Does Your Shop Need More Resources or a New Way of Thinking?

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“We need to become more data-driven,” the vice-president of operations opined, addressing the production manager. “Machining is becoming all about data, we need to automate our data acquisition with sensors and data collectors and gather more information on machine tool variables, yield and throughput and then use that data to improve performance.”

The production manager responded, “I know! If only we had the right people, the time and the budget to do that, but we all know we don’t.” Shoulders slumped around the table as the leadership team collectively gave up — for a lack of resources — on what might have been a great idea. The vice-president let the topic drop.

Leadership teams that think like this will struggle to grow, struggle to innovate and struggle to meet their goals.

I’ve been around my share of innovators and highly successful businesspeople; those who have earned millions and even billions in technology and manufacturing. They don’t limit their outcomes to the resources they have available to them. They set the goal and then find and engage the resources needed to meet it. Let’s explore.

Consider the paradigm of those in attendance at the meeting referenced in the opening. If success and outcomes are a function of our time, talent and treasure, then the mindset of the production manager and those around him who didn’t object to his objection is that the time, talent and treasure available to them were the fixed part of the success formula and producing results or achieving goals was the variable part. Those who think this way muse about the future, about the day they are presented with extra time, people or money. Only then will they be able to produce at a higher level! Sadly, for leaders of this mindset that day almost never comes.

Conversely, high-performing leadership teams don’t view time, talent or treasure as the fixed part of the success formula. Instead, the part of the formula that is fixed is producing results and achieving goals. The variables are what time, talent and treasure are needed to achieve them.

It may seem like a minor distinction, but shifting our thinking this way makes all the difference between growth in revenue, gross profit and net income and stagnation and eventual failure. This change of mindset can make all the difference between a vibrant, accountable and high-performing culture focused on results and one that seeks to pay the bills and make it to the next year.

Dreaming about what we would do if only we had the resources makes us the victim. If only we had more people, capital and time, then we could accomplish our goals. When we think this way, the absence of these becomes an automatic excuse and almost ensures that we won’t take the initiative to create the future.

When we fix the goal and view other resources we assign to it as variable, our company’s entire viewpoint shifts.

One way of thinking convinces us and our team that we are at the mercy of our lack of resources; the other puts us in command of our future.

One limits our thinking to what is possible given our limited resources and the other opens us up to how we can raise performance.

One stifles creativity and the other demands innovation.

One makes excuses and takes us off the hook for poor performance; the other says we are going to perform no matter what it takes.

One makes us a company that fosters a culture of apathy and futility; the other makes us the kind of organization in which enterprising team members — present and future — want to invest their futures.

What should the vice-president of operations have said when the production manager lamented the lack of time, talent and treasure as an excuse for not pursuing a great idea? “You’re right, our teammates, our time and our cash are all precious. But being data-driven is key to the future of our company. Let’s see who might have a little bandwidth, let’s look at where we’re spending our time in ways that don’t add value to our mission, let’s add a member to the team if need be, let’s take another look at our budget and find the cash. Then let’s do it!”

When great ideas present themselves, some leadership teams sit still, hoping, wishing and waiting for the right resources to come along. As they do, another group of leaders are busy changing their businesses, their lives and their world.