Lessons In Leadership (CONT’D FROM PAGE 26)
what could go wrong, it’s going to go wrong,” Murray said. Be Flexible It may seem counterintuitive to planning, but the mili- tary also teaches its leaders to be flexible with the ability to adapt. “We have a saying in the military that the best laid plans, the best most beautiful plan, never survives first contact with the enemy and it’s really true. The other saying that kind of goes with that is that you can make this beautiful plan and tie it up in a bow and put it out there to brief on PowerPoint slides and it sounds great, but the enemy al- ways gets a vote in that plan. “At our plant we always say that Murphy always gets a vote.” Something breaks. Materials don’t show up. What do you do when this happens? Murphy said his teams are comfortable with adjusting their plans to keep things mov- ing forward. If you are solely locked into one plan and un- willing to adapt, you are going to fail, he said. Complacency Kills The consequences of human complacency are not fun to talk about, but Murray said it is probably the biggest lesson he learned in the military. It can literally kill people, he said. “In our industry, I will argue that human complacency can become department complacency can become orga- nizational complacency can become ‘Hey, we’re the best, that’s as good as we can do.’ “And it can kill a company, it can kill organizations and for a lot of us that are small, that’s a big deal, and it’s some- thing that I believe personally is our biggest enemy all of us have because it’s internal, it comes from our people. "We can put all the process and procedures and tech- nology and machinery and software and all that great stuff into place, but behind the wheels of all of it is people, and if our people are not focused and holding on to that wheel, things start coming off the rails. I think it’s something that we continuously have to reengage in as leaders in our in- dustry, just as much as we do in the military.” Murray said the leadership at his company is always on the lookout for the indicators of complacency. Often these show up in the form of having quality issues more frequently. “Truthfully it is much harder to control complacency in this industry than it is in the military,” Murray said. The military has a finishing line. Their head needs to stay in the game for a 9- or 12-month mission. In the pack- aging industry, there is no finishing line. It’s 24/7, 365 days a year, Murray said. “We need to see the indicators when they’re coming and we need to be able to get out in front of it because once it becomes toxic and it becomes cancerous and it spreads, it can do a lot of damage to organizations.” Murray served in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Afghan-
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November 7, 2022
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