PartnersINProgress SMACNA & SMART—Building a Future Together
Coming together for safety, meeting challenges in solidarity ...
August 2020
PartnersINProgress SMACNA & SMART—Building a Future Together
JOSEPH SELLERS, JR. ANGELA SIMON Co-Publishers KAARIN ENGELMANN editor@pinpmagazine.org Editor-in-Chief
10 CONTENTS
August 2020 - Volume 14, Number 8
3
LEADERS IN CHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION
4
THE BIRTH OF THE GENERATIVE SAFETY CULTURE
SMACNA and SMART lead the way through turbulent times.
Safety culture has flipped from a blame game to a collaborative team system.
7
BRUCE SYCHUK: MY JOURNEY
contractor experiences.
8
RESIDENTIAL HVAC DURING COVID
residential market during COVID.
Bruce Sychuk leads SMACNA-BC with perspective from the union and
Labor and management work together to promote and protect the
JESSICA KIRBY jkirby@pointonemedia.com Editor POINT ONE MEDIA INC. artdept@pointonemedia.com Creative Services
Partners in Progress is a publication of the Sheet Metal Industry LaborManagement Cooperation Fund. All contents ©2020 by the Sheet Metal Industry Labor-Management Cooperation Fund, P.O. Box 221211, Chantilly, VA 20153-1211. Find Partners in Progress online at pinp.org or at issuu.com/ partnersinprogress. An archive of all issues is available and printed copies may be ordered for a minimal fee. For comments or questions, email editor@pinpmagazine.org.
10 TAB IN THE PANDEMIC
Testing and balancing could have meant the difference between life and
death for COVID patients in one Philadelphia hospital. S HE E T M E TA L | A I R | R A I L | T R A N S P O R TAT I O N
13 DELIGHTING IN THE POSSIBLE Leaders in all organizations excel when they lead the probable and delight in what is possible.
2 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
SMACNA & SMART
Leaders in Change and Transformation
Management Guru Peter Drucker noted, “The greatest danger in times of turbulence isn’t the turbulence—it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” To say that we are now in turbulent times may be the understatement of 2020. The August edition of Partner in Progress showcases SMACNA and SMART partners who have successfully transformed their businesses, work practices, and cultures to excel in times of extreme turbulence. It would be next to impossible to identify any priority that unites labor and management more than the safety of our workforce. Safety in the sheet metal industry is going through an unprecedented transformation. Fortunately, SMART, SMACNA, and their jointly sponsored Sheet Metal Occupational Health institute (SMOHIT) are in the forefront of developing a “generative safety culture” that engages people at all levels in an organization. The lead article on page 4 provides insight into the new safety culture that moves safety from a compliance “blame game” to a collaborative team system where everyone gets involved and looks out for themselves and each other. All sectors of the sheet metal industry have had to confront the challenges of COVID-19 head-on and embrace and implement significant changes. Included in this issue are examples of how labor and management in two segments, Residential HVAC and Testing and Balancing (TAB), surmounted challenges to meet customer needs. Residential HVAC success stories (page 8) detail how SMACNA contractors and chapters and SMART Locals in Colorado, St. Louis, Reno, and the Bay Area of San Francisco rallied together to make sure that their states designated them “essential services” and research, develop, and implement safety protocols for employees; communicate their safety protocols so customers were comfortable having workers come to their home; and implement or expand customer rebate programs to maintain a steady volume of work. On page 10, we learn how a Philadelphia testing and balancing (TAB) contractor and skilled technicians from Local 19 leveraged their reputations and previous relationships with healthcare facilities to meet emergency requirements. While this article focuses on the needs of healthcare facilities, their experiences and lessons learned will provide good guidance as educational, retail, and other facilities examine their needs for more effective filtration and ventilation systems. This month’s “My Journey” features the unique career path of SMACNA BC Chapter Executive Bruce Sychuk. Bruce’s initial work in the industry began as a sheet metal apprentice. He advanced to journeyman and then became a top supervisor
