What it takes to Excel as a Process Engineer: 10 Habits, Attitudes, Mindsets

 

“How can I excel as a Process engineer?” What does it take to go from good to Great?

It was a question that was a huge mystery to me, and I struggled to really figure out in the early years of my career.

After 16 years of Process engineering experience in both projects as well as optimization and troubleshooting as a Technologist including 3 years managing teams of process engineers for Upstream Oil & Gas fields, I've observed common attitudes, themes, patterns and best practices that differentiate the high performers, taking cues and inspiration by working with and learning from the best.

Here are a list of 10 Habits, Attitudes, and Mindsets that I've observed that typically differentiate the "great" engineers from the good.

Young engineers take note - this is the guide I wish I had!

🛠️ 1. Resourcefulness

in other words, the ability of “using quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties”. Working with limited data is difficult, especially when we're handling facilities designed back in the 60s and 70s, with old engineering standards, and documents that are either handwritten, produced from a classic typewriter, or nonexistent altogether!

An effective engineer seeks different avenues to source for obscure information, being able to work with limited data, making intelligent assumptions to come up with meaningful and practical solutions while mindfully understanding the potential risks involved with uncertainty.

Beyond the tools and database, they also know how to utilise their soft skills to leverage their “know-who”, knowing who holds the key to vital information, and reaching out accordingly.

🔍 2. Solution-oriented Customer focus

In Malay, we say, “don't syok sendiri”. Engineers love analysis and simulations, and once we get into the zone (”naik sheikh”), we can hack at it for hours. The danger, though, is when we get so deep into it, we fall into the trap of analysis paralysis, being overly rigid and sometimes failing to provide practical solutions or move the needle forward. Effective engineers are solution focused, by aligning expectations understanding pain points of the customer, and working backwards towards those goals, knowing when to make pragmatic simplifications and quick judgments with tolerable error and acceptable educated “guestimates”. The best solution providers have also mastered the art of bridging: Even if a task isn’t necessarily their “job scope”, the buck doesn’t just stop there… They can help point others in the right direction for them to find their solutions.

💡 3. Innovate now

Some of the best engineers have the core trait of curiosity and a sincere openness to listen. Sometimes, clients may come up with unreasonable or irrelevant requests, and our knee-jerk reaction would be to reject it. Great engineers ask questions, take a closer look, try things out, find ways to add value, find common patterns to find opportunities. And they elevate this curiosity through courage to challenge norms, test themselves outside of their comfort zone, to step up and seize opportunities - and unrealizingly become trendsetters, raising the bar and blazing the trail for others to follow.

🦻🏼 4. Learn from others and Reach out

Don't just work in silo and stick to your basic scope. Every platform, every project has its own unique set of challenges and issues. Leverage interface meetings and knowledge sharing platforms such as communities of practice (COP) or technical forums to Learn. Ask critical questions: Why? How did they do it? Open past studies and submissions. Compare differences in design (especially by different operators with different standards). Use that information to fuel your ideas of what is possible, what can we replicate, what might potentially work, how we can do things differently.

The best engineers also reach out beyond - expand our knowledge beyond our core discipline. An effective process engineer actively builds his or her network, to expand their resources to understand how their role connects with other disciplines so they can improve their perspective of how they can add value, and embraces the inter-dependency on

🖼️ 5. Effective Work framing

A good engineer doesn't just excel at problem solving, they also excel at defining the problems to be solved in the first place. In certain problem statements or day-to-day operations, sometimes it can be unclear “what problem we are trying to solve”. Clients may come up with (what they think are) solutions but in actual fact might be missing key information and underlying issues. Effective engineers know how to take a step back, observe data patterns to define problems, set boundaries and identify the value to be seized.

🧩 6. Collaboration

Engineers who excel recognize that the key to long-term productivity is to leverage interdependency, in order that the team achieves more than the sum of its parts. They play their role as a piece of a bigger puzzle.

They have the professionalism and emotional intelligence to collaborate well with different types of people and put up with different types of characters (not just their cliques). They also have the maturity to respectfully handle disagreements, be open to alternatives, and accept constructive feedback.

