Beyond Disruption: Pioneering a New Path for the Engineering Community, Part 3

Summit Wrap-Up, Part 3

In 1965 Alvin Toffler coined the term “Future Shock” to describe the shattering stress and disorientation induced in individuals, organizations, and communities by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. Our observation, leading into the Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL) Beyond Disruption Summit, is that 2025 has been a year of accelerating, disruptive change leaving people and institutions unmoored, at risk, and clearly suffering from Future Shock “Squared”.

75 years ago, the behavioral scientist Kurt Lewin articulated a simple, but powerful theory of change for social systems. He theorized that to change a social system you must go through three stages: Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze. Unfreezing involves preparing people for the transition by breaking down existing mindsets and behaviors that normally act as barriers to change (think bootcamp experiences in the military). The change stage introduces new processes, mindsets, and behaviors. Finally, during refreezing the system stabilizes and the change is embedded into the culture of the social system.

The Future Shock of 2025, brought about by governmental actions and the explosive growth of AI, represents an unfreezing moment for the engineering community. New possibilities as well as desired changes that have been inhibited by the frozen conditions and the inertia of the existing social system may now be possible — provided we act strategically and with urgency before the situation freezes once again.

Clearly, this is a time for imagining a new vision, transcending goals, and robust strategies that could allow the engineering community to take a leadership role in society and become, once again, the fundamental driver of economic growth and prosperity for the country.

ECL’s summit, convened in Austin, Texas in November 2025 gathered a group of engineering leaders, students, and associated stakeholders to engage in this type of strategic thinking effort on behalf of the engineering community. The primary objectives of this summit were to demonstrate both the potential value of and urgent need for engaging in this type of strategy work across the engineering community at this critical juncture in time.

The aspirational vision for the future of the engineering community created during the summit is presented as Part One of this three-part series. Contributions from evocateurs and a student panel that helped evoke this future vision and accompanying strategies are summarized as Part Two.

Visioning and Strategic Thinking

Responding to the great “unfreezing” of 2025, participants engaged in a strategic thinking process that imagined the results of such an effort. The process …

• Acknowledged and owned both the brutal facts and fortunate surprises of 2025.
• Identified strategically significant strengths and major weaknesses.
• Identified sets of major opportunities and threats.
• Created a new aspirational vision and long-term goals.
• Identified a set of transformational strategies for achieving this envisioned future.

Group conversations occurring in each step in the process were further enriched by contributions from six thought leaders and a panel of students. Those evocateurs helped call forth and breathe life into the collective work of exploration and imagination.

The aspirational vision and goals, transformational strategies as well as next steps for ECL-USA are shown in the next sections.

The final section of this report, Supporting Strategic Analysis provides supplementary detail about the group’s deliberations regarding brutal facts and fortunate surprises, a SWOT analysis, and more extensive thinking about strategic possibilities.

Aspirational Vision & Goals

For the engineering community in the U.S. to take its place as the pre-eminent driver of economic growth and abundance in the 21^st Century. And, to achieve a level of greatness last attained by the engineering community in the 1960s, during the country’s transformational experience putting a man on the moon.

• To deeply engage in and lead collaborative efforts across society to address grand engineering challenges.
• To create positive changes in each of the five dimensions (grow, build, govern, invent, and deploy) that Ezra Klein, in his book, Abundance, argued is necessary for achieving an abundant future.

Groups were asked to engage in a scenario thinking exercise to imagine having achieved this aspirational vision and set of goals, crafting a broadly positive future story depicting the engineering community and society in 2046.

A synthesis of those future scenarios into a shared aspirational vision for the future are presented as Part One of this series.