running large jobs for his union sheet metal contractor. His understanding of both the trade and contracting sides of the industry made him an excellent choice to manage and grow the SMACNA BC chapter. This also gave Bruce an incredible opportunity to work with contractors and Local 280 to build one of the most effective and strongest labor-management relationships in North America. We are fortunate that Bruce shares his expertise and experiences in the industry as an important member of the SMART-SMACNA Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force. The article on Page 13, “Delighting in the Possibility” provides a good analysis of what it takes for leadership at all levels to succeed during times of extreme change. Each company, union, chapter, and individual featured in this issue had to go beyond “managing the probable” because fluid circumstances require flexibility and new solutions. The individuals and organizations discussed earlier did not default to old methods to solve unprecedented challenges. They collaborated to “lead the possible” during this time of turbulence. September 14-18, 2020, has been designated as Construction Safety Week. Numerous SMACNA contractors and SMART Locals will be commemorating this week with programs to make sure that every sheet metal worker returns home safely at the end of the workday. Let Partners in Progress know what your companies and local unions are doing to promote safety by posting to social media and tagging #smpartners, and send pictures and information to press@pinpmagazine.org so we can feature your ideas and accomplishments to provide examples for other areas to follow. ▪
Follow Partners in Progress on Social Media facebook.com/sheetmetalpartners/ twitter.com/smpartners instagram.com/smpartners/ issuu.com/partnersinprogress
Partners in Progress » August 2020 » 3
The Birth of the GENERATIVE SAFETY CULTURE By / Natalie Bruckner • Photos courtesy of Local 71 Business Manager, Paul Crist Safety in the sheet metal workers’ space is going through a fascinating transformation. Where safety was once considered a matter of compliance and processes, today it is evolving into a positive value system that engages people at all levels. This new approach is called a generative safety culture. Simply put, this paradigm shift is about moving safety from a finger-pointing blame game to a system where everyone gets involved and looks out for themselves and each another. SMACNA’s Director of Market Sectors and Health, Mike McCullion, has been involved in safety for more than 30 years and is excited about the changes. “Safety used to be based on engineering and compliance, but now, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are moving towards a science-based approach that includes human factors, such as occupational illnesses and infectious diseases,” McCullion says. “It is transforming from an engineering mindset to a scientific mindset.” He refers to respirators as a prime example of this. Once an integral part of safety when working with chemicals or silica, today they are a necessity. “In certain tasks, workers would use N95 respirator masks, but with the pandemic a lot of nuances have come out about masks, especially the difference between a facial covering or mask and a respirator,” he says. “There is a clear distinction that needs to be made and to understand the science behind it for the well-being of the worker.” 4 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
Phillip Ragain, director of training and human performance at The RAD Group, who was on the safety panel at the 2020 Partners In Progress conference, says he is seeing an increasing number of organizations jump on this generative safety culture train and become a lot more proactive. “In what is sometimes called ‘the good old days,’ it was common for people to boast about the hazards, incidents, and near misses they endured at work,” Raigan says. “Tolerating risk was not only seen as part of the job, it was regarded informally as a badge of honor. “I recall one client that manufactured very large pieces of industrial equipment. When a piece of equipment was completed, the owner of the company would walk the elevated beams of that equipment without fall protection, almost like a tightrope walker. It was his way of commissioning it for service. The owner, and many of the employees who witnessed the display, saw it as a demonstration of courage and solidarity with the workers who put themselves at risk to build the equipment. It was a strange feature of the culture at the time—the belief that exposing oneself to unnecessary risk is respectable rather than foolhardy.” However, Ragain says, this attitude is becoming one of the past. “Risky workplace behavior is no longer admired, and the idea that tolerating risk makes you a better worker appears to vanish a little every day,” he says.
“When people are concerned that leaders are looking for someone to blame, they stop communicating [reporting], see speaking up as snitching, and resist safety programs that they consider blame traps.” — Phillip Ragain, director of training and human performance at The RAD Group With the changing times, understanding what this generative culture means can be tricky and may get misinterpreted. “The systems that some organizations have previously put into place, such as ‘good catch’ programs, never get off the ground when people fear that they will be blamed if something goes wrong,” Raigan says. “When people are concerned that leaders are looking for someone to blame, they stop communicating [reporting], see speaking up as snitching, and resist safety programs that they consider blame traps.” Instead, leaders in the industry are looking to become more proactive by building a culture of trust, engagement, and fair accountability. Local 71 Business Manager, Paul Crist, has found a safety program that seems to have hit the nail on the head. Under his direction, Local 71 created a training incentive program that has generated more than 16,000 hours of additional safety and trade-related training for 350-plus members in the Buffalo area of New York. Partners in Progress » August 2020 » 5
