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Reaching your potential - The impact that influence, mentoring and life events can have on your career

When I decided to leave Rolls-Royce after more than half my lifetime of work, a deeply respected colleage, Phil Elliot, gave my socially distanced and Teams enabled leaving presentation. He pointed out to the audience that it was no mean achievement going from apprentice to Senior Fellow in the best engineering company in the world and that as such I had truly met my potential. I thought it was well worth reflecting on what had influenced my career and work ethic. The following is a real "Heart on my sleeve" story….

The things that influenced me most and drove me on in my career have really come down to interactions with other people. When someone you respect offers encouragement or you go the extra mile to recover from a major setback when you feel you have let someone down can be seminal moments. Even if you don’t realise it at the time. I would say that there were three such events in my life where although I didn’t immediately realise it, spurred me on to achieve my potential.

My mother had been robbed of the chance to see her children become adults and go through life’s big events – graduation, marriage, careers, grandchildren to name but a few. In turn, we were deprived of a mother to turn to when we could really have done with the knowing advice. I always like to think that there were also children who missed out on being taught by her where she would have made a real difference to them. I did get a very nice note once (from someone on “Friends Re-united”) that she had taught saying that, if it wasn’t for her influence, he would probably have turned to crime and been in jail by now.

I had left school, a Scottish comprehensive, three years earlier with (just) good enough grades to get a place on the Mechanical Engineering degree course at Glasgow University. My father was an Engineer and Naval Architect up to that point in his life. In best stereotypical tradition I had always wanted to be an Engineer just like him. Having said that, I really got my attitude to people from my mother. She was always caring, could see the best in people and gave them the benefit of any doubt. She wanted the best for everyone and encouraged self-improvement. At that time she was really pleased to see me taking a major step toward my ambitions. Both my parents were very proud of me. So far, so good!

I had found school work relatively easy and just scraped by with the minimum of effort. University however was a different matter. I struggled getting to grips with advanced calculus and as a result my maths and physics exam results were dreadful. By the time I had started to apply the necessary effort it was too late. To cut a long story short I was kicked out at the end of 1st year after failing to pass my key subjects despite two attempts.

At the time of my resits I was working a summer job at the John Wood Group Valve and Pressure System division in Peterhead which was led by Charles B Ritchie. Charles was a larger than life character. He was born and raised near the fishing port of Fraserburgh and by all accounts couldn’t read or write until at least half way through his teens. Yet here he was successfully running this moderate sized business. What stood out for me was that Charles championed his workforce and continued learning. He used to tell us that a day was not wasted if you had learned something new. He held learning sessions when unusual jobs came into the workshop and would make sure whoever did those jobs would share knowledge with the rest of the team. He would often ask people at random what they had learned that day and you had to have an answer.

On the news that I had been kicked out of university, I had an audience with Charles to ask for a full time job. I really liked his attitude and better the devil you know….. even though it would mean living well away from home. He offered me an apprenticeship but strictly on the proviso that I went to college on day release to get my HND qualifications. Charles’ other mantra was simply that education was not a substitute for hard work. In his eyes some people he had come across obviously thought otherwise. I definitely got my work ethic from that time in my life.

When I was about half way into my apprenticeship, my mother, who had been undergoing cancer treatment reached a point where she needed more help and care than my father and sister were capable of giving and I moved back to the family home to help. As the daily commute to Peterhead was near impossible, Charles arranged for me to move to a different division of the Wood Group to complete my apprenticeship, Prime Mover Maintenance (PMM), in Aberdeen which was very close to home. PMM overhauled Rolls-Royce Avon industrial gas turbines and that was where my connection with jet engines started. Soon after moving home my mother elected to stop her treatment as she couldn’t cope with the pain and extreme nausea caused by the Chemotherapy. She died within 6 months.

