{"chapter_no":"8","chapter_title":"A New Type of Leader","book_id":"3","book_name":"Springville","subchapter_no":"0","page_no":"423","page_number":"1","verses_count":0,"total_pages":6,"page_content":"

 <\/p>

Chapter 8<\/p>

A New Type of Leader<\/h1><\/p>

 <\/p>

Mark meets the <\/i>v<\/i>ice <\/i>p<\/i>resident of <\/i>m<\/i>anufacturing and settles into his new job––He goes out into
the work centers of the plant on foot every day, carefully watching over the operators, the machines, and
the supervisors—He leads the<\/i> plant to <\/i>higher<\/i> levels<\/i> of excellence.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

Mark returned to work that following Monday. In the time he’d been away, the newly
hired vice president of manufacturing had started work and was set up in Mark’s old office. The
new office for Mark was ready, having been quickly constructed by the facility maintenance
workers in the last few days, with things from his old office moved in as best they could. His
first task was to get organized in his new surroundings. Overall, he liked it; the new office was
large enough and nearly as comfortable as the one he had had before. <\/p>

 <\/p>

After getting settled in, he made his way up front to meet Robert Thain, his new boss.
Thomas and Robert sat in the office talking together as Mark approached. Thomas jumped up
quickly from his chair to introduce the two men. There had been tension between him and Mark
in prior weeks, but Thomas now seemed more at ease, probably because his new management
team was in place and his transformation plan was well underway. He wondered if Mark would
be comfortable in his new role.<\/p>

 <\/p>

“It was good to have a few days off,” said Mark. “I like my new office. It should do
nicely.”<\/p>

 <\/p>

“That’s great,” replied Thomas. “So how do you feel about your new job. Is it going to
work out for you?”<\/p>

 <\/p>

With a warm smile, Mark answered, “Yes, Thomas. It'll take me a few days to adjust, but
I'm actually looking forward to it.” <\/p>

 <\/p>

Mark paused, and then cast his eyes down to the floor, showing humility and deference to
both men. <\/p>

 <\/p>

“I hope to do an excellent job and make both you and Robert proud of me,\" said Mark.
\"I’ll help you guys take this business to the next level.” <\/p>

 <\/p>

Thomas instantly beamed with a smile.<\/p>

“That’s fantastic! I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that!” Picking up some of his
papers, Thomas moved towards the door.<\/p>

 <\/p>

“Okay then, I’ll let the two of you get better acquainted. Robert, you can update me later
on everything you need once you're settled in. Leave a message with Jean to set up a time with
me when you’re ready. My afternoon is free after 3:00.”<\/p>

 <\/p>

“Thanks, Thomas. I’ll give you a call later,” said Robert.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Over the next two hours, Mark and Robert discussed the new direction of the company
and some of the goals that were now set for the Provo plant’s production lines. Mark found
Robert to be a very likable person, and while he had impressive experience and credentials like
Thomas, his personality and style seemed closer to that of Peter. To the delight of Mark, he
discovered that Thomas and Robert would be involved right away in a series of high-level
projects for the owners, including the acquisition of a new company, so they would have little
time to focus on the Provo plant going forward. It was, therefore, Thomas's intention that Mark
be put in charge of implementing the new business strategies for the plant. He would report to
Robert and keep him updated in much the same way as he had done for many years with Peter as
the plant manager. Things were looking brighter already! <\/p>

 <\/p>

In the days that followed, Mark worked his way into the new job. All of the work center
supervisors reported to him as before, so there was no change in that respect. Greg was no longer
there, having moved on to his new position, so Mark would need to handle all of Greg’s former
duties. But that wasn’t really a problem since Mark had been the one to train Greg in the first
place. Robert would handle all administrative tasks of the manufacturing department, as well as
the more ceremonial aspects of the job, including customer and vendor visits. Mark’s time was
freed up to oversee the daily manufacturing processes at the plant. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Thus, Mark had been newly called to the work. He would go out and about the work of
the plant every day, to work alongside the operators, the technicians, and the supervisors of the
work centers. His example on the job would be important to inspire others on the new business
philosophy. <\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

He quickly saw the obvious parallel in his new assignment to what he had seen President
Hancock doing every day in the North Ogden Stake, except that the work here was more
technical and business-oriented in nature. He saw that through the reorganization of the plant,
and his reassignment to a new position, the Lord was providing him an opportunity to better
learn the techniques of hands-on supervision, a skill set that could serve him well as leader of the
Springville East Stake in the building of a prototype of Zion. The plant was giving him the
opportunity to test out the concepts of the five-dollar lawn. He would be like President James
Hancock. He would be the young boy cutting the lawn of the Countess, working hard every day
to achieve the impossible dream<\/span>. <\/p>

