Disturbing Trends in Corporate Leadership, Part II – “What We Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Us, Can It?”
One doesn’t have to look any further than today’s headlines to realize there are some disturbing trends within current corporate culture, especially as it pertains to leadership. Aviation maintenance is not immune from the same debilitating practices that plague other industries. All leadership groups can succumb to these problems, but only if leaders becomes complacent in their roles. It is wise for all to be on guard and ever vigilant to thwart these trends from entering our organizations, if we value quality, service and success. Most are acquainted with the axiom “knowledge is power.” How many leaders truly believe the point this statement makes?
Knowledge-Related Issues
Two widespread trends can undermine any leadership (especially in large corporate settings):
• Technical know-how and expertise are somewhat less important when compared to newer schemes, trends and techniques of managing.
• Leaders (and organizational success) are not necessarily dependent upon knowledge gleaned from lower-tiered personnel who work “in the trenches,” since this knowledge has little to do with really running the organization.
Aviation-Related Knowledge
The importance of aviation maintenance-related knowledge, much like the common image of the aircraft maintenance technician, is often overlooked or not esteemed in high regard within more than a few organizations. Unfortunately, this aspect of intelligence is habitually ignored, even though it is a mainstay of the organizational underpinnings of success or demise, particularly within the context of a highly-regulated industry. At best, this knowledge is frequently taken for granted; at worst, it is seen as rudimentary and menial, despite the highly-technical demands placed on the average technician role and responsibility. Much of the time this expertise is de-rated to satisfy various purposes, such as keeping a pay scale low and/or functionally viewed as a necessary evil for flight operations to occur.
This situation can be compounded by some leaders who, having risen through the rank and file of aircraft maintenance, are embarrassed to admit they were once technicians themselves. Because of their current position or personal insecurities, their view of the role of the technician is something not to be proud of or as a baser accomplishment when compared to where they presently are.
Aviation maintenance knowledge and experience must be placed in its rightful place in an organization, especially at aviation service providers (i.e., repair stations, MROs, etc.). It must be understood thoroughly that this knowledge and these skills are vital to the success of the aviation service provider, in both compliance and profitability. As the national numbers of A&P mechanics is diminished, expert knowledge and skill will become even more essential, and this too is already being manifested.
Self-Education
A facet of the overall depreciation of aviation maintenance knowledge is the lack of continuous self-education at the individual level, from the top down to the lowest-ranking employee. Some individuals involved in aircraft maintenance have openly expressed a belief that they possess all the knowledge and education required of them and, what’s more, it’s all they need to know for the remainder of their career!
Another example of this attitude is when a person believes their employer has the primary burden to keep them current and increase their knowledge, notwithstanding their own certification and responsibility as a mechanic or repairman. A technician who stops learning loses his or her technical edge. The same is true for those who manage or supervise aircraft maintenance operations. How can adequate supervision and management occur if leaders do not have sufficient background to gauge if the work being accomplished is correct?
If a company envisions itself as an ever-learning organization to better its competitive advantage, then it must begin to recognize the importance of knowledge, education and training for all of its employees at every level. Those who continue to learn demonstrate care and attention toward their work product. They are indeed professionals and should be embraced as individuals that take their jobs seriously, and this should be appreciated rather than just taken advantage of.
The Changing Complexion of Aviation Maintenance Management
Many personnel, particularly leaders, entering into aviation maintenance workgroups have limited aviation scope, with some having no aviation background at all. The post-WWII era saw the aviation industry absorb many U.S. Army Air Corps. and U.S. Air Force staff into executive roles at airlines and aerospace manufacturing. Today, some executives may come from various business-related fields such as accounting and management. While they can hardly be called aviation maintenance experts, they may possess a business acumen that may complement the organization’s needs and goals. Notwithstanding, this lack of aviation maintenance knowledge and experience, without some check and balance, can allow for some very misplaced priorities, hurting the company from the ground up. Priorities and emphasis can not only become misguided, but can overshadow weaknesses begging for attention. This characteristic can easily exacerbate a negative situation when a group-think mentality is rewarded and promoted, and individual thinking is seen as a threat to status quo.
Managing by Reports, Charts and Graphs
There has been a great influx of various financial and management software reporting, charting and graphing tools to the aircraft maintenance management realm. This is not to say these methods of reporting and tracking are necessarily wrong or bad, but sometimes it seems that there is an over-focus for the tool or device over what its intended use should truly be. Sometimes, it appears daily/weekly reporting of data, figures and graphs provide more detail of minutia than actually offer significant facts to facilitate better decision making. Reports providing this historical data are regularly used to plan and manage, but there is a weakness in failing to search for more. Although this data can point to some problem areas and trends of what appears to be happening, what this data does not usually suffice to report is the why.
