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Management Side
Week of 19 January 15: Resources

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When I observe employees in mills today casually discussing problems, I see them behaving in much the same way as we did forty years ago. They seem just as lost on where to turn for help, just as confused on the path out of the current dilemma, just as mixed up when seeking a verifiable answer to a question.

This astounds me.

Forty years ago, if we were lucky, we had something of a library on our mill site. It was stuffed with books about papermaking, vendor resources (catalogs and paper directories), and so forth. In reality, it wasn't usually very good, so perhaps you could be forgiven if you started a sentence with, "What do you think will happen if we..."

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Today, resources are everywhere. Your phone, tablet and computer come to mind, of course. They give you access to resources unheard of just ten or twenty years ago. Heck, we spend day and night here at Paperitalo Publications just thinking up new resources for you--that is our job. In fact, to avoid turning this into a commercial, I'll just give you one reference: www.paperitalo.com.

Actually, this is just a continuation of our discussion a couple of weeks ago about the "Confederacy of Dunces." For no matter how much technology changes, how much information you have at your fingertips, if you don't change your behavior, you are just as helpless as ever.

What to do? If you find yourself caught in one of these endless circle discussions, have a trigger in your mind to break out of it. Instead of spending time jabbering in the hallway, spend that time in front of a computer researching what others know about the problem you have. I'll caution you, however, not just to read one potential solution--read several--and then use your education to sort out what makes sense.

As usual, I sometimes find people performing better outside their work environment than in it. We were over at a neighbor's house a couple of weeks ago watching a football game (no, I haven't suddenly become a fan, Laura dragged me there). Brent Musburger was on the screen. I casually said to my neighbor, "Gosh, I wonder how old he is getting?" He picked up his phone, and said to it, "How old is Brent Musburger?" Faster than you can read this, he pointed his phone to me and showed me the answer--75.

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Now, I am not saying you are going to solve your pulp or papermaking problems quite this easily, but the answers are not much further away.

It is the behavior change that will make a difference in your performance personally, then on your production equipment. Stop walking around in a daze. Stop participating in group dazes. Check the resources at your fingertips.

What are you favorite resource locations? Please tell us in our quiz this week.

For safety this week, there are many resources available on line to better prepare your safety team. Start searching and start using them today.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

You can own your Nip Impressions Library by ordering "Raising EBITDA ... the lessons of Nip Impressions."


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