Author: Peter Horsburgh

No one… yet.

I’ve discussed assessing the alternatives before and I’ve stressed the importance of getting other people to care about the helpful and/or necessary changes you want to implement. Now I will teach you how to do that.

Not everyone will be as passionate about their work as you. Many maintenance folks expect to go in, complete the same processes, and get paid. They take comfort in their risk-free routines, so asking them to change it disrupts that sense of comfort, and they resist you. So how do you change their mind? You need a secret weapon. You need…

People skills.

Many of you may have felt the urge to jump into the nearest bush, or in your natural habitat, hide under your desk, or more realistically, stop reading. But you’re still here, so I commend you! As a reward, I will tell you the key to getting people on board with your ideas.

If you want people to risk stepping out of their comfort zone to implement your ideas, they need to trust you and be willing to listen, and this comes from a positive relationship. Make them like you, relate to you, respect you. How do you do that? And how much interaction would that take? It doesn’t actually take that much. Humans can make connections incredibly quickly. What you need to do is get them talking. Find out their interests. Find a point where you can relate, latch onto it, then segway to the thing you are trying to implement.

Here is an example from my career. There was this guy who always believed he had “been there, done that”, and didn’t think there were many options beyond his personal experience. I wanted to introduce him to a product  known as Torque Check to make sure our machines were held together as securely as possible with no loose bolts. This was a process meant to spot and solve a potential issue undetected by current methods, and it would change his routine. So I struck up a conversation with the guy, and found out he was fascinated by car mechanics. Similarly, I happened to love plane mechanics. So we bonded over our similar interests, and I eventually brought up Torque Check, a product applied by plane engineers before the plane is flown. I asked if he would be willing to try it on our machines. He resisted at first, but when I pointed out how reputable aircraft engineers are for their reliability, he decided to give it a go. He soon found how torque check made his job easier, and he introduced it to others, making their jobs easier as well. Thus a change was successfully implemented.

There you go. Maintaining a plant has always been and always will be a team effort. One individual cannot always solve a problem on their own, so if you have a solution that could benefit the team, you owe them that knowledge. Good teams communicate; good teams care enough to listen. Make sure all these interactions resemble teamwork discussion, and you’re golden.

If you would like to hear some more stories like this and learn some more implementing techniques come and join me on the next Extraordinary Reliability Engineer course. The first lesson is free and you can register on Eventbrite here.

What is the most important aspect of great teamwork? Cooperation? Coordination? No, those are just symptoms and synonyms. The most important aspect is communication. Everyone needs to know what is going on if they are to find and fulfill their role or come to agreements. In large companies, you can’t inform everyone of your plans and actions in person due to everyone’s busy schedules (including your own), but you can communicate with masses via writing. If you want to successfully implement an idea, you need to publish, or you’ll perish.

Allow me to define the word “publish” for the context of this article. I don’t mean professionally publishing a book or academic material for public consumption. I mean communicating with the people in your company via emails, noticeboards, and articles on the company intranet or newsletter.

“But if I’m constantly sending people emails, won’t they get mad at me?” Yes. At first. Until they see the value in it.

To offer an example, an engineer and myself were crafting a prototype for a tool to measure temperature. It had some neat features like magnets and Wi-Fi connectivity, but we failed to explain that the first few, well, several emails. My colleague and I just worked on it and I sent group emails asking for thoughts and feedback. People weren’t too happy receiving emails about some prototype they didn’t understand. Upon this realisation, I explained it, and continued updating everyone on our project. At first I had one intrigued respondent, then it slowly grew until I was going back and forth with several curious people at once. One struggling business unit asked for 25 of these gadgets to improve the collection of their data. I was thrilled to oblige, then emailed the entire unit to let them know the product was going to be implemented in their area.

So let’s consider the two paths my colleague and I faced.

Publish – Our product is recognised, appreciated, and implemented on a sizable scale in our work environment, assisting in the collection of valuable data to improve the plant.

Don’t Publish – Valuable time, energy, and resources is dedicated into a product that no one cares about, it isn’t implemented to its fullest potential, collecting data on temperature remains a harder task than it needs to be, and any issues related to its collection persist for longer or are never solved.

So what will it be:

Publish?

Or Perish?

Do you want to learn more about what it takes to be an extraordinary reliability engineer? Try joining our Extraordinary Reliability Engineer program taught by yours truly, Peter Horsburgh, who will equip you with all the knowledge and wisdom you need to excel in your career. You can register here at Eventbrite.