How to Leave a Legacy in your Engineering Career

Is your childhood the start of your failures, or the source of your fuel? Where do you find the greatest compound return on investment in personal development? How can you be part of the solution to gender bias in engineering?

In this episode, we touch challenging topics and I know you will benefit from every word. Get ready to meet Tammy Bohen, the Chief Human Resources Officer at SVP Worldwide. Her heart for people, combined with her incredible results, have changed her family tree forever.

If you want to leave a legacy as an engineer, tune in now.

In her career, Tammy has helped shape best-in-class employee experiences, engagement and business performance in global leadership positions for several world-class organizations including KitchenAid, Whirlpool Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Lear Corporation, and now SVP Worldwide.

But at the end of the day, she simply loves to travel and learn, changing lives along the way!

So press play and let’s chat… it’s time to make a positive change in the OACO family tree.

The Happy Engineer Podcast

WATCH EPISODE 20: LEAVE A LEGACY WITH TAMMY BOHEN

LISTEN TO EPISODE 20: LEAVE A LEGACY INTERVIEW WITH ZACH’S DEBRIEF

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ENGINEERING YOUR LEGACY: INSIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE

It didn’t take long for Tammy to get honest and vulnerable with us about sharing that both her parents were dropouts. Her father was illiterate, the kind of disadvantage that most people would gladly use as an excuse for not reaching success as the world may define it in their life. I couldn’t be more impressed by how Tammy took that and said, I knew I wanted something different.

I was blessed. I had love, I had family, but we didn’t have money. Education was replaced by love and family. I took the best of what I had, but I got curious and I was willing to do the work. Did you hear from Tammy – that willingness to take the key life lesson from parents who may not have had advantages like you and I had growing up, but who were willing to do whatever it takes and do the work to take care of their family.

Maybe you’re just like Tammy, you grew up in a household where you were disadvantaged in whatever way. Listen to the mindset of someone who has now reached the absolute pinnacle of leadership in a global organization. The mindset about my past is what changed the trajectory of my life.

My upbringing is my advantage. That is true for Tammy Bohen. And it is true for you. Your past is your advantage. If you will shift your mindset into truly believing that and start exploring your past with that mindset, your past meaning yesterday and all the way back to your childhood years, your past is your advantage.

And inside of every challenge, every “failure” is the same opportunity to have that advantage, just waiting to grow. If you will water it and nurture it, start looking at your past that way and you become unstoppable. This is a place where a great coach can help you. If this is something you really struggle with, then I would encourage you to get help with it.

“What do you really want out of life?” is a question that has come up with a lot of our guests. I hope you understand why… It’s because most of you are not doing the deep-thinking required to actually answer that question. That alone is a reason to invest in yourself, because sometimes if you don’t put some skin in the game, then you will never make it a priority. So invest in yourself, get the answer to these questions. 

One really important thing people forget to ask, is how do you know if you’re doing what you really want to do – versus doing what you think you’re supposed to do, based on what other people say, or what society dictates you should do by defining a “normal” path to success, or definition of success.

But it’s not up to society, or your parents, friends, family, or significant other to define what your success looks like, or how you should achieve it. So you need to find your passion. Do what lights you up. 

So you need to ask that question. What you’re doing now, does it light you up? Does it bring that energy and passion that fuel into your life? Do you feel the zest, the creativity, the passion flowing?

So many of you are going to respond to that question by saying, well, no, my work does not light me up, but it never has. And the things that do light me up, I can’t do those for my career.

You know, I have an engineering degree and what lights me up is surfing on the weekends, going mountain biking, playing chess, etc. And you say, well, Zach, I can’t do that for a living. I still have to be an engineer. I work to live. I don’t live to work. 

Okay, fine. I understand what you’re saying, but here’s what I want you to realize about what you do all day, every day in your career. If you are never experiencing that light up. You are giving away the biggest chunk of your life’s energy to something that is not going to fuel you and make you happy and feel fulfilled and energized.

And go back to that rocking chair test when you’re eighty five ninety five, one hundred and five, what would you regret more? Ask yourself that question. If you get to that point in your life. Well, you’re on the rocking chair, 85, 95 years old. What are you going to regret? Not having done some of that lighting up, connecting with your passion.

This is an area as engineers, where we have to get a little bit honest with ourselves. A lot of engineers I talked to haven’t been connected with that part of themselves in a long time. And this advice from Tammy, I want you to take action on today, create space for that hobby or that side hustle that you do light up for and start practicing feeling that light-up flow state. 

You need to get familiar with that part of you that feels passion again. If you ever want to find it in your career, if you don’t know how to feel passionate at all, then you’re not going to feel it in your job. So start practicing. That way, when you explore the deep questions with your coach on what you really want out of life, you have that discerning signal of if you’re on track or not.

If you don’t have any signal, then it’s alright. We’re engineers. Do you understand signal-to-noise ratio? If your life is all noise, then you’re going to miss the signals about what you really want. So start getting in touch with those feelings that you have when you’re truly lit up, put it on your calendar and go let loose and enjoy something that you’re passionate about.

