At this point, I started making steady progress on my shift. I felt like I had good control of the ship. However, it mainly served to bring more focus to what was not in my control. Now that the crew was rowing in the same direction, we realized just how much the waves outside the ship were trying to knock us over. One of the critical issues was the shift-handoff which really boiled down to communication and information flow. I made a few recommendations, such as bringing in the shift earlier to have a shift overlap. However, they met nearly every idea I had with resistance.

The Resistance

“We’ve already tried that.”

“We can’t afford to do that!”

“We’ve always done it this way.”

These should be familiar cries that many young managers deal with. Any engineer or effective leader should never allow this type of language to persist. This is lazy thinking and a cop-out to critical thinking and re-analyzing the demands of the business.

So, I started to work on what I could do without needing others’ buy-in. My hope was that with enough small wins, I could prove my worth and get people less resistive to change once they realize that with proper execution and follow-through, any new idea can move us forward, whether through steady progress or lessons learned from the failures.

The Spreadsheets

I shifted my attention to a basic spreadsheet we were using to move information from the scheduler to the floor. If I expanded its capabilities, I thought I could also move information from shift to shift and department to department. I created bolt-on programs to the information that was provided in Excel. But it got to a point where I wanted raw access to the program so I could tweak the formulas. And here, I ran into more resistance. The current scheduler was one of the least agreeable people on staff, and he did not see why I needed access to it. Obviously, he was trying to protect his job by keeping valuable information to himself. Let me be clear, this is NEVER a good strategy! A true team player will work as transparently as possible and realize that providing free-flowing information will only help them succeed. Unfortunately, I used all my negotiation strategies and could not win over this individual. I told him I would implement my system with or without his support, and I did just that. I recreated the program and built the tool that I envisioned.

The “Visual Factory” 

One of the strategies that we were beginning to implement in the plant was what’s referred to as a “visual factory.” This is where you use identifiers, in our case, colored plastic cones, to label work orders so anyone can look at the floor and see exactly where each job is in the process. And our implementation was horrible. We relied on department leads to leverage whatever cone color was available and write it down on a piece of paper — a scrap piece of paper, in shitty handwriting, with colors misspelled like “oarange” (seriously). That information never made its way to the downstream departments.

So, I wrote a program that would automatically assign colors ahead of time when the schedule was created. There were several constraints that made it more challenging than expected. Still, the idea was any supervisor or manager could have a printout of the schedule, look at the floor, and know exactly what the progress of a job is or where the bottleneck processes are based on a backlog of the colored cones.

I actually worked a double shift to get this program in place. Sixteen hours from 12 pm to 6 am! I did this to fine-tune the format and have it as pretty as possible for implementation, as well as staying until the first shift came in at 6 am. I then gave clear instructions to the department lead, who was previously responsible for assigning cone colors. I made sure he knew, “this is not perfect and that there will probably be issues, but document all your problems, and when I’m back here in 6 hours, I will work to address all the issues.” I also wrote up a detailed email to all supervisors and managers on what the system was, how it worked, and what was needed to implement it as well as the forewarning I had given the department lead that it was going to need fine-tuning. Still, we should use it as best as possible.

The Frustration

So, I went home, happy with my days’ work, although not looking forward to going to sleep at sunrise just to wake up a few hours later. But when I woke up, I was eager to see how my program held up to a complete shift. The first thing I did was go to the floor and ask the lead where my papers were. He said that the other supervisors told him it wouldn’t work and suggested throwing them away. Boy, was I furious! I worked all this time to make sure a smooth implementation as much as possible, and sure enough, here were the rest of the supervisors trying to undermine my efforts. I printed off a new sheet and dug up a crumpled-up sheet out of the trash of the currently used system. I walked into the plant manager’s office. And wanting to sidestep the pitfalls of my predecessor, I did not make my tirade about myself, my failed efforts, or my bruised ego. I instead made it about him.

The Final Resolution

I said, “Dave, take a look at these two sheets of paper! Which one looks better to you?” 

Dave replied, “Well, of course, this nicely printed one here.”

I responded, “Exactly! I worked 16 hours yesterday to make this as pretty and useable as possible. This other paper is our current system. Look how unprofessional it is. The damn colors are spelled wrong, for Christ’s sake!”

He laughed and said, “Yes, that’s pretty bad. It’s definitely not a pretty sight.”

And to add insult to the obvious, I responded, “Dave, I would be embarrassed if your boss came in here and saw us using this system. And I think you would be too!”

Then you could sense his tone change. He could visualize getting chastised for such a shoddy system. And he said, “You’re right! What do you need from me?”

I told him, “Dave, I need your support. I’ve been working hard to utilize the engineering skills you hired me for. I have put a lot of effort into some new tools, and I am being fought at every corner. These aren’t perfect systems, and I need the tenured experience of the others to help polish it, but I need them to at least try these new methods, or we’re never going to grow out of firefighting mode.”

I won him over! And more importantly, from that day on, Dave knew that everything I did would make him look better. Because if he looked better, I knew I would too.

Points to Ponder

Key Lessons:

• Allow coworkers the chance to join your winning team
• When met with resistance, do not stop your efforts
• Work on the path of least resistance first
• Eventually, your efforts will show others you are dedicated to success
• Don’t let your ego get in the way. Focus your efforts on successful outcomes