📊 7. Reporting Transparency

From adhoc unplanned requests, troubleshooting support, engineering studies, and initiatives, work demand can be overwhelming at times. Effective engineers communicate their proposed prioritisation with their managers and key stakeholders. They get into the habit proactively check in and update the status of their tasks (especially those deemed as “priority” or “urgent” by perspective of your stakeholders), and let their stakeholders know if there are assignments being put on hold.

⚡️ 8. Drive Results

The best engineers are not just reacting to stakeholders breathing down their neck following up on deadlines, they are active drivers with a firm sense of determination to finish the job.

And they stick the landing: Get your deliverables signed off and formally documented, not a lazy “gentlemen agreement”, e-mail acknowledgement or once off presentation.

👣 9. Think Sustainability

The best engineers usually leave behind a legacy of beneficial tools and references. Why? Because they aren’t only focused about solving “the problem of the day” - they think long-term, beyond themselves: what if similar problems happen again in the future? Can I create a spreadsheet, come up with tools, or impart this unique knowledge on a knowledge sharing platform to provide a sustainable solution and method for future problem solvers?

📚 10. Share knowledge

If you know anything about me, you saw this coming. It’s inevitable. Start sharing whatever you know, create opportunities if you have to. Here's a message to the hard edged business leaders. Knowledge sharing isn't just fluffy soft skills exercise in -practicing generosity”; it's a mechanism for enhancing productivity, accelerating capability and broadening your network. When engineers put in the effort to conduct knowledge sharing and mentoring others, it forces them to learn - to get better at understanding and conveying their knowledge.

When you share knowledge, you practice generosity. By mentoring others, helping them grow, you build trust through developing genuine human capital, contributing to the greater organization at large, beyond yourself.

And beyond that, sharing knowledge opens up platforms for us to broaden our horizons: when people ask unexpected questions and expand your creativity. And the better you get at knowledge sharing, the more it opens up doors of opportunity: to present at conferences on a larger stage, expand their network, learn from others, and supercharge their growth trajectory!

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Hope the above serves as a practical guide for engineers - especially our aspiring new graduates out there. Reading back above, it’s interesting to note that these aren’t just specific to process engineers - it’s pretty much applicable to all engineers, and professionals across the board!

Any thoughts on the above? Any characteristics you disagree, or key ones I left out? Share your thoughts!

United through Purpose and Values: Volunteers of TSP 2024 - The Straight Path Convention

 

In his famous book of tafsir, Imam ibn Kathir talks about the iconic People of the Cave (Ashabul Kahf) - who sought refuge in a cave, fleeing from the persecution of their people, just to stick to their principles of monotheism (tauhid), worshipping One God.

Here's the interesting part: they didn’t know each other. They were not friends prior to that. It was their principles that brought them together.

As ibn Kathir points out in his Tafsir:

“None of them knew the others, but they were brought together by the One Who instilled faith in their hearts..

When the people went out to attend this gathering, these young men went out with their fathers and their people, and when they saw their people's actions with clear insight, they realized that the prostrations and sacrifices the people were offering to their idols should only be dedicated to Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth.

Each of them started to withdraw from his people and keep aloof from them. The first one of them to move away on his own went and sat in the shade of a tree, then another came and sat with him, then another came and sat with them, then four more followed suit one by one.” (End quote)

They were brought together and united by a common cause. This is as the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said,

الأَرْوَاحُ جُنُودٌ مُجَنَّدَةٌ فَمَا تَعَارَفَ مِنْهَا ائْتَلَفَ وَمَا تَنَاكَرَ مِنْهَا اخْتَلَفَ
“Souls are like recruited soldiers. Those that recognize one another will come together,

and those that do not recognize one another will turn away from each other” (Muslim)

And Alhamdulillah, that is how Allah brought together these groups of people: the volunteers of TSP. We didn't know each other, but here we are, united in One Cause: To collaborate in righteousness, to spread knowledge for the Sake of Allah.

May Allah reward all the speakers, organizers and volunteers, who spent their time, effort, energy, patience, and understanding, towards making this event a success.

