Sabine Walter in conversation with ...
Michael Weise, Managing Director IBF Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH, Munich
Mr Weise, what do you love about your job?
This has changed significantly in recent decades. I am a technician. When I was 15 years old, my Apprenticeship as a heating engineer I loved this job, because it had something to do with the Energy and something with customers and thus with people to do. I was at customers' homes. They had a heating or plumbing problem. I solved it for them. And the customers were satisfied.
This interpersonal component has found itself in my job after graduation. As Project manager in a planning office I had to deal not only with employees, but also especially with other people involved in the construction, such as clients, architects and structural engineers. To implement something technical in the projects, we all had to talk to each other and develop solutions together.
In contrast to my vocational training as a heating engineer, where I worked very practically, I was a "pure theoretician" in the planning office. What I have come to appreciate is the importance of good planning and my role in it. As an engineer, I contribute to turning an initial idea into a viable solution. I enjoyed that even more than just creating and repairing heating systems. Because I was able to develop and design the planning myself. What energy goes into a building? Where does the energy come from? What is the best technology to use? Can the building still be rotated so that it is more favourably oriented towards the sun? How good and economical is the energy concept? To find answers to these questions, it was important to listen to and understand the customer. It wasn't about selling him off-the-shelf technology, but about developing the right thing specifically for him and his needs. That's what fascinates me about this profession today, as it did then.
In my current role as managing director of the IBF, I love to inspire young people for our subject, to accompany and develop them in such a way that they are well positioned for their professional future. For me as an employer, the most important thing is that our employees feel good, are satisfied and thus stay with our company in the long term. And when I think of the long term and the future, I naturally think of digitalisation - that's another issue that excites me. The construction industry is only at the beginning of digitalisation and therefore has a lot of catching up to do.
What parallels are there to what we do, personality development?
Many. Dealing with people is in the foreground. As mentioned before, I see it as my task, to give young people "jump-start" for their professional future and further development. By that I don't just mean further development in technical issues. I mean above all the Further development as a person, as a personality. For this, I am available with my experience and knowledge, but I give them space to try themselves and many things. Thereby I am I am a mentor. In this role, I raise my staff's awareness of the consequences of their actions. I point out risks and ask for a plan B.
In order for me to be heard as a mentor, I make sure that I convey my experience in such a way that I respond to each individual and see and develop them individually in their personality. From my point of view, the central point is that the many tools that our employees receive in training and in their daily tasks fit together in such a way that they enjoy using them and feel comfortable doing so. And that is where it counts, to reach everyone, each in his or her own individual way.
When do you get the best ideas?
In direct conversation. Although I sometimes search for the right words, I get direct feedback, direct impulses. That's how something can develop in dialogue. In conversation, you cross-fertilise each other. That is worth a lot to me.
Good ideas also come to me when I'm doing sport, especially cycling. The body is under strain, but the head is free. This allows thoughts to flow and ideas to emerge.
What will your profession look like in 2050?
In the run-up to our conversation, I asked myself the question: Why 2050? Why not 2025 or 2030? 2050 is very, very far in the future. We will probably be beaming people at that time. I don't know. But I am convinced that there will be something in 2050 that we cannot yet imagine today.
Let's go back 30 years into the past to a time without mobile phones and without the internet. Did we imagine back then how we communicate today, how digital we are? Not me.
I am convinced that we will be extremely far along by 2050. The digital revolution we are currently in will require even more creativity from us humans in the future. We only need to watch science fiction films - in 2050, much of this will probably be reality. We will have completely different energy sources than today. We will have very different means of transport than we have today. And it all depends on what we can imagine. The main reason why we are not further along today is because we often lack imagination.
And once we have understood how to let artificial intelligence calculate and work for us, then we will also have time to really design and change things creatively. To develop the future, we need to get out of a fear-driven society. I hope that by 2030 this realisation will have become widespread and that our children will really change society - for the better.
Personally, in 2050 I would still like to have something to do with people, be creative and be exactly where I am today. Here at the Ammersee.
Michael Weise is managing partner of IBF Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH, Munich. The company has been a partner in all aspects of technical equipment for buildings of all kinds for 56 years. The engineering firm accompanies clients from the planning of building services to completion and beyond.