 <\/p>

As the catalyst for the ideal at the Provo plant, Mark hoped to launch a new era of
excellence in manufacturing. His first action was to begin regular one-on-one meetings with each
operator in the plant, starting with day shift employees. He met with six operators per day, <\/p>

averaging thirty minutes per visit. With three hundred operators in the plant, this allowed him to
meet with each one at least once per quarter and four times per year. The visits with operators on
day and swing shifts were done within their regular schedules. To meet with the operators who
worked on graveyard, Mark came in to work a couple of hours early a few times a month. It was
his desire to build a personal relationship with each operator––to become familiar with their
daily tasks and their strengths and weaknesses, and as part of the interview process, to spend
time carefully watching them operate their machines to see how best to help them in their jobs.
He wanted to learn everything he could about them in their job performance. He gave them a list
of things to track and improve upon, things that were then rolled into the annual review process
with their direct supervisor.<\/p>

 <\/p>

At first the operators were apprehensive. Here was a top executive of the plant regularly
dedicating time to look at each of their individual processes on the production line. Obviously,
even for only ten or fifteen minutes at a time, there was a little pressure to avoid making
mistakes as he watched. But soon, as the operators became more familiar with Mark and had a
chance to meet with him and understand his goals, they became more comfortable having him
around. They saw him more as a helper––someone they could ask for assistance at any time. He
was an extra resource, a friend, a counselor, a supervisor, an advocate, a trainer, a person who
could help fix things on their machine when a tech wasn’t available. He was there to assist in
solving any kind of problem at their workstations and to help them do their jobs better<\/span>.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Walking through their work centers several times per day, his influence was greatly
magnified beyond the quarterly one-on-one interviews operators had with him. Before, he had
been their manager, but now he was their leader. Being among them regularly, his presence was
reassuring and comforting in a way. The operators could see that they were no longer alone
anymore in what they were doing. One by one, he helped the operators increase the pride they
had in their work. His goal was to improve the performance of each operator and, thereby,
improve the performance of the plant as a whole. He was not there to undermine nor replace
work center supervisors in their daily responsibilities; rather, he was there to help the supervisors
as well, to build upon the good skills and knowledge each of them had already and to teach them
through example how to manage and how to lead. The supervisors watched what he did closely.
He reviewed customer work orders regularly with them and sometimes even personally walked a
high priority order to the next work center when it was complete. He reviewed with them the
hourly output of the machines, the inventory of raw materials, and the operator schedules for all
three shifts, working alongside them in the trenches every day. <\/p>

 <\/p>

In this way, the plant slowly began to change. Small improvements were noticed almost
immediately in every work center, but it was not long––only six months after Mark had started
working in his new role––before major improvements were being seen in the plant overall.
Mark’s knowledge of the processes, his ability to inspire and lead others, and his presence on the
production floor all day long was quickly becoming the greatest asset of the business. <\/p>

 <\/p>

For his part, Mark learned many new things about the factory that had escaped him
before as the plant’s sitting executive manager. In the visits and interviews he did with operators,
he had a chance to watch their individual processes carefully for several minutes at a time.
Seeing something amiss, he would go up to the machine, either by himself or with the help of a <\/p>

tech, and adjust settings or tell the operator to do something slightly different. The operator
would then continue, and he would watch further. At other times, when he saw no particular
problem, he would talk with the operator to see what he could learn and to find out whether he or
she had come up with any new ideas for improvement since the last time. It was a process of
perfecting the imperfect, working one-on-one with the operators and the work center supervisors.<\/p>

 <\/p>

He supervised every detail of the plant operations on the floor––the machines, the
operators, the flow of labor steps, the supervisors, the materials, and the computer systems.
Everything in the plant was under his careful watch. He was always on the lookout for the big
problems and the obvious things, and then, once identified, he would follow through to make
sure they were fixed, and that they stayed fixed, checking afterward that the supervisor had
updated the process documentation. The greater improvements in the plant, however, came
through his identification and correction of the hundreds of very small and subtle problems. Each
small item by itself was not significant, but line upon line, and day after day, there was a
cumulative effect—a tightening up of many small individual processes was occurring. These
smaller improvements led to improvements of the larger processes of the plant, as well as those
at the top level of the business<\/span>.<\/p>

 <\/p>

In some cases, he found that problems occurred even when machines were properly tuned
and the operators were carefully following the labor steps as defined by the engineers; in other
words, the manufacturing process was being executed properly, but the design of the process
itself needed review. <\/p>

