When Hard Work Hits a Ceiling

I grew up in a rural area, about ten miles outside the town the high school I graduated from was located. I used to joke during the hundreds of new hire orientation sessions I did over the years that my hometown only had two stop signs, and we rarely used those. The majority of the groups I was part of through my teens, working or otherwise, were small and made up of people I had known most of my life. I inherently had a lot in common with nearly all of them. The work ethic I mentioned before, even when I couldn’t quite hang, helped me fit in - or at least earn some grace. While I have a much better understanding today of my highly Driven behavioral style, I thought my “hold my beer and watch this” approach was merely a survival mechanism back then. In the small groups I was part of early on, the extra effort I put into things caught people’s attention. But when I moved from being on a crew of less than ten employees to working at a facility with nearly a thousand under one roof, that effort stood out far less.

During my first four years in manufacturing, I took a ton of pride in churning out as many part as I possibly could each day. I also worked to learn all I could about the different types of equipment in my home department. While it only took me six months or so to consistently maintain one of the top five productivity averages on my shift, that was a group of less than twenty people; the effort that had previously earned me a lot attention and respect kept me in the mix but I was still just a average fish in a very large pond at that point. Even on that second shift crew of less than two dozen team members, there were several folks who had developed more expertise that could get better results with far less effort. Regardless of how hard I worked, it would have been a long time before I could produce the same results.

Less than three years into my manufacturing career, I learned that my supervisor added me to a list for mandatory training on the still new behavior-based safety initiative that was being pushed down from the company’s corporate office. Begrudgingly, I sat through the two eight-hour sessions (as if I had a choice) and became a less than willing “volunteer” observer. Everything I had done to that point in my career was very physical. Sitting in a training room for two straight days was the closest thing I had experienced to torture. While I didn’t realize it at the time, the two guys conducting the training ended up being the two who provided me with feedback on the interview I mentioned before; isn’t it interesting how unaware we can be about the makings of strong professional relationships?

Once I completed the two days of training, I was expected to perform two 15-minute observations on coworkers around the facility each week moving forward. I won’t pretend that I took it all that seriously to start; I viewed as a bit of a breaking from the stamping press I operated daily. But I quickly realized that these observations, still viewed by many of my peers as a “flavor of the month” that would get kicked to the curb sooner than later, gave me an opportunity to become familiar with processes and people outside the small department where all of my time had been up until that point. Like most everything else I’ve ever done, I pushed the limits a bit and often did three or four observations each week instead of the minimum of two. That soon caught the attention of the process facilitator; not because I was doing a great job, but because he could barely get anyone else to do just what was expected. That soon yielded me with an invitation to serve on the “steering committee” for the entire process and became the catalyst for developing those two relationships that provided me with insight on how to interview better a year or so later.

My work ethic in my regular job kept me employed and likely played a role in my supervisor sending me to that training initially. Being willing to do even a little bit more than I was expected to do with those behavior-based safety observations, albeit not out of complete dedication to the actual process, provided me with the opportunity to get to know people that I may have never developed relationships with otherwise. Hard work opened some doors but the relationships that have come along the way have led to opportunities for sustained growth and experiences I never could have dreamed of. The mentorship that came through process was critical in closing the gaps - and we’ll pick up there soon.