One of the Hadith that always inspires me is the Hadith of the arrow. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said,
"Allah, Most High, will cause three persons to enter Paradise for one arrow: the maker when he has a good motive in making it, the one who shoots it, and the one who hands it over to the shooter" (Abu Dawud #2513)

This Hadith teaches us, that it's not just the shooter that gets the reward. But everyone behind the scenes who helped prepare the shooter also gets rewarded. And not at a discount rate, either - they receive the SAME reward as the shooter!

If there is any benefit - any reward, barakah, any inspiration of change that comes out from the event - it's not just the speakers onstage who get the reward. Every single person who collaborated to make it happen, gets their share from Allah!  From the collaborators, committee, volunteers in charge of the stage, the booths, the refreshments, the "valet" speaker buddies, collaborators, promotions and social media, registrations, audio-visual technical setup, mothers room, juniors course, and the organizations that opened up booths and enriched the conference experience, (and hopefully, the MCs too 🤲🏼) - all of us - may Allah reward everyone and unite us in Jannatul firdaus as He did for us last weekend.

Of course, as a reminder to myself and the others, our work does not end here. We've got a lot of work ahead of us to continue carrying the torch of the Prophetic Legacy. If anything, this should be a beginning!
As scholars would say, a sign of acceptance is that we continue  good deeds one after another - from acting upon the knowledge, to spreading it, and continuing to commit ourselves to spend our time and energy to help in the cause of Allah, and continue to improve our efforts to do them with ihsan.

If we've been subjected to challenges, conflicts, misunderstandings - then don't let it get to our heads . Take it positively as a lesson, and move on. A sign of our sincerity and professionalism is that we stay the course in spite of the issues and challenges - because we are contributing to a cause greater then ourselves. The extraordinary cause require extraordinary effort!
#tsp2024 #propheticlegacy

First time on Live TV: TSP2024 with TV Alhijrah

 🔓 Achievement Unlocked: First time on Live TV! 

With Dr. Hasan Akbar (from Brooklyn NYC) on TV Alhijrah yesterday 20th November 2024, sharing about The Straight Path (TSP) Convention 2024. Alhamdulillah what a (nerve-wracking and exciting) new experience!

D&I Sharing - Accidental Exclusions: Habits that (Unrealizingly) harm inclusion

How can we create a more inclusive environment? 

In a recent Leaders meeting, I gave a sharing about inclusion: how we, as leaders, can nurture a more inclusive environment in our teams and organization. 

I decided to take a different approach to the subject: by highlighting some of our subconscious behaviors that might indirectly have a negative impact to inclusion. 

To me, forming an inclusive environment is not about big campaigns, posters and marketing slogans. The key lies in the habits that we do every day: the moment-to-moment interactions we have with others, and how we respond in different contexts.

Inclusion boils down to two factors: belonging and uniqueness. 

As leaders, we need to ask: How can we make our team feel a sense of belonging, that they are "part of the team", while at the same time recognising and acknowledging their uniqueness and how they can contribute and add value to the team?

The tricky thing is, inclusion is often PERCEPTION through the individuals' human experience - not necessarily objective reality. 

And whether we realize it or not, some of our habits might inadvertently create a feeling of exclusion in others. 

Here are some examples of those habits: 

1. Sticking to our Social comfort zone - as they say, "birds of a feather flock together". We tend to stick to our cliques, and speaking with language we are comfortable with. The side effect, though, is that when we only stick to our clique, it subconsciously creates a divide ("geng2 bosses"), isolation and alienation to the rest. 

2. Overlooking team members and achievements - sometimes we are so focused on our tasks and results, we forget the human beings driving them. Take the time to get to know & appreciate others. 

3. Hierarchical bias / selective respect - I.e. When we are subconsciously "nice" to the bosses, but mean to the people who we consider "lower" - creating a sense of discrimination

4. Avoiding difficult conversations - this only creates negative suspicion & resentment. Procrastinating & ignoring only makes it worse!  

 

5. Separation language - language like "you guys" or "Korang" make people feel like they're separate from us. Try to use more inclusive "we" language. 

