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SMT007-July2020

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64 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2020 Matties: Part of leadership is looking beyond today and knowing where you're headed and why. It's also about knowing what to expect when you get there and navigating the waters that you're currently in. It sounds like you have a balance on both of those and a good handle on it. Berntson: Thank you. One of the questions in this whole discussion is, "What's our plan? What are we going to do?" I had to tell every- one that, "The only plan right now is to stay nimble." This market has become so much more vola- tile and so much more dynamic. I've been able to use this to keep the company much nimbler. We may have adopted this out of necessity, but it's good for the company and each of our indi- viduals. Once they get over the anxiety of hav- ing to stay flexible all the time, it has a reward- ing component to it. Matties: Obviously, you're pushing this think- ing from the very top to the very bottom of the organizational chart. Do you foresee this changing your manufacturing methods as well? Berntson: It could. It can speed the pace of inno- vation because we have gotten accustomed to change. People talk about how change is hard, and people resist change. Oftentimes, they're referring to explicit change objection or a desire not to do something different. But there are an enormous number of subconscious barriers to change and innovation that are hard to even see. It's just the momentum of life. How do you diffuse knowledge, and then have people hear it? Because people have a more height- ened sense of alertness—we need to pay atten- tion, be alert, and think about our own behav- iors and what's going on around us—it creates an opportunity for those subconscious barriers to change and become less rigid. How does that affect our manufacturing environment? To change and innovate in man- ufacturing requires a whole bunch of people to be willing to change things in an environment that hates change. If you talk to any of my customers and say, "We're innovative. We're changing things," they're going to freak out because, in our industry, no one wants any- thing to change. But they still want everything to be cheaper, better, faster, and higher per- forming. Dealing with that is what we need to do well in manufacturing. It comes back to the first thing in crisis man- agement: again, communicate openly and fre- quently and with candor and transparency. That's what you do when you get hit with the barrier of someone not wanting to accept change. You just talk through what this change means. "Why am I saying this? What's the reason behind it? What's the driver? How does this create value for the company or for the customer? Go back to first principles—why do we exist?" Try to create meaning in the change. The obvious next question is, "You do all that

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