Train Your Replacement

I have noticed in the work force over the many years and several different positions and departments I have worked in, that people love to have job security. People want to have guaranteed hours and their position. This creates security and enables them to ease their mind knowing what they can expect to be doing day in and day out and what they can expect in compensation for the work performed. Most people get comfortable and they like comfortable. Are you one that is in the continuous comfort loop running on auto pilot just getting through the monotony of the day? If you are, I have bad news for you. You will not get anywhere, and you are more likely to get replaced sooner or later. You may already experience lack of fulfillment in your work. You are not growing. You can spot a trend with individuals that are stuck in the loop. Eventually they will transfer to a different department where it will eventually turn into another loop, or they may quit or get fired. You may feel you are stuck in that loop. There is a way out and I will tell you the best way to remove yourself from this tiring cycle.

How do you defeat the tiring cycle of continuous monotony? Train your replacement. You may be asking yourself, “why would I do that? I like my job and it pays the bills!” I would like to refer you to my other discussion called ‘Honesty in Leadership’ where I go over being honest with yourself. Let us get something straight, if you liked your job, you would not be here listening to what I have to say. So yes, train your replacement now let me explain why that it is probably the smartest and most important thing you can do.

Great leaders and individuals that have excelled in their careers practice this technique. When you pass all your knowledge over, you are not just helping someone else progress, but you are progressing yourself. Don’t worry about someone else taking your job from you and losing your secure position. You can learn as much from them asking questions as they can learn from you, and you can grow together. When you grow, your company grows, and most companies recognize the individuals that make growth happen. Are you confused at this point? Let me explain further. I will give you an example of how using this technique helped me level up.

First, I am lazy in nature. I will not deny this because I am honest with myself. I will work my tail off just so I can have some down time to take it easy. I cover more of this in ‘Make it easy to Take it Easy’. We lost an entire department of seven due to things I should not mention. I was then transferred to the department considering I had cross trained a little and had some knowledge of the operations. It was tough at first and I had a lot of trial and error and constant learning. In the meantime, I was training new people. Most of them couldn’t withstand the hard labor and I was constantly doing everything while training people. My lazy mindset began to set in within a few months. I was not making it easy to take it easy and I decided I would change my approach. At this point I had been promoted to the manager of the department. I oversaw three employees at this time. I did not see the reasoning for having seven employees working anywhere between fifty-sixty hours a week. It did not make sense to me. I decided the only way to retain employees and have quality work was to pass my knowledge over to the crew. This was out of pure desperation; I was tired, and I did not care if someone else took my position. A part of me almost wished that I would be replaced because the responsibility and turnover rate was becoming overwhelming.

I began having mini meetings every morning explaining how things worked and why we performed tasks in certain order. I chose a new topic every morning along with safety precautions to be mindful of depending on the topic we were discussing that day. I would ask for input and questions. To my amazement I was getting a great response and the crew became more interactive. If an issue presented itself, they would come to me. I would gather the other members of the crew and I would explain the issue, possible causes, and possible solutions, then I would ask the crew what they thought. This was the best thing I could have ever done. They would throw ideas at me, and I would explain why that would or would not work. The crew fed off each other’s ideas and came up with variations to suggested solutions. After we discussed everything, we found the best solutions that was comprised of all our ideas. Soon enough, they would come tell me about an issue and offered their solution to correct it. They would ask if their solution would be okay to perform. This was great. I didn’t get involved. I just had to listen and grant them permission to fix the problem as they saw fit. This freed my time up to develop standard operating procedures, daily and weekly schedules, and research things to improve the department. It got to the point at our mini meetings I would not hand out duties for the day, but I would ask them what their plan was for the day. Without skipping a beat, they would have tasks prioritized to what I would suggest needed to be accomplished that day. I would work on my own projects and my crew would kick me off my own projects because they completed all their projects plus some for the day. They were excited to do more work.

This made everything run smooth and we created quality products in less amount of time. The customer service was exceptional, and we had a record producing year. Labor was cut in half. We were able to upgrade machinery and give good raises. I never lost my position, but we grew individually and together. I eventually got promoted to a higher position due to all my efforts and was able to hand over a smooth operating department to someone else. What happened to my crew you may ask, let us just say they are have moved up themselves and are taken care of to this day at work and at home. They still confide in me, and I still confide in them. Their value continues to grow.

You see, when you share your knowledge and help others grow, you grow, they grow, and your goals grow. There is no way you lose. Even if you were replaced, you helped someone else excel and that will be paid back in mysterious ways and in abundance. So always train your replacement and you will be recognized, looked up to, and open doors you never dreamed of.