Art & Engineering - How being a great artist relates to the engineer's roles

In this episode of the Risk! Engineers Talk Governance podcast, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss the relationship between art and engineering. 

They draw parallels between the roles of artists and engineers, highlighting the importance of composition, execution, and management in both fields. They outline the different types of engineers, such as creators, managers/consultants, and specialists, and the need for all three types in successful engineering organisations. Richard emphasises the importance of recognising and focusing on one's strengths in order to have a satisfying and successful career. 

Their conversation also touches on the challenges of small businesses, the role of innovation, and the limitations of relying solely on standards in engineering.

If you’d like to learn more about Richard and Gaye’s work, head to https://www.r2a.com.au. 

Transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss art and engineering and how being a good artist can relate to the different roles of engineers.

(00:16):

We hope you enjoy what we found are very entertaining chat. If so, give us a rating to help spread the word and subscribe to our channel on your favourite platform. Email us admin@r2a.com.au if you have any feedback or topic ideas.

Gaye Francis (00:36):

Hi Richard and welcome to another podcast session.

Richard Robinson (00:39):

Yes, good to see you again, Gaye.

Gaye Francis (00:41):

Good to see you too. Today we're going to talk about one of your topics, philosophy, a philosophical topic, art and engineering, and the links that art has to engineering and the way that we, I guess, manage or deliver engineering projects.

Richard Robinson (01:03):

Not perhaps the way I would've said it, but let's go with that for the start.

Gaye Francis (01:06):

<laughs> Alright.

Richard Robinson (01:08):

Now, for those who are particularly interested in this, I'm basically pinching most of the ideas from this book, "What is Art All About?" by Desiderius Orban, who, I think it was Hungarian who came to Australia, Sydney, when he was about 60yo, and he must have written this book when he was about 90yo, I think. So the moral of all that is you shouldn't give up until you're dead, and then you should reconsider.

Gaye Francis (01:29):

<laughs> So you might get your book done on philosophy and engineering yet, Richard.

Richard Robinson (01:32):

Yeah, it's possible!

(01:35):

Anyway, one of the points he makes, he's trying to explain why it's hard to be a good artist, and the comparison he makes is to music. So if you think about music, like the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and so forth, if you want a good performance, you've got to have a good composition, i.e. there's got to be a composer, you need a sound conductor who's got to make the whole of she-bang run, and then you've got to have a whole lot of specialist musicians who are all very good at what they do. And if all those three things come together, you get a good result. Now that actually parallels engineering.

(02:04):

This is a discussion I've had with the young engineers pretty regularly because when you're trying to decide how your career goes, you've got to decide which one of these three you can be, because nobody doubts you can be a good composer, nobody doubts you can be a good conductor and nobody doubts you can be a good specialist (musician), like the first violinist for the MSO.

Gaye Francis (02:19):

And I can say he has had that discussion with me many years ago.

Richard Robinson (02:22):

And you have promptly forgotten. So I often wonder whether it was worth the trouble.

Gaye Francis (02:26):

<laughs>

Richard Robinson (02:26):

But anyway...

(02:28):

Now the point about this is when you're a young engineer, you have to decide which one of these things you are. Are you the creator or the designer, the people who love creating new things? Or are you the organiser, the manager, the consulting engineer? Or are you the specialist who becomes super specialised in a particular area of design?

(02:47):

And if you attend a conference or something like that, if you're at a technical conference, you can see all the specialist engineers appearing. But if you want to be a manager, you go and have a look at all the engineers that are attending and doing MBAs, for example, and you get a pretty good idea of what's going on there. But the real entrepreneurs, the ones who really create new designs, they're actually a pretty small group.

(03:09):

Now, the trick that he's making about being a good artist is that in order to be an excellent artist, you have to be excellent at all three. You have to be good at composition, because if you don't have a good idea you won't produce anything worthwhile. You have to be an excellent painter or whatever your art form is because if you can't do it properly, then you won't execute the composition well, that's the specialist part. And you have to able to put it all together, which is the management part. And that's why it's so rare you just can't do it all. I mean, there's lots of excellent painters out there, but it's like a photograph -- it's not actually anything that everyone gets really excited about. Whereas the ones that people get really excited about are the ones where it's actually expresses an idea that you just can't, previously (express); a photograph doesn't cut it, basically.

Gaye Francis (03:55):

And I think we have that conversation in successful businesses as well in organisations, don't we? You have to have all of those three components that have to come together, work really, really well together, to be a successful business.

Richard Robinson (04:09):

That's correct. And the trick is very few of us are all three. We've got elements of each amongst ourselves. Gaye can confirm that my organisational skills are sometimes not as good as they could be.

Gaye Francis (04:21):

And mine are probably better. And so we do complement each other there, Richard.