When I conducted this sharing with quorums of GM, SGM and VP, I was very careful to say things like "we leaders" instead of just "leaders need to XYZ", so I don't create a sense of divide or blame, and that we are in this together with a collective responsibility. 

There are many others - e.g. Dismissing opinions, failing to cascade info (am I not worthy?), talking trash/backbiting about others (making those around us feel unsafe and a constant sense of suspicion that "are they saying that about me?") - At the end of the day, we should endeavour to be more mindful of our physical and verbal habits, and be more deliberate in creating a more inclusive environment to those around us. 

Petronita Orchid Run 2024 🌸🏃 - 21km ✅

 

Alhamdulillah, completed my First Half Marathon since 2019.. With some improvement too 😊.
💦 Gotta admit, felt really nervous in the beginning as we kicked off to a really wet start, flagging off at 6:12pm in the really heavy rain. But the rain subsided over time and Alhamdulillah for me it was a great touristy  experience exploring KL foot, too.


Was nice to bump into my colleagues from DFE as well as a nice surprise to catch up with Ex-SKA colleagues too! Great work guys!

Alumni sharing for new leaders: GP Managers Forum . Petronas leadership center (PLC), Bangi - Thursday 10th October 2024

 

Congratulations to our new managers! Alhamdulillah it was an honor and privilege to attend the session address the new managers in GP, where PLC opened up an opportunity for several of us - alumni from the past Dynamic Leadership training, together with my fellow alumni Yoganathan and Sofia Shereen - to reach out and share some thoughts, perspective and ideas for our journey as managers to help prepare them for the exciting (and no doubt, challenging) times up ahead in their career journey, and our journey together as fellow leaders! 

It was a very enlightening learning session, with excellent facilitation from Pak Tam @Nizam, kicking off with participants being assigned to complete a series of self-assessment questions that enlightened them about the concept of "accidental diminishers": how several of our characteristics can unrealizingly have a negative effect to the people around us. 

As expected, the most common Accidental Diminisher was the Rescuer and Protector: where our tendency is to "help" and "shield" our subordinates in times of difficulty. While it seems noble, these tendencies might have a damaging side effect that diminishes them, by robbing and depriving them of the ability to develop their own independent capacity to solve problems, take away that sense of responsibility and accountability, and ultimately make them more and more dependent upon us. In more extreme cases, if we "rescue" them too often, they might subconsciously produce low quality work, expecting their bosses to pick up the slack! Other common accidental Diminishers were Perfectionist and Rapid Responder. 

The alumni forum session kicked off with some excellent sharing from my alumni buddy Yoga, who shared about the necessity of adjusting our communication styles with different stakeholders, learning from our mistakes and being flexible to adapt, in order to make the best of the people around us for us to be effective Multipliers. Sofia then shared about some of the "mistakes" she made in her early time as a manager, and how she learned to acknowledge them and learn from them. 

I first started by congratulating the attendees for their new appointment. The organization has deemed them worth of handling their most valuable resources: the people. We have the potential to make a huge difference and shape the future of our organization: let's make it count! 

I then emphasized that those accidental Diminishers aren't necessarily "bad", in fact a lot of them come from a place of sincerity. Use this as a means of self-awareness: how our behavior affects others, how we can leverage those strengths, while at the same time knowing how we can do better. 

Alhamdulillah it was also nice to bump into my Sydney buddy Iskandar, as well as my good friend chief @Asrif. 

Thanks to Bella, Pak Tam & team for having us. All the best to our new leaders

Breakout Session with Mentors: IIUM Summit of Future Leaders, 2nd October 2024

 

After the leadership talk, students were split into 6 different groups, with each group being assigned with a mentor to open up a conversation with them to clarify any curiosity, tips and how we can better prepare them to enter and thrive as professionals in the real world out there, to share practical advice, as well as opening up their perspective based on our collective experience. 

In my group, I had the pleasure of engaging with Bashir, Rabiatul, Farhan, and Aqif - 3 of them engineering students, and 1 studying architecture. 

Here are some of the questions and discussion points that were brought up:

 1. Are there any projects that actually end up as failures? What happens when projects "fail"? 

 2. (After hearing one of our Technical Professionals, fellow mentor speak out about how she's currently handling ten projects) how on Earth do you handle so many projects at once? That sounds impossible! How?! 

