Why Hope Is Not a Strategy—And How You Can Replace it on the Manufacturing Floor

There’s a four-letter word you shouldn’t use on the manufacturing floor: hope! While hope plays a valuable role in life, relying on hope can slow productivity, increase the risk of safety issues and other problems, and negatively impact the way you show up for your team and organization.

But how can you eliminate hope from your operations, and what should you do instead? As a former war correspondent, speaker and author Shawn Rhodes knows firsthand why hope is not a strong strategy for finding success and avoiding disaster—and he came onto the Mindfulness Manufacturing podcast to share actionable tips for replacing hope in your operations and organization.

Replacing Hope, Tip #1: Change Your Mindset

To remove hope from your operations, start with your own mindset. Instead of hoping everything works out for the best, take action to ensure you get the best possible outcomes. To do this, assess your situation and identify areas where you’re relying on hope. Then, take action to replace hope. For example, if you have a part that needs to be repaired, address the issue and get it fixed or replaced instead of hoping the part won’t break.

Replacing Hope, Tip #2: What Can I Do Differently?

If you want to change your mindset and find ways to eliminate hope in your processes, take some time to reflect on previous failures or setbacks. What caused the issue? If you could go back, what would you do differently? Hold yourself accountable and take ownership as a leader, and you can find new success through looking at your past setbacks.

Replacing Hope, Tip #3: Have the Courage to Take a Pause

In manufacturing, it may feel impossible to take a pause or shut down operations to address an issue. But if you have the courage to step up and hold yourself and others accountable, you’ll address small issues before they cause bigger problems down the line. While it may feel hard or even counterintuitive to a small pause, it can actually save time and resources in the future.

Learn More on the Podcast

To learn more about changing your strategy and mindset to replace hope, listen to Shawn Rhodes’s episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing here.

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

When a mistake occurs on the plant floor, your mind might jump to one question: who caused this issue, and should I write them up for their mistake? But there’s a more productive approach you could be taking—and in this episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing, guest Dr. Jake Mazulewicz breaks it all down!

With a background as a firefighter, EMT, and military paratrooper, Jake knows the challenges of high-hazard industries, and works with organizations to reduce errors and create safer, more reliable workplace environments. In this episode, Jake shares why you can’t procedularize everything, including the way you handle errors and accidents, and offers great insights and stories about how to use connection and curiosity to improve safety, address errors, and strengthen your organization.

3:35 – Procedures and policies are the work that is imagined, and on the floor is how the work actually gets done

4:19 – The work as-done is almost always radically different than the work as-imagined

5:20 – Even when you have standards and people show up wanting to do a good job, you can still see issues that need to be addressed

6:44 – There will always be areas that absolutely need to have procedures in place

8:02 – There are also adaptive jobs, which leans less into procedures and more intro troubleshooting and tacit human knowledge

10:56 – In an ideal environment, both mechanistic and adaptive models are used and respected and needed

12:11 – There are four levels, ranging from strict procedurals to looser guidelines that show what to do, but not how to do it

15:36 – Tacit knowledge gets shared through conversations

16:22 – A way to share important information is to have frontline experts record videos sharing their insights to problems, especially those that are not covered in procedures

19:44 – Through conversation and connection, more knowledge is shared

21:58 – Debriefing also plays a central role

23:45 – If you have strong discipline, you’ll find more freedom

25:31 – In most situations, errors are signals, not defects

27:07 – When an error occurs, be curious and find the deeper cause of the problem

Connect with Jake Mazulewicz

Find him on Linkedin

Visit his website