At the time, it never really dawned on me how young she was 40+ seemed relatively old to me. I was consumed by the thought that she had died disappointed with me. I had failed to have fulfilled my potential simply because I hadn’t worked hard enough to get through my university exams. I was a drop out and was, instead, serving my apprenticeship. My conscience had been pricked a bit over a year earlier. One snowy and windy November morning, I was in a ditch at St Fergus gas terminal making up huge pipework joints with hydraulic spanners with my chargehand, George. It was an utterly miserable task given the weather that day. George, who was into his 50s said to me something along the lines of “Look son, you’re too smart to be stuck doing this the rest of your life. Get yourself back to university or you’ll still be flogging bolts in a wet ditch when you could see so much more of the world”.

With George’s words and the determination to show my mother that I could reach my potential, I made an appointment at Aberdeen University admissions office during the Easter break to see if I could get a place on an Engineering course. Within an hour of that appointment, I had a meeting with a professor and following than an offer to go straight into 2nd year; provided I got the HND results. With the necessary HND result in the bag, I resigned from Wood Group the day I finished my apprenticeship and worked my backside off to get my degree. I worked every vacation period to fund myself including a 4 month stint drilling for oil in the swamps of Louisiana. The hard work paid off and I got a 2:1hons and narrowly missed a 1st. The fact that I had served my apprenticeship turned out to be a huge blessing as it greatly helped my learning. I could relate the theory to the things I’d seen and worked upon and that really helped.

The year I graduated the price of oil dropped to around $11/barrel and the bottom fell out of the oil industry in Aberdeen. What I thought was a sure career in oil and gas just wasn’t available. My time at PMM then stood me in good stead. I interviewed as a direct entrant engineer at Rolls-Royce in East Kilbride and easily got the job as I could recognise a miriad of failure modes and what would cause them when presented with broken and damaged parts. That summer, I had my 1st proper holiday since my mother had died and started work refreshed and determined to do well.

I duly started as a Development Engineer on the Military Spey team. On my 1st day, I had one meeting put in my diary. That was with my Chief Engineer, Dick Beckett. Dick was another larger than life character. He asked me if I knew what I was being paid to do? Engineering of course, I replied. Wrong, he said! He went on to tell me that he was paying me to “make decisions”. He went on to say that no matter what job he gave me it was expected that I would investigate the problem, look into solutions and come back with a clear recommendation and the underpinning rationale (in case he wanted to question the conclusion) of what should be done. Wow, I thought! I couldn’t image having that much trust put in me on day one. That talk still resonates with me today.

From then on I set out to do my best. I made sure I learned something new every day and having worked out the problem or opportunity, offered the solution and the how to deliver it as part of some great teams. That day one advice stood me in good stead throughout my 30+ years at Rolls-Royce. Always in the back of my mind was a determination to prove to my mum that I had reached my potential. I believe I did. My resilience and political acumen weren’t adequate for the next level up but I found my niche and role that Brough new challenges every day. I have been privileged to have been entrusted with key roles for most of the major test facility projects in Rolls-Royce over the last 20 years. Outdoor engine test capability at NASA John C Stennis, mechanical test at MTOC and the Power Gearbox rig for Ultrafan™ were some of the ultimate manifestations of that work. And I can see them on Google Earth!

Charles B Ritchie was one of the most successful businessmen in Scotland by the time he died a few years ago. The company he started, Score, are the biggest advocates for apprentices, training and continued learning that I have ever seen and his legacy is carried on. I was one of his first apprentices and when he saw my potential he helped me greatly at two of the most the most critical times in my life. He even helped me move on. To achieve your potential you need hard work, continue learning and have an advocate and an independent mentor. It is even more important for advocacy and mentorship when you are in a diverse minority within your chosen profession. Personally I have found mentoring and coaching a part of my working life that I have enjoyed. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing someone grow and thinking that you may have had some influence over that. Treating people as individuals is critical and you only help or be helped by getting to know what makes an individual “tick”. So please, ensure you have a mentor and that as you progress, that you act as one also

The advocacy and mentorship from Charles and Dick and the determination to prove to my mum that I could reach my potential gave me the drive to do what I have done. Mary Forrest and Charles Ritchie, rest in peace. To both of you and Dick Beckett, a sincerest thank you for helping me hugely in reaching my potential. Now to put all that learning to good use in new arenas and continue my journey.