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SOURCE: MATP The Australian, April 24, 2002 It's not what you know, it's how well you work with your fellow professionals, writes Patrick Lawnham THE ability to work in a cross-disciplinary team is the most prized workplace attribute according to a study of new graduates already in the workplace. Emotional intelligence dominates factors the graduates say stand them in good stead in their professional lives, according to the study by the University of Technology, Sydney. UTS sought the opinions of 20 engineering graduates from several universities identified as successful in the workplace by their employers in its quest to find what lies behind a thriving professional career. Thinking and generic skills are also rated highly. Technical knowledge rates only 29 out of 38 success factors identified by the graduates. The UTS plan is to use the experience of high-performing graduates three to five years out from university to add to advice on course content from senior practitioners in the professions. UTS quality development director Geoff Scott says the results of the qualitative survey are indicative despite the small number. A survey of information technology graduates is almost complete and the university will then move on to architects and nurses, eventually covering all nine of its faculties. Scott says the engineering graduates regard technical knowledge as "necessary but not sufficient for successful professional practice". They believe that while emotional intelligence may not be teachable formally, it could be learned if university life is reorganised. The engineers agree that the ability to work in teams is vital. That can include the cross-disciplinary teams that arise in the workplace, working with the community and having one's own network. Rebekah Brown, one of the engineers in the survey, says "a technical, disciplinary focus is the old paradigm now. We need much more than that." After graduating as a civil engineer from Monash University in 1994, she worked for Arup and Partners as a project engineer here and overseas before recently becoming a lecturer in environmental management at the University of NSW. Brown says the "emotional side is really important in engineering, you're interacting with so many clients at a time. There's a need to work with the community and people from other disciplines." She began learning work skills early through part-time jobs during her high school years. Brown likes the cross-disciplinary side of her masters program at the UNSW Institute of Environmental Studies and believes it's an answer for universities. "They really should start developing cross-disciplinary research teams, taking major issues around the world," she says. This exposes students to the kind of work they will find in industry. Another participant who joined Arup, project manager Matthew Thiselton, is a civil engineer from the University of South Australia. His job is to improve environmental health for some Aboriginal communities in NSW and he has to understand their needs. Thiselton says he valued being taught "engineering English" in his UniSA course. "You can be really good technically, but if you can't communicate what you've come up with to someone from a non-engineering background, then you really haven't achieved anything," he says. Scott believes the survey findings have "profound implications [and] confirms that it is the total experience of university which shapes students' development". The professional surveys will help UTS "backward-map" from success in working life for designing its assessment and learning, Scott says. Respondents were asked to reflect on how their undergraduate experience met what they had found to count in practice -- in emotional intelligence, thinking and generic skills and professional knowledge. One participant replied: "Problems in university subjects generally have a singular result -- that is, right or wrong. The workplace often has multiple solutions to problems, none of which is obviously the best. Personal opinion comes into play." Universities whose graduates took part were UTS, Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University and the universities of NSW, Queensland, Sydney, Tasmania and Wollongong. What it takes... The top work skills, as rated by engineering graduates: CONTRIBUTING positively to team-based projects. FACING and learning from errors and listening to feedback. UNDERSTANDING personal strengths and limitations. REMAINING calm under pressure or when things go wrong. SETTING and justifying priorities. ORGANISING work and managing time effectively. KNOWING how to see projects though to effective implementation. PERSEVERING when things don't work out as anticipated. TAKING responsibility for the outcome of projects, even when it's bad. APPRECIATING there is never a fixed set of steps for solving workplace problems.
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Copyright © 2002 Macquarie Institute, Australia
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