 3. I have a problem: I'm a bit of a people pleaser - I just don't know how to say "no" because I'm always concerned about other people. How do I overcome that so I can become more assertive? 

 4. Do you really implement what you study in university? 

 5. A lot of good advice revolves on finding good company and productive friends, but some of us struggle with making friends. What should we do? 

 6. What should you do when you want to do the right thing but everybody is against you? 

 7. Tips for getting a job, finding opportunities and being noticed by employers 

 8. How do you handle work-life balance  when you have such high workloads and demanding jobs?  

 9. What do you do with staff who aren't performing or aren't fitting in with the work culture? 

10. How do you handle problematic staff and conflicts at the workplace? Especially those of us who prefer avoiding conflict

11. How important is co-curricular activities in our employability, and why do employers seek this out? Is 

12. How do we stay steadfast when we feel like giving up?  

I found this hour-long session to be very beneficial and immensely satisfying, for both the mentors and mentees. 

 1. Because many of them are still young (majority are in 1st or 2nd year of their degree), the professional world seems like such an unfamiliar, alien world. It was a real privilege to help shed some light to demistify this foreign world, and help inspire them to believe in themselves to tackle these challenges when their time comes. 

 2. Having to listen - and make us think through these thought provoking questions - keeps us sharp. Especially thinking about how many of us are still struggling with these challenges, seeking solutions, and haven't quite figured it out. 

I left the session giving a lot of thought to these questions. 

Success isn't a destination.. It's a process. A journey. 

 

Awesome session! Looking forward for similar engagements in the future! 

Summit of Future Leaders: Empowering Excellence - a collaboration with International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM @ UIA) with CHESS-PETRONAS: 2nd October 2024, KLCC Tower 1

 

Alhamdulillah, it was an honor to participate in this leadership program with IIUM students, organized by the Collaboration with Higher Education Strategic Initiatives (CHESS), a platform where PETRONAS reaches out to universities to bridge  and helping to prepare students as professionals entering the industry. 

I've always been passionate about developing youth, and am particularly interested in reaching out to university students, who go through an important transitional phase in their lives: as they start moving away from dependent youth shaping themselves into young adults with huge potential to achieve greatness, how can we help them provide some "real world" perspective and help to inspire them to capitalize this potential. 

The program was co-organized by IIUM's Huffaz sejahtera Leadership Program (HSLP), a program initiated by lecturers from IIUM engineering faculty to create a platform for holistic personal development for students, as an additional avenue for students to earn credit points. Their 3-year program centers on Qur'an memorization, coupled with leadership competency building such such as 3-day leadership camp, their third day culminating in a visit and engagement with industry professionals - in this case, PETRONAS. excellent program and great practice educational institutions can emulate. 

For the session, I delivered a talk title "Let's be the Change our future needs". 

The key message I wanted to share with them is that the main ingredient to achieving success in life is your character: your values, beliefs, morals, attitude and outlook in life. 

There's a saying that goes, "money and success don't change people. They merely amplify what is already there". If your character is sound - your heart is sincere, your attitude thrives to succeed, you have the integrity to stick to your principles - then anything that comes your way only amplifies the good for yourself and the impact towards people around you. The longer you live, the more wealth you have, the higher you rise in position and rank, the more followers and influence you have, then the greater the goodness amplified. 

And if you have poor character, any wealth, position, or even the longer you live - will only cause more and more damage to society!

List down all the traits of what you consider are "great leadership". Whether it's approachable, inspiring, good listener, supportive, visionary, they all have one thing in common: this is all about character.

So, if great leadership is about character, it has nothing to do with rank or a leadership position. You can start being a great leader right here, right now. 

We cannot "wait" for the future leaders to just magically appear out of nowhere, or fall from the sky. If we want a better future, we need to BE a part of what shapes that better future!

Was nice to bring them for their first experience to KLCC towers and the famous sky bridge.

Thanks to the organizers for opening up a chance for us to contribute. Allahumma barik. Here's hoping for more collaboration opportunities in the future!