Those of you who know me understand that I was the first in my family to go to college. My parents were working class people who didn’t have much of a formal education – in fact neither finished high school. But you know what? The are some of the wisest people I know. I’d stack them up against the Harvard MBA’s I’ve met when it comes to wisdom. I’m very proud and grateful for the knowledge and wisdom they have shared. This topic is based on a lesson from my father.
My dad taught me one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned back when I was about ready to go to college. My dad may not have a formal education, but he has the wisdom of Solomon. One day he said to me that he was very happy that I was going to study to be an engineer, but that I should remember that just because I will have that college degree, it doesn’t mean that I will know everything. He said I need to remember to take the time to listen to people on the shop floor, to the workers who have been doing their jobs. He said that I should listen to them and solicit their feedback and then use their information to help me form a conclusion and make a decision. He said it didn’t mean that I should just do what they said, but to listen to them and focus on what can be learned and then apply it if appropriate. He then gave me an example from the rubber factory that he had worked at for over 20 years. They hired a new engineer that went about making some changes to a process, buying a million dollar piece of equipment that was supposed to do something better than the way they had been doing it previously. My dad told him that the new system would not work the way the engineer thought it would work and he explained in non-technical terms the reasons it wouldn’t work. The engineer dismissed his comments and ignored him. About 9 months later the equipment came in and guess what – it didn’t work. After months of tyring to make it work and failing, the engineer was fired and the equipment scrapped.
That was a very impactful story, but the real impact to me was the first time I applied it – and I was very grateful to my dad for explaining it to me.
After my freshman year in college, I took a Co-op job at Miles Laboratories. The Co-op probram is one where you alternate semesters with work then school. It takes an extra year to get the degree, but you come out with nearly two years of practical work experience because you don’t take summers off. In that first work term, my supervisor gave me as much work as I could handle. One project was to design a fixture that could quickly heat a plastic container to body temperature and rotate it. I designed a fixture to do this and took it to the model/fabrication shop. I sat down with the machinist (who was 30 years older than me) and went through the drawings. I’ll never forget what happened next. He looked at me, looked at the drawings and said, “you want me to build this?” I almost said yes, but something held me back. I thought about what my dad taught me and then I told him this: “let me explain again what I want this fixture to do, and the critical aspects of it, and you can make changes to the design as you see fit to make it work.” I shared some of the key dimensions with him that couldn’t be changed and summarized by saying you know what I am trying to accomplish and I gave you a starting point with my design. You can change what is necessary to make it work. He smiled at me and nodded and told me he would contact me when I was done. I figured it would take a couple of weeks before I got the fixture because they had a backlog of projects – I was wrong.
It only took just less than a week. And yes, he made some changes to it, but not a lot of them. And it worked well. But, had he not made a few changes to the design and instead made it the way I drew it, it would not have worked well. So I reflected on this and credited my dad’s advice. But what I didn’t realize was that this advice had a more far-reaching impact.
As the weeks went on and I had more interaction with the model shop guys, using the same approach, I was able to move my projects along pretty quickly. Another engineer who was probably 15 years older than me came up to me and asked me how I got stuff through the model shop so fast. He said it almost always takes him weeks to get things through. I didn’t know what to say to him, but I found out later that while he was a nice guy, he didn’t give the model shop guys any flexibility – he just said this is what I want you to make. I ended up with a great relationship with those guys and they always moved my projects up the priority list and delivered. Over the years I started going to them before I designed fixtures completely. I told them where I was going with the idea and got suggestions from them. Sometimes they would tell me they had enough info and don’t worry about the detail drawings and they built it. Other times they gave me input to incorporate into the design and I did so and they built it.
This was a very valuable and profound lesson for me. I ended up getting promoted quickly in that organization and I attribute a good bit of my success to being able to work with people like the model shop guys in a way that made us all more successful. I’ve carried that approach with me everywhere I’ve went since then, and it always ends up with better results. It always pays to listen, and factor what you heard into the decisions you make.