The Birth of the Generative Safety Culture
“You need to look at who is being impacted. That does not mean leaders stop paying attention to lagging performance metrics, but instead they need to communicate and demonstrate a genuine concern for the well-being of people in their organizations.” —Mike McCullion, SMACNA’s Director of Market Sectors and Health
Under the program (which started in 2013), Local 71 members receive one ticket for every four hours of additional training they participate in each year. This is put into a pot that is worth more than $25,000 and consists of an array of prizes that are awarded during a yearly breakfast banquet. The idea came about after Crist attended a painters’ union award breakfast. “We basically stole the idea and implemented it on a smaller scale,” Crist laughs. “I was tired of the arguments between contractors—who felt the workers should come fully prepared with the safety training and skills—and workers— who felt that if contractors wanted them to have the training then contractors should pay for it. “So, we came together with our local SMACNA chapter and set three cents aside from each side, which gave us six cents per hour and generates a $30,000 budget. The JATC pays for the instructor and materials, but New York state law dictates that the JATC may not give out prizes out with that money, so the cash we set aside goes toward the prizes.” Crist says it is all about keeping everyone safe. “We do this so we don’t have to call any family members to tell them there was an accident on the job.” He received a Safety Matters Award from the Sheet Metal Occupational Health Institute Trust (SMOHIT) for this program. While the accountability piece can be the most important and difficult to change, Ragain says, “when leaders get it right— and stop confusing blame for accountability—the other pieces begin to fall into place.” Being such a new approach, however, means getting it right isn’t always easy when the the industry’s attitude toward safety has traditionally focused on number of accidents, cost overruns, and project delays. This has, in turn, bred a mistrust for safety leaders who were sometimes seen as rule-abiding naggers. Creating this generative safety culture requires buy-in and a shift in mindset. “We need everyone to understand that the generative culture differs greatly from a safety program,” McCullion says. “It’s the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how’, and a safety culture is not a one-size-fits-all program.” The approach for a company with 25 employees will vastly differ from a business with 250 employees, and as McCullion 6 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
mentions, not only does the culture have to address that company but also evolve and mature within the company. That takes a team. “Everyone needs to take pride in it,” McCullion explains. “To do that, employees must understand that this will benefit their overall wellness. When you find what motivates someone, both on and off the job, you can change behaviors.” Ragain adds that, in his experience, there are a number of things that have to be done for organizations and industries to move toward a mature, generative safety culture. The key among them is the shift in focus from numbers to people. “You need to look at who is being impacted,” he says. “That does not mean leaders stop paying attention to lagging performance metrics, but instead communicate and demonstrate a genuine concern for the well-being of people in their organizations. Safety transforms from ‘what we have to do’ to ‘what we ought to do.’ This is an important first step.” But as with any change, it needs to start at the top. “Yes, buy-in is important, but we need to ensure there is open communication between management and labor,” McCullion says. “At SMACNA, we work closely with SMART and SMOHIT to give everyone the resources and training they need. Take the safety managers, for example. Today, they need to wear a lot of hats. They need to be aware of environmental and industrial hygienist principles, as well, understanding how chemicals affect the body. In the end, successes come from good communication.” Looking back at the history of occupational safety, SMACNA and SMART have already come a long way, but there is still a long way to go, but with the help of technology, science, and cooperation between management and labor, anything is possible. “What I see beginning to emerge is a more comprehensive sense of responsibility where people at all levels of the organization own what they can impact and communicate more effectively up and down the chain of command allowing others to do the same,” McCullion says. “Safety is becoming more collaborative, less combative. It is becoming ‘how we work,’ not ‘extra work.’ Or at least I hope that’s where we are headed.” ▪ Natalie is an award-winning writer who has worked in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, the United States, and Canada. She has more than 23 years experience as a journalist, editor, and brand builder, specializing in construction and transportation.
