This session by Terrence O'Hanlon addresses the chronic problem in the industry: why up to 70% of isolated, a la cartereliability implementations (like FMEA, RCM, or condition monitoring) fail to generate sustainable, identifiable business success after three years.

O'Hanlon asserts that the secret ingredient is leadership, stating unequivocally that "Leadership creates culture, and culture delivers performance."

Key Strategic Insights and Inquiries:

• The Missing Metric: O'Hanlon challenges leaders to ask: "What's the metric you use to measure your reliability culture?" He stresses that reliability is not a technical problem; it is a cultural one, and if you don't manage the culture, the culture will manage you.
• The Trim Tab Concept: The strategy for change is to shift from focusing on performance ("pushing on the front of the ship") to focusing on leadership ("the trim tab"), which is the low-leverage point that moves the entire organization.
• The Reliability Foundation: The four fundamentals of the Uptime Elements framework are required for sustainability: Integrity (Do what you say you'll do, not morally, but for business performance), Authenticity, Responsibility, and Aim (Work for something bigger than oneself).
• The Stand and The Declaration: Drawing parallels to the American Declaration of Independence, O'Hanlon urges leaders to create a Declaration of Reliability—a powerful speech act that creates a future free "of the tyranny of failure."
• Reliability for Everyone: Every single person in the organization has a role in reliability. The biggest opportunity for improvement is through inquiry—asking employees "Why reliability?" and "What's your role in reliability?"—to invite them to contribute and feel listened to, especially those closest to the asset.
• The Safety Parallel: The session uses stark safety statistics (470 industrial maintenance worker deaths vs. 127 police deaths in 2016) to reinforce the need for a non-negotiable stand: Zero Harm and Reliability for Everyone or Reliability for No One.

O'Hanlon concludes by urging the audience to stop rushing for answers and instead stand in the inquiry, allowing new insights to emerge from their own teams.

Closing Keynote Terrence O'Hanlon
Maximoworld 2019. Reliability Leadership