Transformational Strategies

After decades of struggling to make even incremental changes, the unfreezing of 2025 provides the opportunity and the necessity for the engineering community to radically transform its major models and build the core capabilities and skills needed to meet the demands of the Twenty-First Century and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

• Update and Confront Grand Engineering Challenges.
  • Lead collaborative efforts to address an updated set of grand engineering challenges.
  • Address the five fundamental drivers of abundance – Grow, Build, Govern, Invent, Deploy (see Ezra Klein’s book, Abundance).
  • Demonstrate the “value” of engineering and the engineering community by leading and “doing.”
• Transform Our “Models”:
  • Transform all the engineering community’s major “models” over the next two decades.
• Enhance Our Identity.
  •  Move from a “fragmented” ecosystem to speaking and acting with “one-voice.”
  • Leverage the trust that society has in engineers and the engineering community.
• Build Core Capabilities and Skills.
  • Become story tellers.
  • Embrace and leverage AI and other transformational technologies.
  • Learn to “color outside the lines” by going beyond traditional technical skills.
  • Reorient risk mindsets.
  • Foster innovation and entrepreneurship.
  • Become more knowledgeable about, and closer to, finance and funding.
  • Enhance communication and PR skills.
  • Recognize and develop the healing potential of engineering.
  • Become more passionate about public policy and public service and more willing to engage with the political system.

Next Steps for ECL

Summary observations as the summit wrapped up emphasized the urgent need for this type of visioning and strategic thinking efforts by the broader engineering community (academic institutions, societies, associations, councils, private companies, government authorities, etc.). This is not a time for the engineering community to play “ostrich” and hide its head in the sand or to act with a “business as usual” mindset.

In that spirit, the group brainstormed possible next steps that ECL could/should undertake to help communicate this transformational imperative.

• Take this message about change and transformation out to our world.
  • Share results of the summit and our message with our partners, stakeholders, and the broader engineering community.
  • Research where other engineering community stakeholders are with respect to these big ideas.
  • Act as a convenor with NCEES or other organizations/groups.
  • Expand the universe of people involved in the conversation / exploration.
    • Make presentations (webinars, seminars, etc.) to engineering associations.
  • Design and share small-scale learning experiences that others can facilitate in different settings/places with different groups.
• Story telling.
  • Tell the story of this summit experience and outcome.
  • Convene a workshop or summit on storytelling.
  • Get students to tell their stories.
• Gather feedback from attendees about how this summit changed how they work.
• Launch student chapters of ECL at our university partners.
• Provide support for innovators. (ex. UT Austin CAEE program)
• Increase the diversity of ECL participants and stakeholders.
• Help engineers better understand AI – and how to use it.
  • Refer people to ECL-Canada’s “AI Stewardship” program.
• Embrace, do not fear, change – communicate excitement about change and share with the industry.

Supporting Strategic Analysis

To better illustrate how the vision, goals, and strategies were generated during the summit, we are including below more detailed notes reflecting the group’s work during early strategic analysis as well as a more detailed exposition of the recommended transformational strategies.

Brutal Facts & Fortunate Surprises of 2025

Jim Collins, in his classic strategy book, Good to Great, emphasized the profound need to recognize and confront the brutal facts facing an organization or community when thinking strategically about the future.

In his research into what it took for companies to move from “good to great” (as recognized by both customers and peers) Collins observed that, “Every good-to-great company embraced what we came to call the Stockdale Paradox: You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts or your current reality, whatever they might be.”

In the spirit of this advice, participants catalogued the brutal facts facing the engineering community in 2025. They also recognized that there have also been fortunate surprises that help shape that strategic context. (Lists reflect both group work in-session and interviews prior to the summit.)

