Three Hard Truths for Leaders (And Your First Step to Fixing Them)
I’m about to share three truths about your operations. They might be uncomfortable to read, but if you’re serious about driving real change—if you’re tired of fighting the same fires year after year—then you need to hear them. Because the common denominator in most operational failures isn’t the team, the budget, or the equipment. It’s leadership.
This isn’t another article about vendor hype or technology. This is about looking in the mirror. But the good news is, the reflection looking back at you is the one person with the power to fix it. Let’s get to work.
Hard Truth #1: Your Maintenance Crisis Isn’t a Budget Problem—It’s a Priority Problem.
You say reliability is a goal, but your actions tell a different story. When the quarter gets tight, the maintenance budget is the first to be cut. When production needs to hit a number, PMs are the first to be skipped. You’ve trained your organization that maintenance is negotiable, and now you’re drowning in the consequences: unplanned downtime, skyrocketing emergency repairs, and a culture of reactive firefighting.
It’s easy to blame a “tight budget.” It’s a convenient scapegoat. But admitting it’s a priority problem means admitting that you, the leader, have been making short-sighted decisions that create long-term, expensive disasters.
The Path Forward: From Cost to Investment
The good news is that you can change this narrative today. It doesn’t require a massive new budget approval; it requires a decision. A decision to stop treating maintenance as a cost center and start treating it as the strategic insurance policy it is. When you frame it as an investment in uptime, efficiency, and predictability, the entire conversation shifts. You have the power to make reliability a non-negotiable pillar of your operation.
Your First Step: This week, block off one hour. Invite your head of maintenance or your most senior technician to lunch. No agenda, no phones. Just ask one question: “What is the one thing we’re not doing that would make the biggest difference to reliability?” Then listen. Don’t solve, don’t defend, don’t talk. Just listen. You’ll learn more in that hour than you have in a year of reading reports.
Hard Truth #2: You’re Losing the Talent War Because You Don’t Value the People You Have.
You’re panicking about the “Silver Tsunami” and the skills gap. You read the reports that 40% of the maintenance workforce could retire in the next five years. But you’ve done little to make your maintenance team a group that people are fighting to join—or to stay in. Your best technician, the one with decades of irreplaceable “tribal knowledge,” feels more like a necessary evil than a valued expert.
It’s easier to complain that “kids these days don’t want to work” than to ask if you would want to do this work, for this pay, under these conditions. It requires admitting that you’ve neglected the very people who keep your entire operation running.
The Path Forward: From Headcount to Heart-Count
This isn’t about grand, expensive gestures. It’s about consistent, genuine recognition. Your team doesn’t expect you to know how to rebuild a gearbox, but they do expect you to know their names and respect their craft. You can become an employer of choice not by outspending everyone, but by out-caring everyone. When people feel seen, heard, and valued, they will move mountains for you.
Your First Step: Go to HR and get the work anniversaries for every member of your maintenance team. Put them in your personal calendar. On that day, walk down to the floor, find that person, shake their hand, and say, “I just wanted to personally thank you for another year of keeping this place running. We couldn’t do it without you.” That’s it. Watch what happens.
Hard Truth #3: Your “Strategy” Is Just a PowerPoint—You’re Not Actually Executing Anything.
You have a beautiful operational excellence strategy. You have binders full of process maps and dashboards overflowing with KPIs. But go down to the plant floor, and what has actually changed? Nothing. Your strategy is performative. It exists to impress the board, but it has no teeth. And your team knows it’s a joke.
Execution is hard. It’s messy. It requires sustained focus. It’s much easier to live in the world of ideas. But admitting your strategy is a sham means admitting that you have failed in your most fundamental duty: to translate vision into action.
The Path Forward: From Grand Plans to Small Wins
The fact that your strategy is just a piece of paper is a gift. It means you have a clean slate. You can build credibility and momentum by starting small and proving that this time, things will be different. Real change doesn’t happen in a single, massive transformation; it happens through a series of small, consistent, and celebrated wins.
Your First Step: Print out your one-page strategy summary. Walk down to the plant manager’s office and ask, “If we could only do one thing on this page this month, what would have the biggest positive impact on your team’s life?” Circle it. Then, in that same meeting, book a follow-up for next week with the team lead for that area to kick it off. You’ve just gone from idea to action in under 15 minutes.
The Path Starts with You
These truths aren’t meant to be an indictment; they’re meant to be an invitation. An invitation to become the leader your team and your organization deserve. The good news is that real change doesn’t start with a multi-million dollar investment or a massive restructuring. It starts with a single decision. It starts with one small, deliberate action that signals to your entire organization that this time, it’s different. This time, you’re leading from the front.
Pick the truth that resonated most. Not because it made you uncomfortable, but because it sparked a flicker of recognition. That’s your starting point. You don’t have to solve it all today. You just have to take the first step.
What’s your first step going to be?