Deja Vu

I stood on the production floor, watching in awe, as he worked! In my opinion there was no other person like him!

He literally rolled up his sleeves and did what they were doing.

Periodically, he would step away and scribble a note on his pad…or take a few measurements…

He was on the hunt! I knew it and the floor knew it!

What was more exciting was that we knew that what came out of his presence would be better than what is happening now!

He was never happy with “status quo”…and as a result, we too were not happy…it was contagious!

After a seemingly short period of time, he moved from the fray and grabbed my arm…”I have enough!” he proclaimed.

We walked back to his office…a comfortable setting that, in some ways made it a “safe room,” a place where thoughts could be freely shared without criticism. I often wondered if it was the room…or him that made it that way!

He sat at his desk and tucked his notes away…

“…This is what’s wrong…” he explained…

“…This is what is doing…” he continued…

“…This is what it is doing to the rest of the organization…” he concluded…

“This is what we can do to fix it!” he suggested…

I listened, and thought…”Cause – Effect – Impact! He always talks in those terms! It is only after he has stated those three critical aspects…does he make his recommendation”

I smiled…just being privy to watching him perform was reward enough!

He was a brilliant statistician…one of the best I have ever met in my narrow frame of existence…but I knew that he was at the very least…at the top of his field!

He could take a miniscule number of samples…observe things for a while and draw conclusions that that were keenly accurate…

In the beginning, his observations and conclusions were often challenged. Then hundreds of hours and dollars were spent to analyze oceans of data…only to find that he was correct…or at least accurate enough to have drawn that same conclusion… the skeptics soon quit challenging him...

I wanted to be able to do that!

Given the events of today and the fact that from all appearances…he looked like he was “done for the day…” I decided that this was a “coaching moment!”

“How do you do that?” I asked…

“Do what?” He responded…

“Find the answer to issues that have been plaguing the floor for years in a matter of hours!” I said in return…

“…It is really nothing” He said, “…It is simple…I fixed something like that years ago! Today was nothing more than been-there-done-that-before!”

“…I simply stand out there until that moment of déjà vu!” He smiled…

“DANG! I thought…it is going to take me years to get me to that point in my career…one where I have had so much experience that it seems to repeat itself!”

“…I bet you are thinking that you’ll never get that much experience…” he chided “Aren’t you?”

“Kind of…” I replied…

Leaning back in his chair he said, “…It doesn’t take a thousand or a hundred or even ten experiences to get to the point of déjà vu!”

“Then what?” I asked…

“ONE!” he smiled…”Come on…I’ll show you!”

And off we went…