 <\/p>

In the past, Mark had always been hesitant to discuss design problems with the
engineers—the engineers tended to be very busy and took a long time to resolve problems. But
that was probably not the main reason for his hesitation. It was his pride that had usually gotten
in the way of asking for help. He was sensitive about his lack of engineering knowledge and tried
to avoid any situation where it might be noticed. This had been one of Mark’s greatest
weaknesses as a manager and also as a human being—insecurity about his lack of formal
education. It had led to some of the current problems being experienced at the plant (ones
quickly noticed by Thomas), because he had often tried to solve things using Band-Aid fixes
done by the manufacturing technicians rather than taking such matters to the engineering group
for a more thorough review.<\/p>

 <\/p>

But all of that had now changed. Mark no longer felt embarrassed to ask for help from the
engineers. He let them know when he didn’t understand something and, in a sense, behaved in a
more humble manner towards them rather than trying to avoid technical discussions with them as
before. The humility he had demonstrated in his relationship with his bosses had now been
extended to his relationship with the engineers. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Initially, some of the engineers enjoyed teasing him a little bit, recalling that in the past
he had often avoided asking for help from them until it was too late... and only after a serious
problem had occurred. In that respect, they were correct, and Mark had to apologize and take his
licks. But soon the engineers themselves were humbled—humility among all employees being
one of the keys to success that was now driving change in the plant. They could see the
marvelous change that was taking place and wanted to be a part of it. They had learned to better <\/p>

appreciate Mark for the knowledge and understanding he had of the factory's machines and
process flows in spite of his limited schooling. He had thirty years of experience. He knew the
operations on the floor better than anyone. Mark, therefore, increased in popularity, even among
the engineers. He worked closely with them every day, was someone they could bounce new
ideas off of, was valuable in providing quick feedback to them on their designs, and was a key
player in management to help them get approval on new projects.<\/p>

 <\/p>

After twelve months, the implementation of the new business strategy was fully engaged,
and changes were occurring at a rapid pace. In fact, the plant was beginning to operate at a level
of efficiency that had never been seen before. Momentum towards excellence in manufacturing
was building, bringing with it an excitement and a sense of self-fulfillment felt by almost every
employee. While it was too late to save the product line that was being closed down, there was,
however, a brand new product line almost ready to come online. Mark worked out a plan with
management to train those persons targeted for layoffs to work on the new production line.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Initially, Thomas had thought that many of his new initiatives were the cause of this
dramatic improvement—improvement over and above that of a factory that had been quite
successful already. But as he dug deeper, as he was prone to do, he could see what was really
going on. Greg had implemented the scrap tracking system as expected, but had quickly run into
the same problems as before. This time, however, Mark was there every day, watching closely
over the implementation of the new system among the operators, just as he watched over
everything else in the plant. He provided quick feedback to Greg, helping to make the integration
smooth and with minimal disruption to the operators. Thomas soon realized that his own ideas
and management philosophy were a part of the change, but only a small part; indeed, it was
Mark and the wonderful spirit about him that was creating the real transformation in the plant.
He was executing Thomas’s business plan perfectly, and to a level of implementation he had
never seen before in all his years. Thomas was delighted and, ultimately, like the engineers,
humbled by the success they were having. He was seeing something new—a prototype of the
ideal in manufacturing supervision and process execution. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Over the next two years, Mark had become so highly regarded by Thomas and Robert
that they decided to loan him out to the production facility of the new company they had just
acquired. His role was to teach them the concepts of the Provo plant. Mark, in a sense, worked to
clone himself and his successful management techniques to the person holding the same title in
the other plant.<\/p>

 <\/p>

In the final analysis, the increased profits and growth in business value of the Provo plant
were heartily received by the owners, Frank and Ellen Dannehy. The plant was the most valuable
of all their investments and, also, the one of which they were the most proud. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Appearing at the company Christmas party, the Dannehys unveiled a large painting as a
gift to the factory. Mark had often made reference to the story of the five-dollar lawn in his
meetings with the operators, hoping that they, too, might catch the same vision. The gift of the
Dannehys was along those same lines––a commissioned painting of the plant viewed from the
main street outside with the front lawn exquisitely cut like that of the five-dollar variety. In the <\/p>

years ahead, it would hang prominently in the front lobby as a reminder to everyone of their goal
as a company.<\/p>

 <\/p>

As for Mark, he had never been happier. The Spirit seemed to accompany him almost
everywhere he went in his daily tasks. Like Joseph of Egypt, the Lord had blessed him and
prospered him in all his works.<\/p>

 <\/p>

The amazing operating results of the company were a great accomplishment, but
ultimately, the true harvest was in the happiness and the improvement in the lives of the people
who worked at the plant. Machines, processes, profits, and wealth have no end in themselves. At
the end of the day, it is the people and how they live their lives that truly matters in business<\/span>.<\/p>"}