Bruce Sychuk: MY JOURNEY Executive Director, SMACNA-BC
SMACNA-SMART Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force I started in the sheet metal industry right out of high school as a production worker at Tacey / Coast Metal Products. Coast Metal was the production side and Tacey Sheet Metal was the craft side. After a couple of years sitting on a punch press, I decided the craft side offered more of an opportunity for advancement. I ended up apprenticing through Tacey and becoming a journeyman in 1978. I worked on the tools for a few years at Tacey Sheet Metal and United Metal Fabricators Ltd. and held a number of foreman and supervisory roles at different shops over the next 26 years, with my final 12 years in the trade at Apollo Sheet Metal in Coquitlam, BC. I loved the trade, first because of the security of it—it isn’t like other trades where you have to wait for the building to be nearly finished before you come in to do your work. Our work starts at the beginning, and we are there until the end, so there is longevity involved. The pre-planning and the amount of thought it takes to put a piece of ducting into the space allotted is a feat. And the diversity—I worked in pulp mills and coal mines, on boats, and in shopping malls. I worked on BC Children’s Hospital, the library in downtown Vancouver, the first expansion at YVR airport, and on GM Place before it was called Rogers Arena. There were also multiple office buildings, hospitals, high-rise multi-use buildings, schools, and the list goes on. We were doing duct that was 6 or 8 feet in diameter and 100 feet in the air and on 8-foot ducting underground. We see it through from fabrication to assembly to installation, and each piece could weight 10 lb or 1,000 lb. In 1998, I was asked to be a chapter executive for SMACNA-BC, and I accepted. It gives me an edge to have
both a contractor’s view and to have been a union member for 26 years. I don’t have to refer back to National to answer most technical questions, and I can speak to contractors in their language. Also, every contractor I ever worked for provided management and supervisory training, so I have learned to be well-rounded in the trade. I am proud of and firm on being transparent and honest. I found out it is better to come clean with everything and just get it out there and handle things. Being from the union and also riding the fence all those years as management, I played by all the rules and did everything in a professional manner. I have realized contractors and the union have a different view of each other that doesn’t actually reflect reality. I have been able to help put things into perspective. I have nothing but accolades for my contractors and union members—they are so professional and have participated wholeheartedly in our partnership program, where we have emphasized trust, honesty, and accountability. I have enjoyed bringing both sides to the table as part of the Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force, because this is where we most need to be transparent and put the politics aside. The people on the Task Force are wide open for frank, honest discussion, and if something isn’t right, we hold each other accountable. Everyone there is speaking the same language, and it isn’t about money. It is about giving our people and our trade autonomy and promotion as an industry and making sure our trade is distinguished. ▪
Partners in Progress » August 2020 » 7
Residential HVAC During COVID Labor-management partnerships foster cooperation and proactive troubleshooting in the face of adversity By / Robin Brunet
Above and beyond offering their expertise and products, the main goal of residential HVAC service providers is to gain customer confidence. It’s a challenge in the best of times, but the task has assumed unprecedented proportions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when many customers wouldn’t dream of calling for home service, and even the service providers are concerned about their own safety. But although concern about the virus hasn’t abated, confidence is being restored in the residential market. And the reason is close collaboration between SMACNA contractors and the skilled workforce and partners at SMART. “Our customers are getting back to feeling comfortable having someone in their home,” says Denise Ruscetta, president of Skyline Heating A/C & Sheet Metal Inc. in Denver, Colorado. She credits this to her company observing strict protective protocol measures that were developed in conjunction with SMACNA Colorado. Nathan Cooper, executive director of SMACNA Colorado, notes that contractors and his organization working together is nothing new. “We actively develop new initiatives with our board of nine contractors,” he says. “But during the early weeks of the pandemic when we weren’t sure our industry would be deemed an essential service, the first thing we and
SMART, along with companies such as Skyline, did was advocate strongly to stay open.” This was followed by safety measures being communicated via websites and social media. “Also, to ensure safe distancing on the job, we agreed on the temporary allowance of a second shift at no additional premium,” Cooper says. “All of this demonstrated we were more than capable of dealing with the pandemic, and our confidence resonated positively with customers.” Sheet metal workers becoming actively involved in providing equipment for personal protection also contributed to a growing sense of trust within industry circles. “For instance, HVAC service provider Colorado Sheet Metal designed a touchless wash station for jobsites,” Cooper says. “Being proactive in this manner inspired confidence among workers and helped communities.” Cooper knows the benefit of a strong labor-management partnership in difficult times—when collaboration and mutual trust is essential. “SMACNA and SMART have to stick together,” he says. “We’re not majority players in the Colorado market. As such, we’re fairly scrappy. We’re not afraid to throw things against the wall and see what