Purpose Starting to Take Shape

After more than a decade of leading the behavior-based safety process in my home facility, supporting other plants across North America with their processes, having a hand in other various Lean Manufacturing initiatives, and helping out with multiple human resource functions, I had the opportunity to move into a full time HR role. While that was yet another lateral(ish) career move, it would offer a kind of experience I just wasn’t likely to get in the safety field. For that reason, and a few others I won’t take the time to hash out here, it was time to make such a move. After all, a role completely dedicated to a human resources department in an organization that size appeared to fall right in line with that purpose I had gotten a glimpse of; having a hand in the intentional development of our human resources - the people we worked with.

I’ll circle back to that piece about intentionally developing the human resources shortly. First though, I need to share what was without a doubt the most gratifying thing I had experienced in my career to that point. Like most positions within the organization, the behavior-based safety position that I was stepping away from was posted internally. Because so many folks who were involved in the process had stepped up to help however they could while I was out of the plant supporting other locations, no less than six of them were completely prepared to fill the role. The one who was finally selected, after a few intense rounds of interviewing since there were several great candidates, built on the things I had put in place and made the process even more effective.

Over the next several years, nearly every member of the team that had worked closely with me in that behavior-based safety process during the decade I was responsible for it accepted promotions of some kind. Seeing a direct connection between being able to share just some of the things Cindy and I had learned as we worked to keep ourselves employed and my friends applying them to grow in their own careers offered a bit of proof that the purpose I had gotten a glimpse of was indeed worthwhile! And moving into a position where I should be able to focus on growing and developing the company’s human resources seemed like it would fall right in line with that purpose…

Before throwing my name in the hat to be considered for the HR position, I had a conversation with the fellow who had managed our local department for years before taking a position at the corporate level. I won’t go into everything he shared but the part that resonates still today was him asking if I was prepared to focus on primarily compliance-related tasks for the remainder of my career. I didn’t give it much thought at the time because I was still elated about the chance to develop our human resources…

The couple of years that followed are still a bit of a blur. As I shared previously here, as well as in What’s KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!), hiring 225 new employees for that location made up less than half of the work I was responsible for in the last eighteen months I worked there. The rest of that time was stretched thin in several directions but none of that was dedicated to developing our human resources like I had hoped. My next two positions were with different companies, but the focus remained far more on compliance with rules and regulations rather than building the people within the organizations. At that same time, Cindy provided me with the nudge I needed to open our next door of opportunity that would help us begin honing our purpose. We’ll pick up there soon…