My thoughts after reading "How to be a Star Engineer"

After reading the article, How to be a Star Engineer, I partially agree with the statement in the article, "Stars, we saw, are made, not born." This article explains that anyone can be a star engineer by learning the nine work strategies listed in this article. I do not totally agree. I think to be a star engineer, 80% of it can be learning the nine work strategies, but 20% was born with it. I believe that everyone has different characteristics that cannot be changed just because you "learn" the strategies. Speaking from my own experience, somethings just cannot be forced, no matter how much strategies you learned.

A question that we are to answer for this assignment is if we know of anyone around us that practices the nine work strategies mentioned in this article. I can think of some people that practiced one or two of the nine work strategies mentioned here. But, I do not know anyone who practiced all nine. One person who I know that works with me now is a manager, not an engineer. He knows the right person to go to for different things. He often shares this idea with us that we should talk to different people and try to build up our networking. Another strategy I see he applied is that he would see things in a variety of perspectives. When we are discussing a problem, he would try to look at things from the other side's perspective to understand why things was done that way. He often encourage us to get different perspectives before we make our conclusion on the problems. The last strategy I see he applied is Show and Tell. He can make sure he delivers the right message to the right group of people. He can tailor his presentation based on different level of people. From what I have observed, I think he does these so well not only because of his years of experience, but also because the passion he has on the way he works. So, that being said, I think being a star engineer not only need to know the nine work strategies, but also need to have the passion. And I think the passion is something you were born with it.