In the recent Community of Practice (COP) session between Process Engineers, I shared some lessons learnt of one of our major engineering in-house studies we did. When I flashed this overall project timeline, I asked the COP quorum, what is your first impression when you look at this timeline?
“3 years! OMG: It took you so long!”
Exactly.
“Korang ni buat engineering study ke, buat rumah ni?”
Reflecting back at this unacceptably long duration, it made me come to a brutally rude awakening: this kind of performance is why our clients lose trust in us. This is why many of our internal clients always prefer outsourcing than doing things in-house - track records like this.
By our actions, we are fundamentally opposing one of our Cultural Beliefs: Nurture Trust.
Now, looking back, it seems like we had many justifiable excuses on why we were late: multiple simultaneous jobs, shortage of engineering and forecast data from other ongoing teams, prioritization of other urgent tasks, lack of disciplined, formalized tracking, constantly changing client info, etcetera.
But if we are being really honest with ourselves, and taking it back to our first Cultural Bellief of “Results Matter”, at the end of the day, as far as Results go, the bottom line: It's just too long.
If our contractors did the same, we would not consider it tolerable or acceptable, and we would have probably declared them to be “non-performing”.
This was a difficult bitter pill to swallow, especially because this project was our baby, and if I were to look at the deliverables alone, I am actually very proud of what we accomplished 100% in-house. I personally gained so much learning and competency development from the work, especially from the awesome contribution of my team members, Florence and May Yun.
But I learnt that if we want to gain true wisdom from our experiences, we can only extract holistic life lessons when we are willing to admit our faults and learn from them.
Justifications and excuses don’t solve anything. They only give us a false peace of mind to wipe away the uncomfortable feelings of accountability. “Bagi sedap hati”.
For me, this project was a major lesson in one often overlooked aspect of integrity: consistency in high standards. “Would we accept if our contractors were to deliver with this performance?”
Why, when it comes to our contractors, we place strict requirements to overperform, but when it comes to our own deliverables, such as failing to submit reports or get them approved on time, why do we tolerate mediocre performance?
Why is it, when it comes to our own tasks, we sneakily “shift the goal post”, but when they fail to meet deadlines, we bring out the sledgehammer, refuse to pay them, and unleash our client fury upon them?
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said,
فَإِنَّمَا أَهْلَكَ النَّاسَ قَبْلَكُمْ أَنَّهُمْ كَانُوا إِذَا سَرَقَ فِيهِمُ الشَّرِيفُ تَرَكُوهُ، وَإِذَا سَرَقَ فِيهِمِ الضَّعِيفُ أَقَامُوا عَلَيْهِ الْحَدَّ، وَالَّذِي نَفْسُ مُحَمَّدٍ بِيَدِهِ، لَوْ أَنَّ فَاطِمَةَ بِنْتَ مُحَمَّدٍ سَرَقَتْ لَقَطَعْتُ يَدَهَا
“The nations prior to you were destroyed because if a noble person amongst them stole, they would excuse him,
and if a poor person amongst them stole, they would apply the Legal Punishment to him.
I Swear, by Him in Whose Hand Muhammad's soul is, if Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad was caught stealing, I would cut her hand!” (Narrated by Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
Integrity is about more than “not accepting bribes” and “being truthful to what time you punch in”. It’s about your consistency to the values and principles you ascribe to, and taking responsibility for them without blaming external factors.
Finally, what I learnt also is that for an organization to thrive towards sustainable continuous improvement, it needs to allow a safe, trusting environment to share lessons learnt of past failures and mistakes without being penalized, so as to note create a culture of learning, not that of finger-pointing, and sweeping the issues under the proverbial rug.
At the end of the day, we make mistakes, sure – just admit them, learn from them, move on and share: To practice generosity, swallow our pride to authentically share these lessons with others, so we do not get stung twice.
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