Investing in yourself is like compound interest. It’s the eighth wonder of the world, right? Make sure that you’re investing in yourself early and often. It is never too soon in your career to invest in a coach. These areas that Tammy highlighted, I love that she put health first.

It’s true without energy and vitality, you don’t have the fuel to invest into your education and into your career. And let me just put one twist on what Tammy presented, because I also believe in. Trust me, there is no substitute for the right knowledge, but what I’ve also learned is that engineers like you are so focused on investing in education and new skills and new knowledge that you’re putting all your resources into passive action.

Not massive action, but passive action. The difference is that passive action feels like progress, but you’re not actually moving towards your goals. Listening to this podcast is a great example of passive action. You are learning new things, but if you do not take action in your life and in your specific situation with what you learned today, then this passive action will take you nowhere.

So I would encourage you for every hour that you invest in education, invest an hour into action in your life. For every dollar that you invest into education, invest a dollar into great coaching and accountability to get results from that. 

This is so true from my own experience. I love to read, I love to listen to podcasts. I love to learn, and I used to consume knowledge at an unbelievably vigorous pace. Always watching documentaries on TV, always reading books, and it did help… but the real results in my life began when I cut back significantly on how much I consumed in new knowledge and invested 10 times the dollars, the hours and the energy into my coach who helped me to take action.

And now, instead of simply a successful career that I had at Whirlpool corporation as an engineer, I have this incredible company. I have my own team. I’m a partner in a private equity firm where we own dozens of other organizations. I have all of these incredible things going on in my life, in the successes and results that I wanted to create.

I’m happier. I’m more fulfilled. I have stronger relationships. I’ve healed from wounds of my past and have unbelievable energy around my purpose and vision. All of that came 10 fold 100 fold after I focused less on pure education and more on taking action. 

I cannot say this strongly enough: Engineers, don’t fall victim to a passive action lifestyle.

Get a coach, get accountability and get into action. If you want to change your life.

Hey, I have to put in one more plug here before we go for today for the women in engineering. First of all, I love all of you and I just am so thankful for what you’re doing in stepping into that and the challenges and the barriers that may exist. 

I’m so honored by Tammy sharing with us, her heart, around that. For everyone reading this, male or female, ask that question of what you can do to help the ladies. Turn those barriers into fuel.

And for the gentlemen listening, I want you to ask yourself that question that Tammy asked, and really be honest. Am I contributing to the kind of environment at work that I want for my daughter, my sister, or my mother? More than anything, make sure that you get clear on what may exist in your own mind, in the subconscious. Let’s get rid of the bias and let’s be a part of the solution.

You know, Tammy finished with a powerful question. Who can you ask for help? And what I want you to know is that I am one of those people you can ask. I love you. I’m here with you. We’re on this journey together, and if you need help, reach out. It doesn’t mean that you have to sign up for one of our transformational coaching programs and get  totally involved and invest in yourself with money and time.

Just find me on social media. Tag me, ask a question. I mean, I’m on there all the time and I would love the opportunity to share with you, create a video that might help you, or push some resources your way. Make sure that you are out there taking action and asking for help. Myself and the team at OACO are here with you every step of the way.

Previous Episode 19: Get Into Big Tech with Mauricio Nunes

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ABOUT TAMMY BOHEN

In her current role at SVP Worldwide, Tammy Bohen leads their global People strategy enabling human and business performance. She has held the position since January 2020.

During her over 20-year career in business and human resources, she has led global teams in talent management, leadership development, talent analytics, employee engagement, diversity and inclusion strategies.

Prior to SVP Worldwide, Tammy founded Development by Design, a talent and leadership development consulting firm. She has also held several global leadership positions for world-class organizations including KitchenAid, Whirlpool Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, and Lear Corporation — companies for whom she helped shape best-in-class employee experiences, engagement and business performance. As Global Head of Human Resources at KitchenAid, for example, Tammy created the People Excellence strategy and served on the leadership team of the global business unit. During her time at KitchenAid, the corporation achieved record revenue, market share, productivity, profitability, and cash flow while also maintaining a strong culture, delivering best-in-class engagement and tripling the health of the company’s leadership pipeline. Tammy’s other notable achievements at KitchenAid include doubling the number of women in senior leadership at the company, and helping it achieve global gender parity.

Tammy is certified as a Senior Human Resources Professional through SHRM and the HR Certification Institute. She is a certified leadership and executive coach through the College of Executive Coaching and a certified performance coach through the Human Performance Institute. Tammy holds a Master’s Degree in Human Resources (MLIR) from Michigan State University and a bachelor’s degree from Lake Superior State University.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Tammy Bohen on LinkedIn
• Book a FREE call and get help building your engineering career legacy!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Please note the full transcript is 90-95% accuracy. Reference the podcast audio to confirm exact quotations.

[00:00:00] Zach White: All right. Welcome back engineers. It is a pleasure to be with you today. I’m with one of my good friends and a colleague from my days back in the KitchenAid and Whirlpool organization, Tammy, you just heard all about her amazingly long and impressive bio in developing people and her career. But Tammy, I can’t thank you enough for making time to be with us today.

[00:00:25] It’s awesome to have you here. 

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