Does a Degree Matter?

I was working with a couple plant production managers today talking through a project. Sure we talked about all of the financial and business strategy stuff on this project.

We talked about how to sell it to upper management so that they could get funding for the project. They knew it was right thing to do…

Then I asked… so did you ask the persons actually impacted by the project?

The operator and mechanic who are hourly personnel were the folks that I was talking about. If the President of the company came to the site today, would that hourly person be able to communicate why the project was important?

You may wonder why I think this is important… the President is never going to show up, right?

There are a couple reasons. First… respect.

Think outside of work for a minute. Think about sitting in church or sitting at wedding reception. Now here is the question… as you are chit chatting about various things, asking for opinions, etc. Do you ever consider that the person you may be talking to is a CEO or maybe an hourly person at a plant.

I bet you can recall a time when you had some open and honest communication with someone outside of work and you felt great after the conversation. You felt that you learned something and maybe you even shared something with that person.

So why does it have to be any different at work?

Second point… it is actually about learning something.
My late Uncle told me the day that I graduated from college thinking about my first job as an engineer… his wise words…
You don’t know crap.
You won’t know crap for ten years.
And you better find a good plant maintenance person so you can actually learn something.

My Uncle was a long time Plant Manager of an Aluminum Plant… and yes it had a union.

Go figure…

Communicate with people to get different points of view, so that you really can make the best decision… and get the real support to make the project ultimately work. Knowing who to ask and being able to process the data is part of becoming a leader.