sticks.” After an initial period of panic, many customers in St. Louis, Missouri, became pragmatic as they realized their homes were now workplaces as well as havens, and therefore HVAC maintenance and upgrades were vital to their comfort. Welsch Heating & Cooling of St Louis, Missouri, was determined to support those people, and the company’s president Paul Heimann recalls, “We have a SMART Rebate Program involving 14 SMACNA participating members. Those members serve on an advisory panel that meets regularly with the Local 36 program advisors. During one discussion, we raised the prospect of implementing an additional $100 rebate for front line workers, and we also proposed a $400 rebate if an entire system needed replacing.” SMACNA and SMART representatives agreed it was a great idea, and the latter quickly approved the rebates and committed to funding them. SMACNA was charged with receiving and processing the rebates. “The program has since been extended to teachers and school administrators,” Heimann says. “We’ve also discussed expanding it in November to include military and veterans.” Local 26 Business Manager Ray Reasons says, “Our relationship with SMACNA and contractors has always been one of encouraging ideas, and the rebates were a fairly easy proposal to move forward.” Heimann and Reasons agree that clear and constant communication is at the heart of their good working relationship. “It’s not just about numbers or issues,” Reasons says. “For instance, when we get together, the conversation includes how our families are doing—personal matters as well as business matters.” Reasons, who spent 22 years working in the contracting
field and still keeps his tools in his office, adds, “It’s important for us to keep in mind that my concerns and the contractors’ concerns are mutual. We both want to succeed.” Robert Tuck, president of Atlas Heating & Air Conditioning in Oakland, California, reports, “We’re slowly rebuilding customer confidence after months of retrofit jobs being delayed due to our state’s shelter-in-place order. And I would give full credit to Local 104 for giving contractors constant support by way of providing PPE and consultation, and listening very intently to our concerns.” Tuck is also impressed by how SMACNA has taken a leadership role in helping members through the pandemic. “President Angie Simon has done more than anyone in upgrading COVID protocols,” he says. “She has a tremendous grasp of issues in the field and in the shop.” Thanks to SMACNA’s and SMART’s support—as well as resilience exhibited by service providers—companies such as Atlas have gone from merely hanging on during the lockdown to being super-busy during the late summer months. “None of this has come easily, and we’re operating on very narrow margins due to COVID protocols,” Tuck says. “But the point is we’re all pulling together and enduring. Teamwork is the difference between success and failure, and at Atlas there is optimism for the future. Our company made it through the 1918 Spanish Flu, and we’ll make it through COVID.” ▪ Robin Brunet’s journalism has been published in over 150 magazines, newspapers, websites, and other media across Canada and the United States since 1982. He is also the best-selling author of two books: Red Robinson: The Last Deejay and Let’s Get Frank, as well as the upcoming The Last Broadcast. Partners in Progress » August 2020 » 9
TAB in the Pandemic
The Sheet Metal Industry Steps up to the Plate By Deb Draper Photos courtesy of Fisher Balancing It is critical in any healthcare space to maintain safe, clean air, the pressure in every room precisely balanced to prevent contamination of patients and healthcare professionals. This is the work that testing and balancing (TAB) contractors perform with precision every day of the year, but in early 2020 with the COVID-19 virus sweeping across the globe, they were suddenly working around the clock to flip regular hospital rooms into negative air pressure isolation rooms in preparation for the anticipated surge of infected patients. “We have a number of experienced TAB contractors in our area that have been out there doing the work in these dangerous times,” says Pete Jenkins, executive director for SMACNA 10 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
Philadelphia. “Fisher Balancing Company especially has risen to the challenge, having previously worked in many local hospitals and being familiar with their systems. Matthew Sano, the man behind Fisher Balancing in Williamstown, New Jersey, entered the sheet metal industry 40 years ago as an apprentice in Local 19. “I worked at various shops serving my apprenticeship, and later as a journeyman, taking balancing through the union’s technical school,” he says. “I worked for some good companies, gaining experience in balancing whenever I could.” In business now for 21 years, Fisher Balancing delivers accurately balanced HVAC systems, working with building
owners, maintenance personnel, engineers, construction managers, and mechanical contractors across a broad spectrum of clients and industries, including medical facilities and hospitals. It relies on the skilled tradespeople at Local 19 for expertise in ensuring every stringent guideline and requirement is met. Previous relationships with the systems of many health care facilities enabled the company to get everything done in the frantic pandemic timeline with its regular nine-member field team, long hours, and a lot of hard work. “We were declared an essential service, and although we had to work longer hours, we didn’t miss a beat,” Sano says. “Ours is a very dedicated crew, only taking a day off here and there when necessary to decompress. It was pretty high pressure stuff. In fact, all sheet metal workers across the nation went above and beyond, stepping up to what needed to be done, providing a lot of support to everyone involved in the health service.” Jennifer Lohr is part of the Fisher team, a Local 19 member, and a sheet metal journeyperson with 13 years of training and experience in testing and balancing.
