Question 3.

If factors are changing rapidly, which is common in growth organizations, when do leaders find the time to “reflect” on the mistakes to make corrective action?

They have to train themselves to reflect otherwise it just doesn’t happen; they become caught up in the thick of small things.. reactive instead of proactive. I find this aspect of my career and life the most challenging. But I have learned patterns are important.

Question 2.

Reflecting on your past professional life, briefly describe one mistake you have made in your professional career. What have you learned from that mistake?

While I enjoy engineering, I believe the metals industry is a very difficult industry for the period of time I’ve been employed within in it. In retrospect some other engineering applications are more exciting with respect to new technologies and cutting edge stuff. While I’ve been part of innovations within the metals industry, it’s just not a earth moving or sexy. Metal is metal… you make it, form it, weld it and use it.

Question 1.

Look at your own organization. How has supply and/or demand changed at your organization within the past year? What factors impacted or instigated the change?

Our companies largest market segment we supply into is related to the water heater industry. With the slow down in the new home construction we’ve started to see a drop in the business. Surprisingly over 9M water heaters are sold in North America every year, with 80% of those units going into replacement usage. So another slowdown in demand is due to competition in the water heater market itself. As products are being offered with longer and longer warranty periods, it effectively pushes out the demand for product. The large retailers like Home Depot and Lowes both expect to remain competitive so if one manufacturer promotes a longer life product, the entire industry moves almost in unison.