This is the last application day for the 2005-2006 SEED Engineering mentoring program.
I am very pleased to see that so far we have 106 Recent Hire applicants and 113
Established Staff applicants. Tanya Jankot and I are sorting through them,
getting back to applicants with questions and answering lots of questions
by email and phone.
Some managers and HR folks get angry with us (and tell us their views at length) because
the program is exclusive, which to them seems to mean “unfair”. Yet, we are very
clear in our presentations and on our web pages that SEED participants are expected to
rise to the top of Sun Engineering’s individual contributor or management ranks. That is,
we are a small program looking to benefit the most talented and promotable and able
staff in Engineering. Presumably that is why they want their staff to join. Of course
this is an exclusive group! Sun Engineering is not
Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon
where “all of the children are above average”.
These may be the first SEED terms in which the US-based staff are fewer than the
international staff. So far, we have applicants from:
Established Staff
- 3 China
- 5 Czech Republic
- 5 France
- 3 Germany
- 17 India
- 1 Israel
- 2 Singapore
- 1 Sweden
- 1 The Netherlands
- 3 UK
- 71 USA
Recent Hires
- 12 China
- 4 Czech Republic
- 3 Germany
- 41 India
- 26 Russia
- 28 USA
The SEED program is trying to change the leadership of Sun Engineering to make it even better.
This being so, one of our guides is Niccolo Machiavelli who wrote in The Prince in 1513:
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And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.
Thus, it happens that wheneever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly…
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