Meet Moustafa Abdellatif - Academy Partner, SCCT

Way of Working is around professional and personal development. It enabled my personal transformation and showed me that I have full control over my life and my career

This is my story that began in 2018 when I was invited to join the Level 1 Lean for All program. Back then, I was a Junior Engineer, doing site maintenance activities on heavy equipment cranes. I was living a quite unhealthy lifestyle, eating too much fast food without exercising. This led to massive increase in my weight until I reached 156kg.

The situation had a quite negative impact on my life, I wasn´t able to breathe and move normally, to ride my bike or to even play with my daughter. In addition to that I was so embarrassed about my shape that I did not like to go out to see family or friends. It had a negative effect on my career too, as it was not easy to do the maintenance on the equipment with that kind of overweight.

This was my situation before I joined the Lean for All program, a 6 levels program that focusses on professional and personal development. Yes, you read correctly, it is about personal development too. And this is where my story begins.

I completed Level 1 with mixed feelings. On one hand I had doubts about my abilities and about my time management and on the other hand I was excited about the opportunity to develop my skills and gain new good habits. For example, I did not have the habit of reading books - something that soon was to change.

I requested to attend Level 2 of the program which was built around setting priorities. I did the exercise without putting my health as a priority, then the training coach took my priorities paper and made a quick scan and asked me: "Where is your health"? I confidently answered health is not a priority, it is a must - he smiled and replied while looking at my overweight: "I see, good for you".

After taking this shock, I decided to re-invent myself and take care of my health. I searched for a diet that matched with my lifestyle with little or no sports in the beginning because of my knee injury caused by my overweight. I also started to build the habit of reading gradually, I spent 10-15min per day reading the first two books "This is Lean" by Niklas Modig and "7 habits of highly effective people" by Stephen Covey. In parallel I was offered to join the Lean Academy as Academy support and accepted the position - a big change to shift my career!

The journey continued and the fun started with Level 3 as we learn and practice the different lean tools: 5S, Visual Management (VM), Standard Process (SP) and Problem Solving (PS). I noticed how much value this adds to the individuals, teams, leaders and the company. The spirit of engagement was unbelievable, and the muscle of reading was getting stronger and stronger.

The next level is where you really show if you believe in it or not. It is the part where the self-commitment comes up to the surface with doing more Kaizens, reading more books and starting to spread the Lean knowledge. Me and my colleagues created real return of investments, with tangible business benefits between cost saving, time saving and safety improvement. I only lost one thing at this moment and that was my weight! And my advice to all Lean Practitioners: I encourage you to get involved in Kaizen Events as early as possible. Without practice, your knowledge of lean will fade quickly. Your success is as important as our company´s success!

I continued with Level 5 and got promoted as Lean Coach. I started to teach back the Lean levels and tools supporting and coaching my colleagues, facilitating Kaizen Events (more than 28 Kaizen Events at that time), getting more business value (+1.1 M$ savings) while developing my coaching skills. The biggest eye opener here was: THE MORE YOU LEARN THE MORE YOU REALIZE THAT TOU KNOW NOTHING.

During my Level 6, I was nominated for a short-term-assignment (STA) in Aqaba Container Terminal in Jordan to support with the WoW development. It was a real challenge for my knowledge and my understanding to the business system being out of my comfort zone in a different culture. I spent almost 9 months in Jordan and dare to say that my STA was a success.

When asked Motasem Alamar, Lean Transformation Leader at Aqaba Container Terminal on Moustafa´s mark on WoW, he says:
“When we first asked for Moustafa’s help from SCCT we were asking for someone to help us with technicalities and ways to implement the lean management system, helping us to setup the five elements of the operating system, technical help, what we got, however, is someone who is skilled with people engagement and change management. Moustafa did not only help us with the technical part of the lean transformation, he utilized exceptional type of talent to engage employees from all levels, all the way from the top management to the frontliners, ensuring that whatever we created is sustained, he excelled in change management and that helped us maintain the lean transformation and build on it. Moustafa poses a unique set of skills that makes him able to develop change strategies adopt to any condition and culture - because our culture is very different than there is in SCCT".

When I went back to SCCT, I got promoted to Academy Partner to lead the Lean Academy and at the same time, I graduated as Lean Agent.

Looking back and reflecting, I started the journey in 2018 as a Junior Engineer with 156kg, health was no priority, and I didn’t have a reading habit. Now in 2023 I’m leading the Lean Academy, I weight 85kg, I take good care of my health and read at least one book per month. It is a journey that’s very hard to describe in a few words, but my biggest reflection now is: You own your life, you have full control over it - set your goals, prioritize them and start. Always remember that without good health there is no good work, no family and no good life!
I want to thank my second family in SCCT - my leaders, coaches, colleagues and students - this all wouldn’t happen without your endless support!