Real World Case Study From My Maintenance and Reliability Career:

Sometimes we get so focused on a topic it’s all we can see.  All the data we look at seems to confirm our suspicion and everyone seems to be talking about the same thing.

I had a chance to sit with a newly hired Maintenance Manager after his second week at the mine and discuss how he was finding his role.  I turned the conversation to his plans for the future and asked his top priorities for the rest of the year.  His first two were well reasoned and fit with the overall efforts the company was in the midst of at that time.  His third priority caught me by surprise.  He started talking about contractor oversight and what, to me, sounded completely out of thin air.  I realized there had been a fairly recent issue with a contractor that had caused a minor stir at the mine.  From the perspective of the new manager, it was all everyone was talking about and must’ve sounded very important.  From my perspective, it was an isolated incident and just the most exciting thing for folks to gossip about at the time.  Here was a skilled maintenance professional who had become fixated on one specific issue. By any objective measure, it wasn’t a big deal.  

I’ve often thought about that conversation.  From then on, whenever I’ve been introduced to a new Maintenance Manager, Corporate Director of Reliability, Continuous Improvement Manager, or COO I wonder what’s been happening lately and what this person’s peers are talking about in the shop, breakroom, or boardroom.  I wonder how many misguided initiatives have been started based on watercooler gossip.  Whether you use the exact process outlined in some of my articles or not, I hope you’re able to step back, objectively look at the facts, think critically and creatively, and solve the right problem.