“This was an emergency situation,” Lohr says. “Your adrenaline is rushing as you use all your skills to get things done, sometimes working 24 hours nonstop. Patients were coming through the health facility presumptive positive, and we had to create negative pressure suites where they waited for test results. If positive, they moved over to the tower where we were also working. At the height of it, we needed to flip a lot of rooms at once, and so it was work until we got it all done.” Throughout all those hours, Lohr worked with a control contractor to ensure everything operated together. At most times, there was a patient in the isolation rooms where Fisher’s team was working, but they took all the necessary precautions for working in health facilities. “We used face shields and
gloves, were constantly cleaning, and following a specific procedure before contact with family at home,” Lohr says. At Local 19, COVID-19 safety measures suggested by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are stressed for every job site, notes Gary Masino, president and business manager. “We all follow social distancing practices, use hand sanitizers, sometimes wear face shields or even full tie-back suits in workplaces like health care with high exposure risks,” he says. Sano estimates that during the height of the action, the Fisher Balancing team worked in about 15 different hospitals and converted about 1,500 patient rooms, and although the emergency rush is off, there is more work to be done. “Now we’re converting rooms back to where they were,” Sano says. “In most of the major systems, we probably had twice as many rooms ready as they ended up needing, but because that work has been done, hospitals can now decide how to be ready for the next crisis. They may decide to have Partners in Progress » August 2020 » 11
TAB in the Pandemic more rooms prepared for negative pressure to facilitate an easier, quicker response time. With the proper duct and control systems in place, different control commands can more readily make negative spaces available.” Since many elective surgeries are now reopening and the CDC has recommendations about how that should be done, Fisher Balancing and its skilled Local 19 workforce is busy gathering data on airflow/changes to help facilities understand ventilation and occupancy, time needed between patients, and how much cleaning of the air has taken place. Using that information, facilities can better understand when improvements on existing equipment are necessary. Jenkins believes balancing and testing is going to be crucial in terms of making sure health, retail, and educational buildings are safe moving forward. “One lesson we’ve learned is that these kinds of public spaces are going to need newer, more effective air filtration systems—especially the negative pressure rooms, being able to switch them back and forth,” he says. “The balancers are a fairly specialized group, and I think there will be much more demand for their skills in the near future.” Masino agrees that sheet metal will be one of the few trades that will see work opportunities coming out of the pandemic. “Maybe it will be putting ultraviolet lights inside the units, or developing portable systems to depressurize rooms quickly,” he says. “There are many new ideas out there, and a lot of talk about how to better tackle the whole clean air situation.” Universities and schools are looking for information about ventilation and for data based on occupancy and spacing, Sano explains. “We’re also partnering with the casino industry. Everyone is looking at how to be better prepared, not only for now, but in the future. It’s a big challenge.” Lohr anticipates new ways of approaching building design in the future. “There was a big push for LEED, but with COVID, we had to transition a lot of systems from being economical and efficient to 100% air, 100% exhaust, all outside air,” she says. “How do we create a LEED building that can transition to higher energy use to keep the virus out of the building? It’s going to be interesting.” Lohr feels TAB is sometimes overlooked as part of the sheet metal industry. Ductwork and air systems are visible, but few think about how the ductwork is set and tested and balanced after the fact. “It is rewarding work, and I am extremely proud of what I do,” Lohr says. “This is a great career, and I recommend it to anyone considering coming into the trades who wants to be a problem-solver and a trouble shooter making the air safe, more comfortable, and more efficient.” ▪ From her desk in Calgary, Alberta, Deb Smith writes for trade and business publications across North America, specializing in profiles and stories within the hospitality, food service, mining, recreation, and construction industries. 12 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
Delighting in the possible
By Zafer Achi and Jennifer Garvey Berger Originally published at McKinsey.com Distributed for informational purposes only. Redistribution is not permitted.
In an unpredictable world, leaders should stretch beyond managing the probable. It’s only natural to seek certainty, especially in the face of the unknown. Long ago, shamans performed intricate dances to summon rain. It didn’t matter that any success they enjoyed was random, as long as the tribe felt that its water supply was in capable hands. Nowadays, late nights of number crunching, feasts of modeling, and the familiar rituals of presentations have replaced the rain dances of old. But often, the odds of generating reliable insights are not much better. Perhaps that’s because our approach to the hardest problems—and the anxiety those problems create—is fundamentally misdirected. When most of us face a challenge, we typically fall back on our standard operating procedures. Call this “managing the probable.” In much of our education, and in many of our formative experiences, we’ve learned that some simple problems have one right answer. For more complicated problems, accepted algorithms can help us work out the best answer from among available options. We respond to uncertainty with analysis or leave that analysis to the experienced hands of others. We look for leaders who know the way forward and offer some assurance of predictability. This way of approaching situations involves a whole suite of routines grounded in a mindset of clarity if not outright certainty. To that end, they are characterized by sharp-edged questions intended to narrow our focus: What is the expected return on this investment? What is the three-year plan for this venture? At what cost are they willing to settle? But asking these kinds of questions, very often legitimate in business-as-usual settings, may constrain leadership teams in atypical, complex situations, such as responding to a quickly changing market or revitalizing a privatized utility’s culture. Our tendency to place one perspective above all others—the proverbial “fact-based view” or “maximizing key stakeholders’ alignment”—can be dangerous. All too often, we operate with an excessively simple model in enormously messy circumstances. We fail to perceive how different pieces of reality interact and how to foster better outcomes. Moving from “managing the probable” to “leading the possible” requires us to address challenges in a fundamentally different way. Rather than simply disaggregating complexities into pieces we find more tractable, we should also broaden our range of interventions by breaking out of familiar patterns and using a whole new approach that allows us to expand our options, experiment in low-risk ways, and realize potentially outsized payoffs. But be warned: leading the possible involves coping with our own anxieties about an unknowable and uncontrollable world. A few simple habits of mind presented here can prod us toward thinking and acting differently. These should not be considered a checklist of to-dos; indeed, the very point is to move beyond a check-the-box mentality.
