I remember a senior exec walking into my office and preaching that we should take Asset Management more seriously. As the weeks and months went by, we approached the time of year when bonuses were decided. No surprise, the exec realised his measures (mostly lag) would affect his potential bonus, and as they say, “water runs to the path of least resistance”, which it did, and that was the last time I heard those two words from him again. To take an asset management approach, you need to invest. This takes courage and leadership.
One interesting thing about Asset Management is how hard it is to find someone who disagrees with its principles.
Most people support better lifecycle decisions, risk management, and sustainable value.
That is, until those principles challenge the way their department is measured.
Consider a maintenance manager being asked to improve asset reliability while simultaneously reducing maintenance expenditure. Or a project manager rewarded for delivering a capital project on time and budget, with little accountability for its subsequent operating costs.
Both may be performing exceptionally well against their individual objectives. Yet together, their decisions may work against the organisation.
This is one of the less obvious obstacles to adopting Asset Management.
We often talk about breaking down silos, but perhaps we should first ask what keeps those silos in place.
Performance measures, budgets, delegated authorities and reporting structures all influence behaviour. We cannot reasonably expect people to adopt a lifecycle perspective when their incentives reward something else.
From an Organisational Change Management perspective, this is not simply a communication problem. It requires examining the conditions that shape decision-making.
Asset Management asks us to optimise value across the organisation. That becomes difficult when everyone is busy optimising their own piece.
The question worth asking: Are we rewarding people for achieving organisational objectives, or simply their departmental targets?
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