Reverse Engineer & Plant Your Tree

Tuesday of this week I sent out some messages through LinkedIn about creating a workforce development system to attract, retain, develop, and strengthen a company’s workforce through a similar system to that of how professional baseball builds their workforce. The call was not to duplicate their system but to reverse engineer it. To tear apart what they do and dive deeper into a system that is working. We do this so we can find all the good in their system and to determine what they are missing and develop even better qualities, principles, and tools that will allow us to improve upon what they already have. I call this reverse engineering.

I received a reply from the messages I sent out on LinkedIn by a person in Greenville South Carolina who works in a healthcare facility. This is what she said, "unless you have RPSGTs in a pipeline we won’t have a need. Thanks." I can appreciate her response. She is on the front line, and she needs and wants some immediate help and/or relief. Therefore, if I cannot meet her immediate need she isn’t interested in anything else. After reading her response and recognizing that she is certainly in a difficult situation but it was a very short sighted answer. What she didn’t say out loud but was saying between the lines was she and her organization haven’t developed their own pipeline and no one she knows has developed a pipeline of people for their needs. In her mind it isn't possible to build such a pipeline. If she has no pipeline and can not see beyond her immediate situation and is unwilling to be creative and take a few risks she and her company are doomed to live with this problem for a long time to come. An old Chinese proverb said it best, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second-best time is now.?Right now is the time to throw the tired and false out the window and reverse engineer the Minor League system within Major League Baseball to find a workforce solution.

Oh, by the way we knew 10-years ago we would have a workforce problem like the one we are currently experiencing. The demographics in 2013 told us a number of things about 2023 and beyond. There were two vital pieces of data regarding our future workforce at that time no one paid attention to; low birthrates and baby-boomers retiring. This along with a couple of other factors would create a perfect storm for what we are now experiencing. By 2030 there will literally be too few people of working age (16-65) to fill the open jobs we will have at that time.

The time for this medical facility in Greenville, South Carolina to develop a workforce strategy to provide a pipeline of people was 13 years ago or today.

Reverse engineering systems that are working in one industry can help lead all of us to a better solution in whatever industry we work in. Focusing on solutions, ideas, creativity, and taking a few risks along the way is a requirement if you are going to find a solution. Another person replied to my LinkedIn messaging and suggested that Generative AI would help us solve the workforce problem. AI is a tool not a solution in and of itself. Of course, tools of any kind are needed to help change, manage, and drive solutions for a greater conclusion but we cannot shy away from taking risks, being creative, willing to fail, and falling on our faces. If we refuse to take these vital steps we will not find a better solution any time soon. We need to think like entrepreneurs and behave like them.

Russia is tearing apart a U.S. drone. They will tear it apart and learn how we built such a high tech stealth drone. Then they will attempt to build a similar one or even better get their friends, the Chinese to help them. Business and Industry will need to look not only to Major League Baseball but to other entities and organizations around the world to see what is working, tear it apart and reverse energy their way out of this attraction and retention problem we are currently mired in.

We have some major obstacles staring us in the face. There are too many groups, organizations, and associations with good intentions coming up with action steps creating busy work with strategies and plans that have no clear solution to the real workforce problems. We must scour the globe and look at what is working and reverse engineer those present solutions. We need to be solution minded rather than problem oriented.

When Michael Dell was in high school, he was first exposed to the computer or perhaps not a computer as much as it was a teletype-computer terminal. Dell would ride his bike past the store that sold more computers than any other company in the world, Radio Shack. Dell was in love with the computer and the technology industry. His 14th birthday he ordered an Apple II and paid $1,300 for the computer ($5,000 in today’s dollars) from his own hard-earned savings account. Michael Dell tore computers apart and learned all he could about them so he could build something better. What Dell did was reverse engineer a faster computer by learning what others were doing and figured out how he and his company could do better. In 1986 Dell unveiled the industry’s fastest performing PC just two years after he started his business, PC’s Unlimited.

I believe Major League Baseball has a system that works for them and one that deserves a little reverse engineering from you. In so doing you can discover a solution for your workforce pipeline needs. We at D.G. Phillip and Associates are ready to work with you and help start a reverse engineering process to develop a solution for your workforce’s needs.?

The time for the medical facility in Greenville, South Carolina and for your organization to develop a workforce strategy to provide a pipeline of people was 13 years ago or TODAY!