Not all of you may be aware that I was once a high school teacher. In fact, for seven years I taught welding and fabrication, as well as robotics and electronics, among other topics. I recall the incredible projects carried out by the students at one school in particular.
I’ve observed that if your perspective is limited to the horizon - the mid-point, which is still knowable and within reach - you will probably end up somewhere much lower. So after I set the stage for my students, I coached them to aim really high, with the belief that at the very least they would achieve goals that are above the horizon.I facilitated a class of special electronics students (actually, they were all pretty special) conducting focused work on opto-electronics projects which complemented their physics class.
One group was working on an infrared modem and data transmission system. They successfully transmitted a few letters from the keyboard of one computer to the screen of a completely separate computer. Another group built a non-contact photo tachometer like the kind typically used in industry. They had a fairly complete circuit that picked up the reflection of an infrared LED from a small piece of foil on a spinning drill chuck. All of these projects were being designed from scratch with raw chips and components - no kits.
I encouraged my students to envision and attempt “the impossible”. They did, and succeeded often.
Visiting school administrators who toured through the facility asked me how they could find someone with my kind of training, or where might they send teachers to get training so that they could teach in the same way. I told them I didn’t know: while I took electronics in college and was a Millwright by trade, these programs didn’t officially train me to teach robotics and high school engineering classes.
In fact, my personal passion for problem solving with technology was more important than my formal training. Of course I had the requisite teaching degree and lots of official training, but I was teaching robotics simply because I really wanted to. On my own, I made sure that my passion was reflected and deeply imbedded in the subject material.
Where are many of these students now, some 14 years later? They are engineers, technologists, technicians, trades persons, business people and so on. They work for major fluid power shops, oilfield service companies, construction, and electronics firms. Some even work overseas in Japan and Hong Kong as design engineers for big name companies.
These days, I know and work closely with some engineers at our client companies. They are awesome people with great skills. They want to solve big problems carefully, effectively, with precision. Some of them have 1000 hp worth of passion and enthusiasm, yet sadly they are governed down to around 180 hp by the company
The same can be said for some maintenance trades teams. In my travels, I notice that many maintenance departments are still unsung and uncelebrated within their companies. Maintenance almost never gets a mention in the corporate annual report. When I engage a plant or fleet manager directly, they can usually speak to the importance of maintenance. Many, however, cannot speak to the top level initiatives that their department is carrying out. Left unchanged, work performance drops to a mediocre level, and teams get stale and dry.
That’s not good. it means that maintenance doesn’t have any specific initiatives, or that they don’t promote them and communicate them within the company. At some level, we all know that machinery doesn’t run for very long without talented and motivated people maintaining it. Awareness of this fact comes to the forefront when breakdowns have been frequent. When machinery has been running well on a consistent basis, the significant role that maintenance plays can quickly become overlooked.
The job of the leader is to develop the people on the team, and then set resources in place, provide autonomy, and require accountability. Scheduling, reporting, budget allocating, cost controlling, and such are all important tasks. Everyone has some of these tasks and they have to be executed well.
But, leadership also means to have passion and vision, to inspire, help educate, and develop your team. It means sticking to your guns - your long term goals - despite the roadblocks you face. (Oh, and it also means being patient, staying late to help the crew, bringing pizza, scrounging for tools, supplies, and expertise to support the team, listening to fishing stories, and sometimes providing crisis counselling. Wow, what a job!)
Leadership is not a lofty position high up on the organization chart. It’s a personal choice to nurture one’s own potential to lead and it starts on the shop or plant floor. I’ve always referred to this as leading from the back, or leading from the bottom. Yes, it does take a little nerve and personal resolve to lead with enthusiasm. You have to find a way to deal with the fear of being eaten alive in the jungle that crops up when you haven’t stepped up to the plate that much in the past. But if you’re earnest, the rewards will come in time.
At one training seminar I conducted, it was one of the youngest tradespersons in the group who demonstrated leadership and admonished most of his older colleagues to positively focus on the possibilities that accompany a team with a higher level of collaboration, maintenance, and diagnostic skill sets. During economic downturns when profit margins have been trimmed or have gone negative, creative thinking and careful management are not optional. Better to see the company and its systems as a classroom and laboratory.
Should expenditure on training be looked upon as a burdensome cost of production? Is it realistic to treat training and human development budgets in the same way as office supply and freight budgets? In the end a plant or shop full of machinery only runs well if a sharp and skilled crew is looking after it. In fact, if the company cannot hire more help for the maintenance department, and if the market has put pricing pressure on the company’s product, then the machinery has to run better than ever.
Is training and development still at the forefront of your company’s operating philosophy? In the end it’s all about people isn’t it?
Now is the time for bold visionary leadership that encourages those with passion, talent, and initiative to really fly. This is a great time for company managers to hand out autonomy and responsibility, and demand accountability too.
Set the hard working, passionate ones loose, and then showcase those people to the local kids in high school who may end up working for you in a few years time.
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