Brutal Facts

• Radical Advance of AI.
  • Beyond an exponential increase toward a singularity.
• Out of Date / Out of Sync Models.
  • Engineering Education.
  • Consulting Engineering Business Model.
  • Licensure.
  • Regulatory.
  • Procurement.
  • Misalignment of models with new AI tools.
• Workforce Challenges.
  • Shortage of engineering talent – getting worse.
    • Immigration policy changes – brain drain from US and loss of tuition.
  • Accelerating retirements.
  • Discrepancy between engineering education and actual needs in practice.
  • Inflation and affordability.
• Educational Challenges.
  • Loss of funds from federal government.
  • Acute financial pressure on small colleges.
  • Demographic cliff.
• Political Challenges.
  • Politicization, rollbacks, and rising volatility of policy, research, funding.
  • Abolition of DEI across government, academia, non-profits, and industry.
  • Defunding of, and pullback from, climate initiatives.
  • Science / basic research funding cuts.
  • Pendulum swings in the regulatory environment.
    • Regulatory and process impediments, reduced pace, and disincentives for innovation.
  • Declining / lack of trust in experts, expertise, science, academia, and government.
  • Traumatized and fearful state of many, particularly in government and education.
  • On-going energy transition.
    • Limited resources to address energy/water nexus.
    • Running an energy gauntlet in next decade with rising demand for power/water for AI, etc.
  • Constraints on availability of financial investment for innovations.
  • Rising tide of cyber-threats and cyber-crime.
  • Loss of competitiveness in global markets due to tariffs, fraying global alliances, etc.
  • Diminished capacity in federal agencies (FEMA, NOAA, EPA, HHS, etc.).

Fortunate Surprises

• AI Opportunities.
  • Usefulness of and applications for AI.
  • Increases in efficiency and productivity.
  • Convergence with autonomous vehicles, robotics, and drones.
  • Opportunities to rethink existing systems and processes.
• Rising Demand for Engineering.
  • AI/data center investments.
  • US manufacturing independence.
  • Re-building and expanding the energy grid.
  • Continued investments in infrastructure.
  • Nuclear and geothermal energy.
  • Mining and refining – but, doing it right.
  • New emphasis and spending on national security.
  • Investments in adaptation and resilience.
• Space Exploration and Commercialization Progress.
• Medical and Bio-Tech Advances.
• Selected State and Local Government Commitments.
  • Compensating for federal government cutbacks.
• • New graduates are passionate about the purpose of engineering.
  • Continued / rapid expansion of on-line learning.
  • Increase in empathy and introspection by students and faculty.
• Resiliency of the Engineering Community.
  • Progress continues despite chaos and uncertainty.
  • Collaboration across engineering ecosystem.

 SWOT Analysis for the Engineering Community

The next step in the strategic thinking process was the completion of a SWOT analysis for the engineering community. Participants brainstormed sets of strategically significant Strengths and Weaknesses. Major opportunities to take advantage of and threats to confront were also identified, with the acknowledgement that many of the items in each of those categories were previously discussed in the form of “Fortunate Surprises” and “Brutal Facts.”

Strengths

• Ability to get things done … to find a way.
  • Recognized ability to solve problems.
  • Technologically adept.
  • Pragmatism.
• High level of trust by society.
• Ethics and core values.
• Young professionals’ commitment to purpose.
• Intellectual horsepower.
• Systems thinking.
• Culture of innovation.
• Precise communication.
• Ability to work as teams.
• Culture of safety.
• Network of professional societies.
• Our story.

Weaknesses

• Too slow … to act, innovate, adapt, change, etc.
• Rigid mindsets, stuck in old patterns and ways of doing things.
• Pride and the need to be “right.”
• Black box thinking.
• No unified voice in the engineering community – too fragmented.
• Tendency to not seek diverse perspectives.
• Ethics – not everyone on board.
  • Lack of full understanding of social responsibility.
  • Struggle with empathetic leadership.
• Ineffective PR and communicating to the public.
• Lack of persuasive ability.
• Not actively engaged in bigger picture, larger system.
• AWOL from the public square.
• Outdated, ineffective consulting business model.

