The Secret to Maintenance Success

Ever wondered what makes the difference between everyone else and those who enjoy a prosperous and fruitful maintenance career? Easy.. one word actually... Success! Great, thanks a lot Daryl, why are you wasting my time telling me something I already know? But its true, nothing succeeds like success, and there is a secret to achieving success. I wrote before that I play Guitar, and that I enjoy it a lot. Ever wonder why people will line up to see a great guitarist? Because there is a scarcity of really great guitarists right? And those who are "really great" are a joy to watch. (At least for me anyway) So why is it so scarce? because most learner guitarists, give up. And if they do learn they give up learning before they can become truly great. It's the same with Skiing, running, mathematics and almost any field of human endeavor. Those who are the best stick at it. This is the Dip I was talking about in my last post. You start out in your reliability career and you enjoy it a lot. You are enthusiastic, get great early results, and even get on some of the teams that are chosen to improve things in your plant. Then it gets hard. Too many people with too many counter opinions. You begin to wonder if the effort is worth it, and you wonder if this project is ever going to be finished when you get through with it. All of a sudden you are faced with the option of quitting, and it is the easy thing to do isn't it. Get a new job, move departments, try for that promotion, move into consulting... whatever... just not here where it has all gone stale and it's just too hard. This is what separates those with great careers from everybody else. When the going gets tough they ask themselves "Is there a light at the end of this tunnel or not?" That means they are saying, if we push this through, get over this valley of despair and into the organization will this project significantly improve the companies condition? They can recognize when things are getting better, even though they are gradual, and when they are not going anywhere. And if there is a chance that they will get better...they stick with it. Just about every major project I have ever worked on has had a "dip" in it. A point where if we walked away, or just glided through, nobody would have blamed us for it. But every time we held strong, we put our heads down and worked through the dip - improving the outcome dramatically. And just like great guitarists, there is a scarcity of truly great reliability practitioners. I hope you make it to be one of them...