Sad to say, much “dashboards” and “business objects” charting may look impressive, but if proper standards are not measured, then of what worth is it? It only looks good on paper. There is an old management saying, “You get what you reward.” In other words, if one measures something, like project-to-plan disparity, and posts the results for all to see, then essentially that the behavior which demonstrates little-to-no gap between what is done and what was planned is rewarded. What happens if unforeseen difficulties or surprises rear their ugly heads? Could workgroups be penalized for completing work ahead of time? Perhaps this “rewarding” of on-time performance is not where the focus should be. Is getting done on time enough? What if the work is not being done the correct way?
If an operator gives kudos to those service providers who get their aircraft out on time, what could this mean to those providers that take a little bit longer? What questions should be asked? Could it be that those providers who take a longer time to do the job do so more thoroughly without cutting corners? The question typically asked is “Why does it take this repair station so long to do the job?” rather than “How does this repair station push the aircraft out so quickly?”
Enterprise systems of graphing, tracking, measuring and object generation are good tools for displaying data for easy dissemination of facts, but tools are used to enable other work getting done. Regrettably, there can be such an over-reliance on technology, where managing tools become the primary means of managing the daily operations, that business decisions and plans need to be tempered with knowing the role of the organization and the role of each staff member.
“We Don’t Listen to Our Own People!”
Not many organizations would want to tout a banner like the above statement, but it is lived out in several organizations daily. Countless leaders, either because of the distraction of busyness or an underlying assumption of non-importance, discount the average worker’s knowledge, experience and expertise by exhibiting little recognition of most employee roles and purposes within the larger organization. In numerous instances, these same employees feel powerless in successes and failures of their own employer, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence.
A pattern of not knowing what work is being done by whom and how that work is being done produces a double-edged sword of divisiveness. The management team is cheated from realizing how the work is actually being done, and working staff is not empowered and prevented from making positive changes to their work processes, possibly affecting the productivity of company performance as a whole. Does this pattern embody teambuilding? Will this promote any breakthrough thinking outside the present paradigm? Probably not. What might the consequences be if ongoing work does not comply or follow approved company procedures and processes? Could this undermine embedded safeguards or quality assurance?
Leaders may unwittingly cause the aforementioned situation, but it must be stressed that a common result of not listening to staff inputs is workers feel undervalued and unappreciated. Workers may self-assess that their expertise in what they do, as well as the importance of their roles within the greater organization, is less meaningful. Hence, the gap between workers and their management team becomes wider. Any ideas the employee may have had to improve safety, quality and production up to now might be cast aside, especially if they don’t believe their views will ever be heard or see the light of day. This will eventually develop into a self-defeating “us vs. them” mentality.
What to Do
For an organization that does not appear to experience either of these problems, make time to seriously evaluate the organization’s work environment. What are the organization’s views as related to continuing education, training, knowledge and experience? Mend any weak areas by soliciting input from staff at all levels. Ask genuinely for participation to endeavor making work and company better in the services and products offered. Encourage activities which support employee engagement and buy in. Build rapport at all levels. Create teams to address problem areas and issues, making sure these teams represent a true cross-section of the various workgroups impacted by said problems/issues. Foster mutual respect between stakeholders so that the result supplies a variety of solution options (an excellent technique of mining factors for root causal analysis). Actively engage staff and empower them to improve safety, quality and productivity of the organization.
For the organization experiencing either of these problems, begin to consider how the organization got to where it currently is and for how long. This is a chief step in future prevention and may give clues to how deeply entrenched these issues may be. Begin to restore relationships between departments, shifts and workgroups. Outlaw departmental silo building and abolish fiefdoms.
Honor those individuals who deliver more than the bare minimum. Take ongoing, work-related education and knowledge seriously. Facilitate recurrent training and allow for regular familiarization of company manuals, policies, work processes and approved procedures for all staff. Visit staff, especially those working “the frontline,” to listen and learn what challenges they face at their work. Beseech their input to make their jobs (and the organization) better and more effective. Respect all notions donated and weigh the pros and cons of each, then select the best one(s) for further evaluation. Don’t forget to express appreciation for all ideas, and provide reasoning why a particular option was picked over another.
Keep in mind that it is not enough to have documented work processes, rather management must know how the work is really being done; don’t assume work is being accomplished per the standard. Get to know more of the organization’s routines and come away with a deeper understanding of the work involved. The company will be better for it.
Thomas Sheckler is president and senior consultant of Expert Aerospace Solutions LLC, a multi-disciplinary consulting agency specializing in aviation problem solving. EAS LLC engineers technical and nontechnical responses to issues like safety, compliance, training and quality interventions. Sheckler’s background includes aspects of flight and ground operations of fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft, having worked within several operational environments (i.e., Parts 91, 135, and 145, and military). He has undergraduate degrees in aircraft maintenance and aviation management and earned graduate degrees in system safety and human factors. As a former FAA aviation safety counselor (airworthiness), he continues to volunteer as a FAASTeam representative. Contact Sheckler by email at sheck1dd@hotmail.com.