I meant in the practical senses:
- learn to make your arguments in terms that appeal to the sensibilities of bean counters, not engineers
- learn to manipulate documentation so they’re forced to record overriding good engineering in a way that’s discoverable
- learn to identify key political players and address their desires, rather than appealing to “doing the right thing”
Etc.
All things that I’ve done poorly at various stages of my career — and seen other engineers struggle with as well. Much like being a manager requires training and education, so does being an effective advocate for engineering to the wider organization.
Or to borrow your analogy, if every engineer is afraid of boxing, then can we be surprised their views go unheard?
