The Art of Work

For over 25 years, Carlos has been a top employee in one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world.

And my client never knew why.

Until today.

After some slight hesitation, Carlos, with the help of our bi-lingual Brazilian Portuguese translator, attempted to answer my question of "What makes you one of the best Supervisors?"

"I do my job in a very non-traditional way," he said, scrunching his face, testing my acceptance of the concept.

I could barely contain myself. I knew immediately that I had stuck gold.

In our line of work, where we drive business results by benchmarking the best employees, we find that top performers have a rich mental model - a very different way they approach their role - that leads to substantial differences in performance.

These rich mental models impact performance in 3 major ways:

1?? A mental model serves as the scaffolding on which you hang and arrange your growing expertise.

2?? A mental model serves as a filter - helping you QUICKLY distinguish relevant information from less relevant information.

3?? Most importantly, a rich mental model allows you to anticipate what may happen next.

What Carlos went on to explain is the reasoning behind his port's lack of mechanical downtime (which inversely impacts productivity). Because he had worked in the maintenance function for some time, he knew how to make modest repairs on capital equipment to keep it functioning. Moreover, he had a direct line to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in case the fix was more substantial. This rolodex also allowed him also to override the lengthy communication chain in order to get a fast resolution (??most top performers have methods of circumventing organizational barriers, policies, and processes). But the richest aspect of his mental model? He performed regular, preventive maintenance on the equipment so it wouldn't break down. He taught new employees every part of the equipment and had them take it apart, name the function, and re-assemble it before ever operating the equipment.

"The equipment is very costly. I need to know that my team has a full appreciation of it before they can operate at full capacity."

During that interview**, we learned a lot more about Carlos' way of classifying, solving, and thinking about his performance and environment. While fascinating, it is of little value to the organization if this knowledge is not transferred to his peers in a meaningful way that shifts performance.

To increase the number of Supervisors who perform like him (and thereby increase business results), we are now using the insights to:

• Inform the job description, hiring guide, and interview guide (hiring folks with more maintenance experience)
• Revise the Supervisor onboarding experience, inclusive of more peer mentoring opportunities,
• Suggest rotational work assignments to maintain labor flexibility,
• Inform the performance management, coaching, and action planning process (acceptance of this as the new standard for performance).

It was easy to identify Carlos and the other star?(they had the highest productivity and employee engagement metrics).

What's harder is to identify what makes him great and the "differences that make a difference."

Regardless of industry or client, we're able to decode the secret sauce of your best QUICKLY, EFFECTIVELY, and LESS EXPENSIVELY than you may think. Unsure? Reach out to us today to see how this approach could help you.

Our work is always self-funding - you have nothing to lose.

**We performed 6 additional interviews with the highest ranked Supervisors across all job types, plant sizes, and functions for a composite view of excellence.