Look What You Made

There are certain words that apparently cause immediate concern at our factory.

“I have an idea.”

I discovered this again one Friday morning when I phoned a colleague about five minutes before arriving.

“I have an idea.”

There was a small pause.

“Oh no. What now?”

Poor man.

The idea, for once, was actually quite simple.

Put Tanky on the factory floor.

Tanky is my white Tank 300, and she wears parts our team makes. We were having a special morning. The team had worked incredibly hard, the factory looked magnificent, and we had a chance to stop for a moment and recognise the people behind what we are building.

Tanky had other plans for her appearance.

Earlier in the week, the Gauteng cold front and rain had made sure she looked considerably more like she’d just come back from an adventure than a corporate display vehicle.

Fortunately, the factory is essentially her second home these days.

The guys gave her a quick wash to remove the worst of the evidence, and onto the factory floor she went.

That five-minute decision ended up becoming one of my favourite parts of the morning.

Sometimes you need to see the whole thing

In manufacturing, we spend a lot of time talking about processes.

Drawings. Cutting. Bending. Welding. Grinding. Fabrication. Fitment. Finishing. Quality.

A component moves from one person to another and eventually becomes part of something much bigger.

But when you work on one piece of that process every day, it can be difficult to see what you’ve actually created.

That morning, it was standing in front of them.

Our Tank. Wearing their work.

A bumper somebody had fabricated. A bracket somebody had made. Something somebody had welded, fitted, adjusted or finished.

Suddenly it wasn’t a drawing or a component lying on a workbench.

They could walk around it. Touch it. Look underneath it. See how everything fitted together.

And, importantly, see that the things they make don’t simply disappear out of the factory door.

They go somewhere. They get used.

And Tanky gets used

Tanky is probably not the world’s most pampered demonstration vehicle.

She gets muddy. She gets scratched. She drives dirt roads, climbs over rocks, carries camping equipment and occasionally returns to the factory needing somebody to crawl underneath her and investigate whatever her humans have subjected her to this time.

The guys know her now.

She arrives and there is inevitably a bit of looking, touching and inspecting.

What’s happening underneath?
New bumper?
Everything okay?
Need an adjustment?

Nee wat. We’ve got this.

And I love that.

Because she isn’t only a showcase vehicle. She is part of our development process, and she lets us see our products doing what they were designed to do in the real world.

That morning, though, she did something slightly different.

She helped connect the finished product back to the people who made it.

Look what you made

Watching the guys standing around her made something click for me.

We spend a great deal of time in business telling people what still needs to happen.

The next order. The next deadline. The next problem. The next improvement. The next target.

There is always another thing.

Sometimes we need to stop. Turn around. And say:

Look what you made.

Not what management made.
Not what the company made.
What you made.

Those hands built something.

That skill matters.
That attention to detail matters.
That pride matters.

And the person standing at a machine or welding bench deserves to see the finished result and understand where their contribution fits.

How we show up matters

There is a new board hanging in the factory that says:

17 Small Actions. A Big Difference.

Here are six of them:

Be on time.
Give your best effort.
Own your mistakes.
Help your teammates.
Look after your tools.
Take pride in the work you deliver.

None of those things is revolutionary. That’s rather the point.

Companies aren’t built only through enormous strategic decisions made around boardroom tables. They’re built through hundreds of small things done properly by people who care about what leaves the building.

Three things I’m taking from that morning

1. Show people what they made, not what’s still to do.
2. Say “look what you made” to the person, not the company.
3. Small things done properly build companies.

That morning reminded me of that.

It also reminded me that sometimes leadership isn’t another meeting, another spreadsheet or another speech.

Sometimes it’s putting a slightly muddy white Tank on the factory floor and giving people a chance to stand beside something they helped create.

No PowerPoint required.

Although my colleague may now be developing a nervous twitch every time my name appears on his phone.

Sorry about that.

I probably have another idea...