For many of us (well, for me at least) some of the best leadership lessons come wrapped in pain. This paper mill, New Zealand's largest, was the site of some of the biggest mistakes I made in my career. Consequently, it was also the site of the fastest personal growth in my career.
The story
I arrived in New Zealand in mid-1996. My initial job was to run the pulp and paper manufacturing operations of Carter Holt Harvey. Later, I took on full P&L leadership for that business group.
When I arrived, the company was contemplating a US$200 million investment in the mill, in order to reduce costs, improve quality and increase output. I eagerly dove in, helped sell the idea to the Board of Directors, and then began implementing the project.
We soon ran into time and cost over-runs. And proceeded to struggle for two years before we achieved design output on all aspects of the plant. I spent most of those two years living in a hotel near the plant, struggling with the team at the mill to find solutions, and writing weekly reports to the Chairman of the Board about our progress.
In the end, we triumphed. But only after far more time and money than it should have taken. And only at the expense of much of my credibility with the parent company.
What went wrong?
Many things went wrong, but I'll focus on how I blew it, because that's what generated my personal growth.
I bought into the internal hype that I was some kind of great, North American paper maker, sent to help the New Zealanders understand how it was done. (Boy, was that ever arrogant of me!) When people brought up concerns about the project, I was much too quick to squash them, believing (wrongly, of course) that I knew better. In fact, the local paper makers were outstanding.
I was eager to please my superiors, and therefore stifled some of my own concerns in the planning phase.
When I did agree with concerns raised by plant engineers, I was not terribly effective raising those concerns with people above me.
We failed to conduct a rigorous Potential Problem Analysis on the project, and therefore missed some opportunities to prevent problems that later bit us.
We took on too much change at once. In addition to a massive investment project, we installed SAP, reduced the number of people on staff, dealt with Y2K issues, and attempted to create a high-performance work system.
When things did go wrong, I was slow to ask for outside help.
What was the result?
In the end, we got the plant running at design capacity and cost. However, it took 12 months longer than it should have, and many millions of dollars more than budget. I sacrificed two years of my career to fixing my mistakes, and my reputation suffered.
AND
I became a much better leader because of it.
Here's what I think it takes to learn from such painful mistakes:
Admit your screw-up to yourself. How broadly you admit it beyond that may be up to you, but you must admit it at least to yourself. If you don't own up to your responsibility for your mistakes, you cannot learn from them.
Fix your mistake. Eat what you cook. Most of my lessons in this case came in the second painful year, as I stuck it through to try to fix the problem. And it was only as we found solutions that I could clearly see the mistakes I had made.
Once you have fixed the mistake, figure out what you did wrong, and how you can do it better next time. Get advice from others on how you might have handled it better. Even if it's painful, take this advice as the gift it is. Focus first on what you must learn from the mistake. If there are lessons for others, worry about those after you have learned your own lessons.
Decide what you will do differently, and commit - publicly - to those changes.
[Photo downloaded from the Carter Holt Harvey corporate website.]
