Communication – It’s our Fault!

Well it’s that time again for me to write yet another post about communication and how important it is to the success of our operations and our careers. In this post I want to focus on how important it is but better yet why it’s our fault we don’t do a good job communicating.

While I was working in Dallas I tried a new approach to communication. While doing many seminars over the years I kept getting the same feedback. Superintedents were asking why we don’t do classes on communication and technicians were saying that they don’t feel valued and that their boss doesn’t understand what they do all day. I got to wondering why that is?

The fact is that we were hired to do a job that no one else can really do or really knows that much about. We have had name changes over the last few years from mechanic to technician and now Equipment Manager and the fact is people don’t know what’s different. Why do you think that is? It’s because we do a very poor job communicating what we do. So in my trial I put together a quarterly Equipment Management Report. This report was sent to our Superintendent, Assistants, GM, Hotel Manager, HR, etc. The report was broken down into 3 different categories:

Accomplishments

• Talk about what things were accomplished over that quarter. It should include before/after photos, financial savings, etc.
• It should be all bullet points and not large paragraphs of information. If they want more info they will ask for it.
• Make sure it’s not all about mechanical repairs. Include some PM system data or facility changes. This is your opportunity to share what you do without saying “Hey look at me and what i did”.

Road Ahead

• In this heading talk about what the plan is for the next quarter. What equipment are you rebuilding, what shop improvements, etc.
• This again should be bullet points. If you want your information to be read it needs to be quick snap shots.
• Include some before photos if your planning to make an improvement.

Opportunites

• This is your opportunity to let everyone know what you could use to make your operation better. This should not be a laundry list but 3 – 5 things that would make your life easier if you had it. Maybe a lift or a tire changer whatever it is.
• Make sure to include prices, part numbers and your quick pitch on why it makes sense to purchase it. While many things need capital approval to be purchased you never know when funds could free up and those decision makers remember the items you were asking for.

The purpose of this document every quarter is to help educate everyone on exactly what it is that you do. If they don’t know is it really their fault? You would be amazed at not only the interest you will start getting on what you do but how much they all want to help. If people don’t know how they can help you they won’t so it’s up to us to communicate what we are bringing to the operation and how others can help.

In addition to this John Cunningham – Superintendent at Bellerive, and I will be doing a presentation in Toronto, Canada in January for the CGCSA that is also related to this subject. However it will be more related to what our employers are looking for in an Equipment Manager vs what we think they are looking for. I think it will really bring to light the things we each need to work on to match up with what our employers are looking for out of us.