Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it - Sir Henry Royce
Engineering leadership is the art of turning possibility into reality with technical precision and a vision for the destination not yet created. The following represents learning and experience on a 30+ year journey so far. Blending technology, safety and risk, whilst navigating the dynamics of people. Creating strategy, trust, guiding teams through ambiguity, sometimes change and conflict, finding fun and fascinating insights, whilst maintaining customer focus, technical rigor and costs.
These experiences have created the ability to operate in, and interface with, all parts of large diverse and small bespoke teams, including financial functions and project sponsors. Additionally and importantly, they supply many lessons learned from multiple operating environments and different tiers of the supply chain. If we can help please get in touch.
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do — Michael Porter
People love to talk about strategy. Yet significantly fewer have spent real time understanding and developing it within organisations, nor transitioned it into actionable outcomes over time. As Winston Churchill noted, "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results".
Rich Hartley originally trained in business strategy at Manchester Business School, and coupled with 30+ years of business has employed that learning within multiple companies. An unashamed fan of using good models, such as Tosti and Jackson's Organizational Alignment and the various works of Michael Porter, such thinking allows a balanced view of Strategy - considering Goals & Results, Culture, Structure, Systems, Tools and People.
Some examples of strategy development work include:
The speed of business, the latest big thing, be it AI or other, often drives pressure and expecation to do everything all at once... and faster. Yet attempting tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat (Sun Tzu), and often the essence of good strategy can be deciding what not to do (Porter). This is because real focus beats generalised activity and sustainable differentiation beats imitation or simple cost cutting.
Good strategy frameworks provide a way to bring teams along an empowered journey of understanding, enabling change and improved outcomes - this is when strategy becomes action. At the higher level setting the vision, mission and tone of the expectation, whilst defining the expected results. Below that, in many layers of business people are recipients of that expectation, yet how those results are achieved sustainably over years is still often to be defined. Different models and methods allow analysis of your customers, forces at play within your environment, and the potential approaches available to differentiate you from your competitive landscape.
During 2021-22, Rich undertook the newly formed role of Boeing Defence UK's Engineering Business Operations Manager. A central role shaping the full engineering capability, managing a virtual team across 4 sites within the 400+ strong mixed engineering organisation.
Reporting to the UK Director of Engineering and working alongside BDUK’s Engineering leadership team, it was a true era of growth and change for BDUK, as the variety of Boeing platforms coming on-line in the UK was increasing.
BDUK circa 2010 had primarily offered support solutions for Chinook operating on a war footing, then later similarly for Apache. Strategy had centred around product leadership and customer intimacy, in an arguably less competitive environment due to their unique platform capabilities. Platform diversity and growth aspirations now demanded a different approach; moving from product centric support structures, to a blend of design, build and support capabilities across multiple platforms and virtual training, with other potential growth areas planned. The Engineering leadership team worked to maintain delivery of the extant programmes, whilst developing for the future. Strategy models and regular interactions were employed, to give balanced focus across goals, culture and supporting systems. Analysing each capability's structure, systems, recruitment and training needs to meet the desired future state.
The majority of projects undertaken have elements of engineering or information technology at their core. Experience brought to any new project spans the entire systems engineering lifecycle, utilising both the classic V shape and Agile methods. From requirement level development and analysis, working with Customers and Sponsors to define their need. Through system analysis and decomposition, down to the development of individual hardware and software components, together with hands on integration, test and in-service experience.
Example subject matter experience covered in depth includes:
Past experiences give valuable insight into current issues. In a prior role Rich had taken a safety critical aircraft component through full DefStan 59-411 EMC development and test. Now working in the civil aircraft cabin and seeing repeated failures of an expensive and low availability LRU, 
he asked to explore the boxes schematic and associated fitting aspects with the supplier. Within hours something became clear that had been missed by both the LRU and seat design teams. An omitted EMI protection was allowing static from the passengers fingertips to travel down through the seat into the LRU. The simple retrofit of additional grounding resolved a costly issue for the airline, relieved crucial parts availability and greatly improved company-customer relationships.
