MRO Today - Have you become obsolete?

Have you become obsolete?

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I am honored that MRO Today magazine selected me to serve as a coach and mentor. Any claim to fame that I have rests on my abilities as an educator and leader in the National Association of Purchasing Management. As such, I will offer advice in MRO Today and greatly look forward to interacting with you, the magazine’s readers.

One of my ongoing concerns is that many of us aren’t upgrading our skills and capabilities to keep up with our changing profession.

Our professional literature includes many references to rapid change, and obsolescence of knowledge, machinery, facilities and technology. Even we as people face obsolescence at increasing rates.

For example, take these two tidbits of wisdom from the August 1998 “Bresnahan’s Shorts,” a newsletter printed by the Bresnahan Group.

The first tidbit is very short term. Indeed, it is upon us. It warns that “90 percent of your current job knowledge will be obsolete by the year 2000.”

The second is longer term, but just as unnerving. It says, “50 to 60 percent of the jobs we’ll be doing in the year 2010 are unknown today.”

These two statements should cause us all considerable concern.

How then do we prepare to best meet these challenges?

Most of us think we are too busy concentrating on our current tasks. But, we know change comes more and more rapidly and job pressures continue to grow.

Is there a set of alternatives that will help us face the future?

Fortunately, the answer is yes.

More and more, we are like Egyptian mummies — pressed for time.

Only five things can help us with the time constraint. These involve our colleagues at work, our families and home life. Everyone should be interested in our long-term success.

First, we need to understand time management. We can study the process individually or in groups to increase our efficiency and eliminate “time-wasters.” We must be diligent when we examine our personal time to eliminate time-wasters and establish new priorities. For too many of us, self-development has been the 15th priority on a list of five high-priority habits.

Second, we have to rethink our work processes and eliminate tasks that are non-value-adding. For example, most of the work we do as gatekeepers is non-value-adding work. Much of the routine work of the purchasing process can and should be quickly eliminated to make way for more important, value-adding work.

Third, we must rethink the organizational relationship processes that take a great deal of our time. For example, we must eliminate short-term, arms-length relationships with suppliers that have us repeat the same processes month after month. Replace these with longer-term processes.

Much of what we do is the result of history (“we have always done it that way”). That was OK years ago, but it kills you now. We must get out front and lead the change to better processes that create value!

Fourth, we need a personal objective for self-development. Each of us should set aside a period of time each week for study that leads to new capabilities. This effort can take many forms, but you cannot start until you have an objective and have brought your time under control to provide the opportunity for study.

Some companies set self-development time objectives for us, but most do not. Regardless, we should have our own tough but achievable published objective — 40 to 80 hours per year.

Fifth, self-development must become a habit. Habits are easy to form, and once we have one, it’s very difficult to break. To start the habit of self-development, we have to announce we’re doing it, do it persistently for a while, and enjoy it at least partially. Soon you’re hooked as a practitioner of personal self-development.

If you do these five things, your job knowledge won’t be obsolete and you may just be one of the leaders that create those new jobs by 2010.

Anyone can do these things, but not many really try. It’s up to you! NAPM can and will help you in this change process.

Robert Kemp is a consultant, speaker and the former president of the National Association of Purchasing Management. He can be reached at .

This article appeared in the June/July 2000 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2000.