Delighting in the Possible Unexpected possibilities We relish stories of unexpected possibilities—little bets that created huge and unforeseen benefits. Twitter, for instance, was born when its creators noticed how alive and engaged they felt when communicating with each other in real time over SMS. The concept was brilliant, and the platform has reshaped the way the world communicates. But the initiative arose from brainstorming rather than an elaborate business plan. Tweeting caught on, in large part, because it grants its users freedom. In fact, Twitter cofounder Evan Williams has explained that, in general, his rule is to do less. We can’t foresee how uncertain conditions will unfold or how complex systems will evolve, but we can conduct thoughtful experiments to explore the possibilities.
That’s what happened at the birth of Emirates Airline. We’ve grown accustomed to thinking of Dubai as a major transit hub, but its development was hardly inevitable. During the mid-1980s, Gulf Air—the area’s regional flag carrier at the time—began to cut back its services to the city. Faced with the possibility of hundreds of stranded passengers in the short term and the threat of long-term decline, the government tried something new. With a small infusion of cash (by airline standards), it leased two planes with crews from another airline and converted a couple of jets from the royal fleet for commercial use. In time, the fledgling Emirates Airline flew high. Traffic through Dubai International Airport seeded a local tourism industry and, on the cargo side, a logistics platform. This in turn attracted ever more traffic in what became a fantastically virtuous cycle. Not even the most optimistic of the airline’s founders could have reasonably imagined that Emirates Airline would be an industry giant—or that Dubai would become the world’s busiest international-passenger airport. The leaders of these new ventures used unconventional approaches to try new, unexpected moves—with enormous payoffs. But it’s not just large innovations that make a difference. When people think in new ways, very small shifts can have unexpected and significant consequences. Habits of mind Uncertainty can’t be solved with past procedures; it takes new habits of mind to lead the possible. In our experience, three such habits stretch the capabilities of leaders and help them not only to lead the possible but also to delight in it. Ask different questions The questions we ask emerge from our typical patterns of thought. We focus on narrowing down a problem so that we can find a solution, but we often fail to notice that in doing so we constrain the solution and make it ordinary. Asking different questions helps slow down the process. We begin to take in the full range of data available to us and in consequence have a significantly wider set of possible options. Examples of such questions include the following: 14 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
• What do I expect not to find? How could I attune to the unexpected? • What might I be discounting or explaining away a little too quickly? • What would happen if I shifted one of my core assumptions on an issue, just as an experiment? The two of us have seen this approach applied successfully to reallife situations. For example, a government agency struggling with ever-shrinking resources and ever-increasing demands had asked two questions for years: “How will we get enough money to meet the demands?” and “Which services can we cut to stay within our budget?” The senior team, tired of running in circles searching for untapped financing streams or arguing over which core services to cut, intentionally explored a new idea: “How can we share our workload with others so that our current financing becomes sufficient without cutting back on services?” This new question significantly widened the available possibilities, and the organization set out to conduct a long series of small-scale experiments with businesses, other government departments, and community members to keep the same level of service for far less money. Asking a different question opened up dynamic possibilities. Take multiple perspectives No one can predict when or where the next vital idea will emerge, but we can support an expansive view of our present conditions. We can start by pushing back on our natural inclination to believe that the data we see are all the data we need and by distrusting our natural craving for alignment. Considering multiple perspectives opens up our field of vision. Diversity might create more disagreement and short-term conflict, but in an uncertain environment, a more expansive set of solutions is desirable. We can try these approaches: • Take the perspective of someone who frustrates or irritates us. What might that person have to teach us? • Seek out the opinions of people beyond our comfort zone. The perspectives of, among others, younger people, more junior staff, and dissatisfied customers can be insightful and surprising. • Listen to what other people have to say. We should not try to convince them to change their conclusions; we should listen to learn. If we can understand their perspectives well enough, we might even find that our own conclusions change. New perspectives often arise from unexpected sources. At a large consumer-goods organization that prided itself on its customercentric approach, the leadership team rightly asserted that it understood the perspectives of its diverse customer base and key suppliers. The team was asked whether any group— anywhere at all—“just wasn’t getting it.” Rueful laughter followed; of course there was such a group: a set of consumers written off some time ago and now never considered. Taking
