About Mike Johnston

Over the past 40+ years, I have had the privilege of working with, and learning from, a number of talented and inspirational managers.  (I’ve also worked for a few duds, who shall remain forever nameless.) I learned at least one valuable lesson from each of them, and over time incorporated those lessons into my personal management style.

I have worked mostly in manufacturing, but also in distribution and hospitality. 

Shortly after graduating from college, I got a job as a shop foreman in a manufacturing plant, overseeing a team of union employees assembling heavy equipment. It was a highly dysfunctional environment and labor-management relations were strained, to put it mildly. As a young manager in a difficult situation, I made a lot of mistakes.

At later points, I was a restaurant manager for two national chains. Both jobs required that I attend their prescribed management training programs. Those programs taught me some basic lessons about managing people, inventory and budgets that have served me well over the years. (If you ever want a real-time lesson in operations management, try running a busy fast food restaurant during a Friday lunch rush. You learn immediately if the plans you put in place were correct.)

For the past 30 years I worked for Cummins Inc., a Fortune 200 manufacturing company, as an IT manager and director. There I was responsible for managing people, projects and budgets; developing strategies and action plans; and helping individuals and teams solve problems and get results. Over time I managed numerous small projects and several large, global programs. With my teams, I confronted and solved all manner of problems – technical, process, and sometimes personal.  We succeeded more often than we failed – our batting average was pretty good – but in those failures we often found lessons that (sometimes) helped us avoid a repeat mistake. 

I could have buffed up my background here, eliminating the mistakes and missteps – just like we do on our professional resumes. But I want to make a point that, no matter where you are on your journey as a manager, you’re going to make mistakes. I’ve made them at every stage of my career, and expect to continue to make them. The key is to learn from the mistakes and move forward.

The artist and educator Errol Gerson suggests that we should “embrace the word ‘FAIL’ – which is nothing more than an acronym [for] ‘First Attempt In Learning’, and is often accompanied by the word ‘No’, which…means ‘Next Opportunity’.”

As managers, we’re all on a journey, headed for our next opportunities. I look forward to learning with you and from you in the weeks and months ahead.

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