As we launch the Uptime® Elements Digitalization Strategy Framework that is featured in this issue, I would like to share the context for the system of creation that I have cultivated and nurtured over the past 20 years that brings work like this into existence.

In this case, the work grew from the original Uptime Elements Reliability Framework and Asset Management System™. The new Internet of Things (IoT) Knowledge Domain originates from so many ideas, so many people, so many conversations, so much thought, so much work and so much care from so many people. I encourage you to read the article from the incredible team of reliability leaders that were directly involved in this work.

A reliability leader is someone who creates a new future that was not going to happen anyway. The alternative is to simply accept the default future that we all know will show up if we do not do anything different.

Creating is not exclusive to the likes of Einstein, Shakespeare, Lennon, Ford, Van Gogh or Edison. Creating is the gift given to each of us as humans, although the day-to-day whirlwind can often make accessing the capability seem remote. It is easy to forget the times when we have tapped into powerful parts of ourselves to call forward new possibilities in our lives. In the work I do, this is called “the domain of generation.”

I have been working and living as a reliability leader for the past 40 years. Much of my work has been split between creating, developing or sharing my new ideas and approaches to advance reliability and asset management, while also enabling and empowering many others to advance their own creations and ideas. Empowering and enabling the possibilities for those around you may seem counterintuitive if you have your own work to do, but like most things in life, the obvious is not always obvious.

The only things you get to keep in life are the things you give away. Be proactive and generous in providing support for other people’s projects, and what you will discover is that there will be plentiful support for your own projects. Be scarce with your support, and you will discover scarcity for your own.

Clarifying a Created Future

As a reliability leader, we learn to create contexts that leave us empowered and enabled. In the Certified Reliability Leader^® workshops, the context we are speaking about that leaves us empowered and enabled is a “created future.”

It is the “created future,” a high reliability future, that we, and the people we are leading, come to live and work in. This future gives us “being” (as in “being a reliability leader”) and “action” (as in “doing reliability leadership”) in the present that realizes the “created future” (the future that “wasn’t going to happen”).

Where can you find candidates to empower and enable for a “created future?” 

I find candidates everywhere I go and in everything I do because I am committed to listen for them. My ears are finely-tuned to distinguish between those committed and the complaining clods who expect the world to care about their ailments, and who expect value to be delivered to them on a silver platter. You know, the ones who are victims of the current set of challenges and circumstances versus those who are willing to create value for themselves, not waiting for it to be created for them. I search for the ones who take a stand for something and live in the future that creates with integrity. I can spot them a mile away! That is who I support relentlessly and unconditionally. You can find them everywhere and anywhere in your work, as well as your life.

Inspiring new projects, giving away my own ideas, providing support, offering pro bono start-up support and stretching my own capability and thinking by working with people who know more and are MUCH smarter than myself are all ways I lead opportunities and possibilities. Look for opportunities to give things away. 

Give away your leadership. Give away your support. Give away your time. 

Give away your work. Give away kindness.