a new approach, the leaders probed that group’s perspectives, not to win over these consumers or to sell them something but to learn from them. The leaders discovered the possibility of a whole new product line that slipped easily into the company’s supply chain but hadn’t been on the horizon previously. Taking multiple perspectives radically opened up a new set of possibilities. See systems This approach is about seeing patterns of behavior, and then developing and trying small “safe-to-fail” experiments to nudge the system in a more helpful direction. Leaders are best served when they get a wider, more systemic view of the present. Yet, we’ve been trained to follow our natural inclination to examine the component parts. We assume a straightforward and linear connection between cause and effect. Finally, we look for root causes at the center of problems. In doing these things, we often fail to perceive the broader forces at work. The more we can hold on to the special features of systems, the more we can create experiments in unexpected places to open up new possibilities. To best understand systems, it’s helpful to resist the urge to disaggregate problems and to solve them right away. Here are some alternatives: • We can hold opposing ideas without reconciling them. If it looks as though we’re confronting an either/or choice, we can reconsider our narrow framing and wonder what we’re missing. • We shouldn’t waste time arguing about the best solution; instead, we can pick several good but different solutions and experiment with them all in a small way. • We can give up the hunt for the root cause and instead look to the edges of an issue for our experiments. The system’s center is most resistant to change, but tinkering at the periphery can deliver outsized returns. Elements in a system can be connected in ways that are not immediately apparent. For example, call-center employee turnover is notoriously high across industries—an expensive drain on this particular system. Many managers have tried to develop better hiring practices to eliminate some of the turnover before it begins; others beef up their HR departments to deal with the inevitable churn. One leader, looking at the edges of the issue in his district, noticed that many skilled people outside the workforce care for their children or sick parents. He experimented with ways to bring these people into his call center in a flexible way: working from home, setting their own shift lengths and hours (a revolutionary idea in call centers), and managing their own performance targets. Over time, he nudged the model so that it became enormously successful. After 12 months of the new system, when the call-center staff had been ramped up to more than 200 employees, upward of 90 percent of them felt engaged with their work—a remarkable achievement in the traditionally
transient and disengaged world of call centers—and turnover fell to under 10% a year. Looking at the whole system and experimenting with (and learning from) different approaches helped the executive to solve a number of related problems: turnover, customer satisfaction, local unemployment, and even rates of depression among people who provide care for family members.
Transformative change is certain to happen, often in unforeseen ways and not necessarily led from the front. Leadership implications Of course, such shifts of mind have implications, and opening ourselves up to the delights of the possible comes at a cost. One casualty may be our cherished image of the traditional leader. The default model of a clear-minded person, certain of his or her outlook and ideas, is not consistent with the qualities that allow possibilities to flourish. In a complex world, we’re often better served by leaders with humility, a keen sense of their own limitations, an insatiable curiosity, and an orientation to learning and development. Understanding this can have significant implications. For example, a group of private-equity leaders began to chart different leadership styles required at their various portfolio companies. Eventually, they realized that CEO searches were too often based on a one-size-fits-all model. Even as they fought their anxiety about breaking the standard mold, they came to understand that fluid circumstances require flexibility. Their awareness of the very different requirements of leadership in unpredictable settings helped them select—and develop—the leaders they really needed. Transformative change is certain to happen, often in unforeseen ways and not necessarily led from the front. Unintended repercussions often stymie our best-laid plans. The world is neither simple nor static. It is patterned but not predictable. In the face of new challenges, we all default to how we think we should act and to what seems to have worked before. Managing the probable is reassuring but leaves us more open to being blindsided. Some problems do not lend themselves to rote methods, simple models, or sophisticated algorithms. When we treat them as different, complex, and uncertain, we can unlock solutions of immense creativity and power. And by exercising three simple habits of mind, we can begin to delight in the possible. ▪ The authors would like to thank Claudio Feser, a director in McKinsey’s Zürich office, and Keith Johnston, a partner at Cultivating Leadership, for their contributions to this article. Zafer Achi is a director emeritus of McKinsey’s Dubai office; Jennifer Garvey Berger is a partner at Cultivating Leadership. Partners in Progress » August 2020 » 15
Trying to stand out from the crowd? HVAC EXPERTISE PERFORMANCE TRAINING STANDARDS
ENERGY SOLUTIONS
Expertise is more than experience. It is skilled knowledge. Let your customers know there is a reason to hire you. Use Expertise logos on all of your promotional materials. Get the details at pinp.org
I-11
