Real World Frontline Experience from My Maintenance and Reliability Career

A few years back, I was in a chemical plant that had just finished setting its goals for the year.

The Maintenance leader was showing the team a PowerPoint with 48 goals — not company-wide, but for this one site.

“This is what the site has aligned on across all departments,” he said.

Except… they weren’t.

Each department had submitted its own wish list. Every idea, every improvement effort, every good intention got added. No one had the political capital or will to say no.

The result was a collection of disconnected goals. No one could tell which critical few really mattered.

When it came time to assign resources everything got stuck. One department would say, “That’s not our priority this quarter.” Another would say, “We’re already tied up with our own initiatives.”  Trying to get support for a cross-functional project felt like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Everyone was on board in theory, but no one would commit in practice.

From the outside, it looked like the plant was full of momentum.  On the ground, nothing was moving.

And here’s the part that stuck with me: experienced employees had learned to live with this.

They quietly guided new team members to pick “safe” projects – the kind they could control within their own area.  

The message was clear: Don’t boil the ocean. Stay in your lane. Only to commit to what you can control.

It made sense. These folks had seen dozens of big ideas die on the vine.  Why risk it again?

But here’s the irony: the “boil the ocean” projects – the ones that felt too big, too complex, too cross-functional – were the ones that would’ve actually fundamentally improved performance. 

If everything is a priority, then nothing is.
The hard, messy, cross-functional work is often exactly where the real progress lives.

Seen this dynamic at your site? You’re not alone — and it’s fixable.

Sometimes it takes a fresh outside look to help your team get focused on what really matters.