The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team — Phil Jackson
'People are our strongest asset' is a well used mantra, yet creating and retaining competent people is challenging. Facilitating those people with the surroundings to succeed is equally important - as W Edwards Deming said, "A bad system will beat a good person every time".
Key aspects to successful strategy and execution are the value of individuals, and the complex dynamics of teaming. In the modern business context, people and teams can sometimes be brought together rapidly and simply required to thrive. Rich has great experience in assessing competence then enabling individuals and their environment towards success. The above model is one example that is actively used to understand team growth. Rich has raised teams from a low experience base into functioning capabilities, understanding the needs of the role and getting from A to B with the individuals within it.
Integrated Logistics Support is a complex and multi-disciplinary subject, requiring different fields of specialism together with generalist skills and oversight. Whilst a business was trying to recruit new ILS engineers for significant growth, it became evident that the marketplace had a large skills shortage and a premium recruitment dynamic. With over two decades of combined ILS experience, Rich was asked to build and improve a team of 60+ ILS engineers, spanning all ILS elements. Doing so from a mixed starting point, of mid level experience in some disciplines to some talent sourced from previously non-ILS backgrounds. Rich developed a full structured training package of in-house and external course content, delivering the in-house elements himself. This successful route to capability initially included assessment of knowledge gaps, re-baselining of generalist subject knowledge and then specific targeted training in subjects such as RCM, R&M and Publications. The resulting outcome was a coherent and structured capability, with a depth of knowledge that could support and span mulitiple platform solutions into the future.
For many years Rich has maintained corporate and other mentoring relationships with a number of individuals, operating within specific company frameworks and also the IET Mentoring scheme. He has supported a number of individuals on their path toward chartership, and been a STEM ambassador within Boeing and BAE Systems. Rich was also invited to contribute as a mentor to the Boeing international leadership development programme, giving insights to future leaders about working internationally within their flagship support programmes.
Mentoring and coaching of individuals, both different in their approach, remains a valuable need within organisations and provides powerful growth for both the mentor and mentee.
Feedback Examples:
"Our conversations have helped me feel more confident and focused on the kind of career path that aligns with my strengths and long-term goals. You've created a space where I felt valued and empowered to think strategically about both my personal development and how I can contribute meaningfully to the company's success. Your advice has genuinely increased my motivation and helped me thrive in my role. I've appreciated how you've encouraged me to be honest about my weaknesses and then supported me in creating a plan to address them. This collaborative approach has helped me grow more intentionally and has made me feel supported in becoming a better engineer overall"
"Throughout my time under Rich's mentorship I have noticed a significant improvement in my development. Rich shows a genuine interest in my development/experiences at each session and always brings interesting points of discussion which allow me to reflect on past experiences or plan for ways I can implement these points into my future career. He always encourages me to explore experiences, thoughts and feelings further and from this I opened up to Rich about lacking confidence in certain aspects. Following this, he pointed me in the direction of some very useful resources and by using these, in addition our helpful discussions, there has already been a notable improvement in this area."
"As I am sure you are aware you tend to approach things with a slightly different lens to others, and you have helped show me the wider picture and the various angles to the different captures. From an engineering perspective, I have appreciated the freedom you have given me to pursue the routes I have deemed best, however you have always made yourself available should I need help. An event that stands out to me is when you took me through story boarding for **** marketing material task. Overall, its been a pleasure and I hope to continue picking your brains over the coming year."
"Rich has been helpful in drawing my attention towards planning my career both short and long term. Discussions surrounding professional registration and making career moves with growth in mind, has helped me begin planning for when I exit the graduate scheme and beyond. Overall Rich has offered some extremely valuable advice and support over these past months and I always leave each session having gained or learned something new"