Richard Robinson (04:25):

And between the two of us, we cover all the gaps. And that's the point.

(04:28):

Now, if you're designing a business, I mean one of the points I've made, if you've ever go into business for yourself and go into a partnership, one of the things I recommend you do early is have a (financial) loss! Because it's all very fine having partners when you're making money, but the first time you make a loss and you've got to share the loss, that's when you find out who your real partners are.

Gaye Francis (04:47):

I think one of the interesting things in this is that you can be a leader in each of those categories. And you don't have to be everything to everybody to be seen as successful. And I think there's a lot of conversations, and especially in the engineering field, that there's a real push to get people to leaders and what does that mean? But I think they're being pushed in that managerial, that middle row, that they're leaders in the management area. But we have so many technical specialists out there that are leaders within their fields as well. But they maybe don't get the recognition. But if we don't have them, then the engineering organisation is nothing.

Richard Robinson (05:31):

Correct. Well, the point is you've got to have all three. And the trick is, and this is just from a personal viewpoint, and this is something you have to discover the hard way, you've got to decide which of these skills or combination of these skills you actually have. Because if you keep trying to do one of these things that you do not possess, it's going to hurt a lot and you can want it, but if you truly don't have it, it's not going to happen.

Gaye Francis (05:53):

It has to come naturally, doesn't it?

Richard Robinson (05:55):

Whereas if you actually pick your strength and effect and work on that, life tends to be a lot more satisfying. And career success seems to be a lot more assured so far as I can tell. But that's just a personal assessment based on my experience of life. You perhaps have others.

Gaye Francis (06:10):

No, it is much easier to do things that you're good at than challenge things that you're not so good at. I think from a small business viewpoint, the entrepreneurial stuff that we sort of not struggle with but is probably the hardest component of small business.

Richard Robinson (06:25):

Correct. But that's the reason why people go into business in the first place.

Gaye Francis (06:29):

And so I think in the last 18 months in particular, we've really tried to concentrate on the thought leadership stuff. What makes us that little bit different from the other organisations that are out there. And once we don't have any new ideas, the big guys just come and swallow us up.

Richard Robinson (06:46):

That's correct. Well, innovation doesn't come from large organisations, usually. It comes from the small guys who are trying to do things.

Gaye Francis (06:52):

And so sometimes we need those really sticky problems or those really difficult problems that you're pulling your hair out at the time. But to come up with that innovation, to come up with those new ideas and then they get refined as time goes on. But that's one of the interesting things of small business.

Richard Robinson (07:10):

I think you're just saying that creativity usually arises when you're under stress.

Gaye Francis (07:14):

<laughs> Well, as an engineer, creativity probably isn't my strongest point, but you know!

Richard Robinson (07:20):

Well, it actually flows in a lot of places though. Because one of the things we've got cranky (about), particularly with Standards Australia, and the way engineering has sort of turned up in the last 20 or 30 years, is that people have started doing design by standards. Now, I don't mean unkind, but innovation does not come through standards. If you want something interesting or different to occur, standards is not the place to do it. And it drives us crackers because in all our due diligence courses, we quote all these lawyers who are saying, the fact that you've complied with the standard does not excuse an engineer from applying their skill and expertise to whatever problem they're looking at.

Gaye Francis (07:55):

To solve the problem.

Richard Robinson (07:56):

And I've always preferred, and I think I've mentioned it before, the 1937 Chairman of Victoria Division's point about standards: Prevent fools from the folly and rogues from their rogoeury. Well, you're supposed to figure out how it ought to be, and then you check back against the standard to make sure you haven't done something daft, that's "fools from their folly". And if you're trying to hang a contractor, well, the easiest way to do it is say you haven't complied with the standard and your toast, but that's not helpful. I mean, it's just something you've got to do sometimes.

Gaye Francis (08:20):

I think there's a slow shift going towards some of the chief engineers that we've been talking to and working with. They're really expecting their engineers to solve the problem first and then go back and check against the standard. And that's what they're trying to encourage. There's a lot of organisations that are just doing the minimum and that's all we're going to do.

Richard Robinson (08:41):

To the standard. And I'm sorry, but if that's all you're doing as an engineer organisation, I don't think you're really an engineering organisation anymore. You're just following the rules, whatever they are. And you don't need to be an engineer to do that.

Gaye Francis (08:56):

That's true.

(08:57):

So any other little tidbits that you've got that you found insightful as art and engineering?

Richard Robinson (09:07):

Not that I'm aware of. I think I just said it, but thank you for the thought.

Gaye Francis (09:11):

<laughs> Alright, well, I'll wrap this podcast up. That was sort of a little bit more entertaining than I thought it was going to be. But thanks for joining us and we hope to see and hear you next time.

Richard Robinson (09:21):

Thanks, Gaye.