Leadership Lessons from the Horse’s Mouth

Leadership, mentorship and continuous improvement go hand in hand, both in the dressage arena and on the electronics manufacturing floor.

One of my most popular articles last year was focused on leadership lessons my mare was teaching me. Prim is still delivering teaching moments, so I thought it was time for another column.

The journey we’ve had this past year is distinctly different from last year because we’ve moved from the forming, storming and norming stages of team formation into a well-functioning team. That point really got driven home at our last show in Scottsdale, when a judge who scored us at 47 last year at the same show gave us two 66s on more difficult tests. In the warm-up ring before those tests, I was thinking about how different the warm-up ride felt because the dynamics that had been sabotaging our previous show weren’t present. What changed? There were several things:

We practice precision. Precise, repeatable geometry is important in dressage just as repeatable processes are important in the EMS. Last year, we were like a production team that does stuff on the fly and course corrects when the test department sees a spike in defects. This year, we focused on eliminating all variation from our process, studying video to make sure we hit the correct marks every time. This analysis showed me that my memory of the test was faulty and we were transitioning late at two points in tests. Now, instead of assuming my memory is good enough, I review my test geometry before every test. The parallel in the EMS world is DfX and NPI checklists.

I pay attention to team quality of work life. Prim is an integral part of my team, and while she can’t talk, watching her behavior tells me what is and isn’t working. She worked better on the simpler bit my trainer was using with her than on the bit I’d chosen, so we switched bits and had better connection. She also was pawing more at competitions as we were tacking up, so I switched supplements to improve her gut health while traveling. The pawing stopped. The parallel in team building is listening to the team’s preferences for meeting process design, tracking system integration and frequency. Creating a stress-free environment goes a long way in developing a well-functioning team.

We respect each other. I’ve had Prim for two years now. She has tested me, and most of the time I’ve passed. I’ve also set expectations on appropriate work behavior and reward good behavior. The result is that we both know our roles in the dressage court, and we work well together. Work teams need the same elements: mutual respect, boundaries, goals and rewards.

There is one other lesson I learned in my journey this year that I think is worth sharing. Last year, I was the only person riding Prim. This year, I’ve been mentoring a junior rider who was cleaning stalls to afford lessons at our barn. This process paid two dividends.

First, I got the joy of watching a really talented and hard-working equestrian live her dream at regional competitions on Prim. Second, the exposure to a second rider was great for Prim. It gave her variety and broadened the disciplines we are working on, because both the junior and Prim enjoy hunter classes, as well as dressage. Sadly, I no longer bounce well enough to do much jumping.

These lessons didn’t stop at the barn. The junior wanted to shadow me at work as she starts college in the fall (with a four-year equestrian team scholarship) and is exploring majors. We spent a day discussing my consulting business and the EMS industry. One of her biggest concerns was choosing a career that AI wouldn’t negatively impact. One of the career fields we discussed was EMS program management.

While I believe we will see AI and automation increase significantly in the EMS industry, including in program management, I also think the customer-facing role of most EMS program managers will remain necessary.

A few weeks after our shadowing session, she came up to me in the barn and told me she’d been studying program management roles in more detail. She’d decided she needed to get a Scrum Master certification because Scrum Masters made more than program managers, and if she was going to afford a horse later in life, she was going to need to make a lot of money. I love seeing a young person think through career strategy at that level.

She also plans to seek out summer internships and work-study opportunities to both test whether her career plans make sense in terms of work-life quality and build the relationships she needs to be employable once she gets a degree. She’ll be a success in whatever she decides to do because she has the intelligence, focus and work ethic to succeed. In many ways, being her mentor this year was the most fulfilling part of my journey with Prim. I highly recommend finding a young person to mentor. The EMS industry needs to be recruiting the next generation before they go to college.End of article content

Susan Mucha is president of Powell-Mucha Consulting Inc. (powell-muchaconsulting.com), a consulting firm providing strategic planning, training and market positioning support to EMS companies and author of Find It. Book It. Grow It. A Robust Process for Account Acquisition in Electronics Manufacturing Services. She can be reached at smucha@powell-muchaconsulting.com.