Communication and Persuasion in Electrical Engineering

Whether you're reading this on your laptop, tablet, or smartphone, you can thank electrical engineers. Companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Intel mainly consist of electrical engineers and are largely responsible for the information age in which we live.

Electrical engineering often carries a stigma: socially inept brainiacs who spend their lives bleaching their skin behind a computer screen. While product development forms a large part of their job description, it wouldn't be possible without proficient communication and persuasive skills.

In product development, judicial oratory dominates. Electrical engineers tend to work in teams. They communicate in many cases on a global basis through means of email, calling, video chat, and in person. They hold conferences, submit reports, and research together. Because engineers can come from so many different cultural and technical backgrounds, understanding and being sensitive to your co-workers is a must.

Many engineers, in fact, are very capable of managing crucial conversations, where emotions and stakes are high. Those who can't often make poor, impulsive decisions, which can lead to production delays, bugs, and lower quality products, which ultimately cost the firm more money.


Electrical engineers that focus on business development are very proficient in legislative oratory. Apple, for example, pays hundreds of millions of dollars for wireless testing equipment each time they roll out a new iPhone. They could easily find a cheaper vendor. It is far more important for them, however, to contract with a reliable and committed engineering firm. In this case, building healthy relationships through rhetoric is just as important as the product itself.

My dad is an electrical engineer who specializes in business development. While growing up he would take me with him to his international conferences where I could see firsthand how engineers literally sell their ideas through rhetoric. It became my dream to innovate just like them.