Did it happen suddenly?
When we don't pay attention to small changes in things and people at work and home, we may land in crises. We will pay a heavy price. Proactive monitoring and timely actions can prevent most crises. To drive this point home to my team member, I enacted a dramatic demo in my office.
Did the paper weight fall down suddenly?
I was the maintenance manager in a continuous running paperboard plant in India. Sometimes, a running machine stopped due to failure of a part like a bearing. Unplanned repairs are very costly for the company. Preventive maintenance during a planned shutdown is the gold standard.
I had to arrange for the repairs and restore the machine back to production in the shortest time. We lost even more production if the failure happened at night as we had to bring the technicians from their homes.
The most important goal for me was to take steps to avoid similar unplanned stoppages in the future.
The shift managers and area Engineer were responsible to monitor and replace the defective parts before they failed. I would ask the Engineers why they did not monitor the condition of the bearing and replace it before it failed. They would tell me that the bearing was running fine and there were no prior indications.
This is not true for bearings. They show unusual symptoms like vibration, sound or temperature before they fail. I enacted a dramatic demo at my desk to drive this point home to the concerned Engineer.
I pick up the now obsolete glass paper weight lying on my desk and place it at the middle of the table. I slide the paper weight a few inches towards the Engineer. I stop, look at the Engineer and say “Nothing happened, right!". I move it again a little and say “Nothing happened, right?" I keep moving the paper weight a few inches at a time until it finally fell on the hard floor with a thud. Then I shout excitedly “Oh! The paper weight was sitting fine on the table, a few seconds back. It fell all of a sudden!”
The Engineer who watched the demo would smile. He would admit that something unusual must have been happening before it failed. There could be many reasons for not replacing the bearing before failure. (1) His team didn't notice the unusual symptoms. (2) They noticed the symptoms but considered them insignificant. (3) They were concerned it may fail. But they didn't want to stop the running machine to replace a single bearing for fear of its failure when the planned shutdown is a week ahead. They hoped it will not fail in a week.
The cumulative deterioration of the bearing could lead to its unpredictable failure.
Life lessons
This phenomenon applies to failure of machines and also to disturbed relationships. We may not notice the unhealthy changes. We may notice the changes but underestimate their significance. We may succumb to the attitude of 'that-is-how-we-have-ben-working-in-the past'.
The minor deteriorated condition becomes the 'new normal'. If the incremental deteriorations accumulate, they would reach a tipping point with major consequences. Then we pay a much higher price than what we would have paid by monitoring and correcting problems in a planned manner.
Let us bring this concept to people. Persistently adverse changes in the behavior of people may be warning signs of serious relationship problems ahead.
What can we do?
We can watch for changes in things, people and the environment.
Know what is a healthy condition and pattern of change.
Predict where the pattern will lead to.
Predict the consequences.
Plan the corrective actions.
Execute the plans.
Be tuned to the feedback and revise the plans, as an ongoing process.
With this approach, we can prevent crises, reduce costs and enhance confidence. We will have the energy to think of improvements and develop innovative practices.
In the area of relationships we need to take note of the small unpleasant behaviors, speak up and work out the problems. We can prevent building up of stress and avoid rupturing the relationship.
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