From Rock to Millstone – 5 Years at Cummins

May 24, 2018 – Columbus, IN

I’ve never been with one company for more than four years, until now. This month marks my five year anniversary at Cummins. Five years ago I was a shiny new MBA with a vague idea of my new job at Cummins, a company I had only known a few months while doing an internship. I thought I was so valuable; little did I know what makes an asset valuable.

The Rock

During my interview days I could articulate which of my attributes would add to a company’s talent pool. When I was recruited to Cummins I felt special. I was that new rock found by the river bed ready to be added to a child’s rock collection. I thought: “Look at me! I am a special rock.” I could do any assignment, and doing what I was assigned was in my mind the transaction for my talent.

Thankfully I had good managers that could take a rough rock and make something useful with it. My value was not in my current talent. My value was in being malleable enough to do any job that was required of me.

The Transformation

In the past five years I have been through great transformations; the greatest transformation has been in the past two years. I changed from a malleable talent to a value yielding asset. I went from a rock in a collection to an efficient millstone. Don’t think it was easy or that I knew what was happening. My pride had to be put in check. My intelligence had to put into question and so were my skills. I had to allow feedback to know which areas I needed to improve.

There were two significant events in the past five years that have marked my transformation. Five years ago my father traveled from Guatemala to attend my graduation in Provo, Utah. His health quickly deteriorated due to diabetes; two years ago he passed away. My lifelong cheerleader was gone and I had to truly prove myself. The second event came two and a half years ago when I had been re-deployed for the second time in three years. I was assigned to be the project manager for a very large project. My role for the previous years was also project manager, but this role would truly stretch me. It was during this stretch assignment that my father passed away. I have to admit that I failed at my assignment. Gratefully I had a kind manager that was frank and pushed me forward. Both events happened on the same year, and that was my turning point from rock to millstone.

The Millstone

I have felt so much empowerment over the course of the past two years. I have lead several successful projects. I was promoted last year. I have taken extra responsibilities outside my normal work. I have even seen an improvement in the way I conduct my personal finances, my non-work assignments, and an overall purpose in life. I am grateful to my many managers that have guided my path in by both example and deed. I am especially grateful to my eternal companion, Debora, for always believing in me even when I didn’t; you are my support. Lastly I am grateful to Cummins for creating the right environment for a stumbling rock to become a millstone.

Looking forward I am optimist of what I can contribute to this organization, the community, and my family. I cannot be content with being a millstone. I will be a millstone maker.

 

Photo by Wil Stewart on Unsplash
Wil Stewart

My 3 Seconds of Fame

I guess we don’t need much to feel proud.  Cummins made this video on Technology and Innovation, I appear for a full 3 seconds at 0:50.  I really liked the video, but I love my 3 seconds 🎉🎉🎉👏👏👏

25 Years of the Ram – Cummins Co-Brand

Can you believe that it has been 25 years since Cummins joined forces with Chrysler on the Ram brand.

I recently attended MATS in Louiseville, KY and saw the history of the Cummins – Ram co-branding, but also many other co-branding partnerships.

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This is a Western Star truck using the Transformers brand to drive traffic to their booth.

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This is a Freightliner truck with a Cummins Natural Gas engine. This truck uses CNG, notice the big CNG tanks in the back. Each one of those cilinders cost about $40,000. Again an example of a co-branding, using the expertise of Cummins for the engine, and the Freightliner brand for the truck.

NTEA Truck Show

First Year at Cummins

Having officially signed my yearly review, I can say that I have completed my first year at Cummins. I started in May, so my first year is only of 8 months of work. I will not bore you with the details, since most are internal work I have been doing, but will frame my activities as Stop, Start, & Continue evaluation of my work.

Stop

  • Wasting time in low importance activities
  • Making poor food choices during the work day

Start

  • Developing new skills through established on site training
    • Project Management
    • 6Sigma Training
  • Networking more
  • Participating in Affinity Groups at work

Continue

  • Focusing on results
  • High quality work
  • Being involved with recruiting: Student Information, Intern Mentoring, Job Placement, and New Hire integration.

Love What You Do

I can’t say that I enjoy working on engines, just go and see my car and you will know.  I have never changed the oil in my car.  I did change the breaks in my car once in college, and later found out I put them wrong.  I like the tough of mechanics, but I have so little knowledge that I just never do it.

Now I work for Cummins, a company that makes engines.  Most of the people that I interact are mechanical engineers.  The other day I asked someone if they had a mechanic that could help me with something in my car, he looked at me funny, thought for a bit then said: “I’ve never taken my car to a mechanic.”

But despite my limited knowledge on the line of work that the company engages in, I love what I do.  I enjoy making plans and developing strategies to complete the work.  I love learning about engines and how they operate.  I can’t imagine the work that goes into creating some of the machines that Cummins produces, some are so big and complex.

My hope is that as time progresses I will be able to learn more about the products Cummins produces.  I want to take some classes that will teach me about engines and get my hands dirty.  Recently I traveled to Houston where we have a plant that focuses in the Oil and Gas Market.  It was fascinating the engineering work that goes into some of the products that are manufactured in that plant.

I guess in the end what matters is loving the sphere in which you operate.  Those engineers working on those engines, need people that create the business plans that will allow them to continue the work they do.  I love what I do, and I’m trying to do my best.

Multinational teams – Are they doomed from the start?

Jeane Brett in her book, Negotiating Globally,  writes the following:

Teams bring essential resources to big, complex tasks. Teams can produce creative ideas, meet deadlines with quality products, and negotiate decisions that generate corporate growth and prosperity. Research shows that when team minorities dissent, majorities are more likely to generate original and novel solutions to problems. Organizations grow faster when top-management teams engage in constructive debate. Companies with top-management teams that engage in debate have a higher return on investment. Cross-functional, new-product teams are more innovative when they have a lot of disagreement about task design if they have a norm for open expression of doubts or if they engage in collaborative problem solving. Constructive controversy, the open-minded discussion of opposing views for mutual benefit, appears to be the key to creating value during multicultural team decision making.”

As I’ve spent last year and this year working with groups that come from different backgrounds and different countries I can see the value in multicultural, multinational teams.  Continue reading “Multinational teams – Are they doomed from the start?”