Tonight's posting from the aircraft I'm sitting on is going to be about relying too heavily on one individual and what happens when they quit. Yes we all have our superstars, those buckaroos who can ride any horse, rope any calf, mend any fence, and never seem to tire. Though we don't take them for granted, we need to realize that when we don't build bench strength and rely only on that individual we can cause a crisis when they leave the ranch.
This happened to my team. We had one of our leads leave for greener pastures. Boy was this guy good, there wasn't a problem he couldn't solve, nor a challenge he couldn't face. Full of ideas and improvements, he even had vision to see the potential problems before they became problems. Yup, a real early adopter of Lean thinking and devoured information pertaining to it. So we became too dependent on this individual, and lost sight of growth in the bench strength of our team.
When this individual left did it hurt? Yes it hurt, and it always will. Here is the good thing about this situation. We were astute enough to realize that we as an org. needed to seek out and develop our people to this level of excellence. Though we didn't get to this level of excellence before he left, we did start training to help bring individuals up to this level of performance. You'd be surprised at your people when you give them the chance to learn and better themselves. Yoda always tells me that it is about people, process and culture. I'll admit she is right. When we rolled out the opportunity for individuals to learn a new skill set, there were people willing to mount up in the saddle and ride.
We should always be looking at training individuals and bringing their skill sets up to a higher level of operational excellence. Couple that with continuing their education and mentoring them on how to use Lean tools vs just pencil whipping up charts for the suits is also invaluable.
In closing I could say the take away you cowpokes should get from me is that when you have a superstar, look for individuals he/she can mentor and develop. This not only gives the team a stronger presence, it also affords your superstar a chance to teach. We all know that when we teach a discipline we understand it even more than if we are mere practitioners of the discipline. Yeah, you could say that is a gig at the pure academics out there, but remember. Without the pure academic theorists out there we wouldn't have the tool to take to the ranch and work with.
I'd like to thank you for stopping by for this installment and as always, Happy Trails
