Meandering Mind - Eva Dillner [22]
I had a monthly engineering meeting that all our customers attended. I went through all our projects, reviewed current status and issued a summary report. When we introduced the new system the first order of business for me was prioritizing all the projects and explaining our new guidelines. We would have a limit of six projects per engineer and resolve fire fighting issues at the core. I also started a new category of projects “ready to install.” Here I put projects that were not actively being worked on but would demand the engineer's entire attention when that production unit would be shut down for maintenance.
We went through some start-up pains but the engineers loved having the peace to focus on fewer projects and less starts and stops. The resolution of long standing fire fighting problems did take some time. We had problems that recurred sure as clockwork and had for years. Now we just didn't give up until we figured out the real cause.
One heater problem turned out to be caused by the supplier having shipped the wrong unit. The one installed was undersized for the job it needed to do. The detective work to uncover that one took a long time but it sure was worth it in the end. That's usually the key to recurring problems, you have to put on your detective cap and stay at digging for and analyzing clues until you catch the real culprit.
Our productivity went up, my estimate is that we accomplished 10% more with the new planning model. Job satisfaction went way up for the engineers. In time, our customers were happier too, with less recurring problems and a clear system to deal with priorities.
Not bad for a first crack at supervision - by a girl to boot. My my.
Ten
Pentacle of M
Maybe this is an appropriate time to introduce some other ideas I put together while I was pondering my existence and reason for being. When I was job hunting and writing resumes I was searching for a deeper sense of what I was about. To me, there was a need to express the why I did things. To discover my underlying values. To define what I thought I brought to the world. I love playing with words and I love it when the letters roll nicely off the tongue, as in Meandering Mind. It feels synergistic.
After much pondering and sorting I came up with the Pentacle of M:
Money “The Management of Wealth made Simple”
Motto “Everything has Room for Improvement”
Method “Cooperation and Mutual Support”
Motivation “The Quest for Knowledge”
Mission “To be a Catalyst for Change”
You know, it still fits. I believe our relationships to money should be easy, that financial systems and controls are best when simple. My motto describes my attitude toward life, there is always a way to improve on what has been done before. There's always a better mousetrap to be found.
The best method to use in networks and organizations is to scratch each other's backs. When we cooperate with each other the work flows smoothly and helping each other multiplies the results. Mary Kay expressed it so well, “if I have an idea and you have an idea and we share our ideas with each other, then we both have two ideas.” Her revolutionary ideas of how to run a business paid off as Mary Kay became the number one cosmetics company in the United States. More on her in a bit.
Understanding your motivation, what drives you, can help you understand how to make a job exciting. I really am on a quest for knowledge, so any undertaking has to include learning for me to be happy. The more we can understand our MO the better we can be at doing what we do. I'm pitiful in jobs where it's all laid out and all there is left to do is execute. Boring. To someone else that is a dream. They don't have to figure it out, they can just sit down and get to work. We are all different.
Then last, but certainly not least, is my mission, to be a catalyst for change. Actually, I would like to see much more of this type of thinking around career planning and job searches.