 Opportunities

• See “Fortunate Surprises”

 PLUS …

• • Broaden the engineer’s scope of work.
    • Weighing in early.
    • Becoming trusted advisors to enhance influence.
  • Reassess success metrics.
    • Billable hours model for consulting engineers.
  • • Redefine the narrative of what engineering is …
      • In K-12 and university levels.
      • Thereby attracting/enabling diverse types of people to enter the field.
    • Increase collaboration between engineering industry and academia – to produce better, more qualified, students for industry needs.
    • Change engineering curricula and licensing.
      • Benchmark foreign models and Indigenous group approaches.
    • Communication and Branding.
      • Tell our story in a better way.
        • Aspirational future stories with positive motivation.
      • Learn how to discuss what we are good at.
      • Break down traditional silos of communication.
        • Charette approaches.
        • Gaining diverse stakeholder perspectives.
        • Broader systems investigations.
      • Reimagine business models.
    • Leadership
      • Provide proactive leadership with respect to …
        • Political and societal challenges.
        • Regulatory transformation.
      • Culture
        • Place increased importance on employee satisfaction and growth.
        • Emphasize work/life balance – including hybrid and “back-in-office” approaches.
        • Pioneer innovative approaches to employee development.

 Threats

• See “Brutal Facts.”

 Strategy Setting

 Strategies for Transformation

• Update and Confront Grand Engineering Challenges.
  • Actively engage in the leadership of collaborative efforts to successfully address an updated set of grand engineering challenges.
  • Address the five fundamental drivers of abundance – Grow, Build, Govern, Invent, Deploy (see Ezra Klein’s book, Abundance).
  • Demonstrate the “value” of engineering and the engineering community by leading and “doing.”
    • Increase trust and influence by proactively providing solutions and delivering results for problems that really matter, not waiting for others to identify a problem to be solved.
• Enhance Identity & Organization.
  • Move from a “fragmented” ecosystem to speaking and acting with “one-voice.”
    • Cross-disciplinary efforts and recognizing collective benefits.
    • Coalition building, including multiple government agencies, educational institutions, and private companies working together to envision and support “moonshot” initiatives.
  • Leverage the trust that society has in engineers and the engineering community.
  • Change the narrative of what engineering is about and what it means to be an engineer.
  • Market the engineering community as the STEM career path for the future.
• Transform Our “Models” Across the Board. To achieve the envisioned future, the group recognized that the engineering community will have to move past the inertia and “stuckness” of the last two twenty-five years and truly transform all its major “models” over the next two decades.
  • Engineering Practice.
  •  Engineering Education and Research.
    • Move engineering educational innovations already unfolding past the “tipping point” toward widespread adoption.
  • Consulting Engineering Business Model.
  • Licensure and Credentialing.
  •  Regulatory.
  • Funding and Procurement.
• Build Core Capabilities and Skills.
  • Become story tellers.
    • Develop and use this capacity across practice, inside and outside organizations.
  • Technology.
    • Embrace and leverage AI and other transformational technologies.
      • Act with foresight and responsibility. (See R. Grayson evocation.)
    • Create a “digital twin” society.
  • Operations.
    • Demonstrate “value” and increase trust and influence by “doing” and delivering results.
    • Embrace change — get over fear of change and other forms of inertia.
    • Learn to “color outside the lines” by going beyond traditional technical skills. Redefine boundaries for design.
    • Reorient risk mindsets.
      • Shift from precautionary to proactionary (Pethokoukis)
    • Implement new incentives to foster innovation.
    • Engage in scenario thinking and world building to identify breakthrough innovations, foster long-term viewpoints, and motivate people to act.
  • Finance.
    • Become more knowledgeable about, and closer to, finance and funding.
  • Culture.
    • Become more pro-social and less transactional.
    • Recognize and develop engineering’s healing potential.
  • Communication and PR.
    • Foster the growth of an “engineering literate” public.
    • Use data-driven narratives.
    • Enhance engineering PR, highlighting recognizable “public faces.”
    • Develop capacity for “pitching” ideas, innovations, solutions, etc.
  • Policy and Politics.
    • Become more passionate about public policy and public service and willing to engage with the political system.