it more often than not
Conservative	Taste	Expensive
Not good in the long run	Business-Success	Much better in the long run
Firm	Schedule	Flexible
Tendency to be anti-social	Social Skills	Generally good
In check	Ego	Overblown
Process that takes time	Product Development	Don't understand why they can't have it now
Studious	Attention Span	Classic A.D.D.
Can't spell it; never heard of it	Bling	Live for it
Live for it	Efficiency	Can't spell it; never heard of it
Would rather build product	Planning	Would rather do anything else
Totally absorbed	Details	No interest

No one engineer fits all of the issues and neither does one salesman or marketer fit all of the listed issues either. Most people have some of both, but the tendency is to be more strongly disposed in one over the other.

The purpose of this analysis is not to say one is better than the other (one isn’t). The purpose is to show that the two are different and are moved and driven by differing outlooks and dispositions. Eventually individuals will gravitate toward the job that best suits their personality. That is why you see educated engineers like Jack Welch (GE) and Lee Iacocca (Chrysler) change career paths and be business leaders (where the focus is on sales and marketing) and Robert McNamara, who was raised in a sales home, and was educated in economics, and was president of Ford become the Secretary of Defense for Kennedy/Johnson, a technical position and one requiring much process, analysis, and critical thinking.

In short, both kinds of people are needed. Both are important. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. If everyone thought like an engineer there’d be little risk, little vision, delayed decision making, a lot of anti-social feelings, and scant flair and spontaneity and visual appeal to anything. Remember Henry Ford? "You can have any color you want as long as it is black." His cars cost lest every year, because they never changed in appearance and Ford was efficient at making them. But Ford nearly went bankrupt – thanks to an engineer running the company!

On the other hand, if everyone thought like a salesman or marketer, we’d be very inefficient in what we did (no process), we’d have a short attention span and there’d be very little critical thinking or analysis or problem solving, we’d go broke quick due to reckless spending, and we’d chase 15 rabbit trails at the same time thanks to a lack of focus. We’d make decisions based on what we overheard in the airport or read on the bathroom wall versus serious analysis of any data or process to obtain it.

So each have their weaknesses, but each want to succeed, be fulfilled, provide for their families, and contribute to the success and prosperity of their company and country. What I recommend is that each type learn to appreciate the strengths of the other, use those strengths, learn from those strengths, and pull for each other and the team such that everyone wins.