Daily Deliberation: 2 October 2019

Pride in ownership takes a few ingredients.  I found this out through a program I tried creating in my unit, which immediately fell on its face as soon as it was enacted.  It was meant to encourage maintainers to take ownership in their aircraft.  One component to its failure was organizational structure and culture–it didn’t support pride in ownership.  Production in the aircraft maintenance community is very top-down and mechanical.  Jobs and assignments are often dictated.  If we are constantly telling our people what, where and when to do things, how can we hope to get their buy-in to such a concept?  It first requires communication of ‘the big picture’ and the team’s objectives–frame the situation–let them get creative with how to make it happen, ownership will follow.