“This is something I tell all the people in my firm…”
I was sitting across from him on the large mahogany table, in the midst of a discussion about my work obligations, the general manager of the firm I work at that is.
“If you want to move forward in your position, if you want to advance and grow and get better – you must form and train a team that will replace the current work that you do, so that you free your mental energy and efforts to do other, more high-level things.”
He was totally right.
Even though I hadn’t come to him to have this discussion at all, rather, telling him that I was being pulled in all directions and I couldn’t focus on my work and so wanted to straighten out what my obligations and responsibilities are as well as what my authorities are.
I had gotten into a clinch with a couple engineers he sent me to and so I wanted to clear up what exactly my job was and what authority I had to give work out to other people – in his name and on his orders.
But heck, he was right. And today I felt it for the first time.
I was given a team to work with, three interns and a new hire. I was to teach them all I knew for my work position so they could slowly pick up the work that I was finishing on my own.
And I felt it!
They had their own ideas and their own methods to try and I just gave them complete creative freedom to do as they though, after equipping them with all the necessary skills.
And finally, after clearing up the “fog of work”, I sat down to do one of the tasks I had been thinking of doing but couldn’t do because I’d been too tied up with the first task which I just delegated to the newly formed team.
The whole process reminded me of the end of jobs. Everyone rages on about the jobs that will be lost due to automation but nobody mentions the jobs gained. We MUST automate and outsource lower-level work so that we can focus on the high level stuff, because the high level stuff is what allows technological revolutions and evolution to take place.
If we are to begin introducing Factory 4.0 concepts into our plant, we must begin by clearing up the low-hanging fruit.