Things to Think About and Do in 2011: Symbiosis

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Symbiosis—

The dictionary defines symbiosis as “a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Now there’s something to think about for 2011. Is that what we have been striving for these past few years? I sometimes wonder whether we are really prepared to give up our silos of power for the common good. I understand that we all talk about symbiosis as an ideal and sagely nod in agreement at conferences, but what do we actively do to make it happen? Who are we trying to mutually benefit?

Something to think about for me this year is how to make sure that the asset management work and reliability engineering that we work on as a department actually builds bridges that will stand the test of time and that will still be there when the floodwaters of recession have subsided. These bridges should carry a path to achieving the organization’s mission statement. One part of the problem, which I have heard again and again is, “We had a great leader/Reliability Engineer/Department and then XYZ left and it all fell apart”. I think most of us have experienced something akin to that in the past. However, projecting future failure from  our experiences of the past may not always prove accurate. If one considers that approximately 89% of all failure modes are random by nature, might we assume the same is true of our personal losses?

If we treat our people in the same way we sometimes treat our other assets, with neglect or abuse, is it not likely that they will fail or leave? If individuals are relatively fragile, then high-performing teams are even more delicate, easily damaged and likely to fall like dominoes. Once one or two people on such a team become disenfranchised somehow and leave, the rest follow soon after and you suffer team collapse. You are then  back to square one and bemoaning your experience at next year’s conference. 

The challenge for the year is to balance high-value teams and high-value delivery across maintenance, reliability and operations departments. Make it bigger than the individual. 

—Derek Burley