A Contrarian View: Not Grooming Your Successor is Poor Policy

By Heinz P. Bloch, P.E.

The last 25 years or so have seen a shift in the way mid-level managers are designated or selected by their superiors. Until about 1990, managers needed to have successors in place before they themselves would be promoted. If, despite not having groomed successor, a manager received a promotion, he or she would have to live with the consequences.

An unqualified successor will render his or her former boss ineffective. Without grooming competent successors, entire organizations often spend time re-discovering what others have already learned and leveraged. They then make decisions that don’t take into account the collective—prior or present—knowledge of serious professionals. That knowledge may be as simple and valuable as mapping the best available approach to solving a problem.

My two former employers (from 1962 until 1986) had highly qualified mechanical engineers in section-head and department-manager positions. They made decisions and gave guidance with the company’s long-range goals in mind. Whenever their reliability engineers determined that equipment upgrading was both feasible and cost-justified, they implemented suitable remedies. Doing so reduced maintenance intensity and increased plant profitability.

Regrettably, some of today’s reliability managers have backgrounds quite unrelated to the reliability-improvement business. They neglect to put in place an organizational structure that views every maintenance event as an opportunity to upgrade. Sadly, the pitfalls of managers not understanding the long-term reliability benefits of sound guidance and training were recently (and again) brought to our attention.

Lack of guidance and “no budget” affected a large corporation that had assigned a young instrument-and-electrical (I&E) specialist to solve costly, randomly occurring repeat failures on large, multi-casing twin-screw gas compressors. Unfortunately, the compressor OEM failed to respond to this inexperienced employee’s calls for assistance, thus impeding his effectiveness. Finding a solution to the equipment’s problems was further thwarted when the company’s project engineers issued a purchase order for an exact-duplicate compressor. That move essentially wiped out whatever leverage the I&E specialist might have had with the manufacturer.

From experience, we know that elusive compressor problems are best addressed in meetings attended by the user, the manufacturer and an independent third party. Convening at the manufacturer’s headquarters, the participants can discover any prototype-like features or design oversights. Because all machinery failures, without exception, are attributable to one of only seven (well-publicized) cause categories, the user company’s participating reliability professional can communicate with the manufacturer face-to-face and eliminate five or even six categories in succession. The reliability pro then steers the meeting to concentrate on the one or two remaining categories—and, together, the parties identify the root causes of the problems. In these types of meetings, the equipment owner’s representative insists on disclosure of references: “Where have such compressors been used before? Let’s verify their operating experience!”

In the example of the ineffective I&E specialist above, whoever headed the site’s reliability group in the past may have been remiss in not first enabling and then empowering a successor. In this case, we are probably looking at a company trying to solve a compressor problem that’s costing millions of “unbudgeted” dollars. Assigning the project to a lone employee with no solid, major-machinery background—and no support from experienced consultants (“there’s no budget for that”)—will only prolong the agony.

Our advice to managers is straightforward: Enlist the most knowledgeable consulting firms you can find to help solve these types of problems. Harness their expertise to assist your brightest employees, and then groom those employees as your future subject-matter experts. In the process, you will grow an invaluable pool of professionals to replace managers who, for a variety of reasons, cannot give the right guidance. MT

heinzpbloch@gmail.com

Editor’s Note: The print edition of this article included incorrect contact information. This version has been corrected.