About Me — Darren Clyde. So far my life can be split into three…
By: Darren Clyde
Tags: About Me Stories, About Me

About Me — Darren Clyde

Childhood

I am a native of Belfast having grown-up during the Troubles ( I was born three days before Bloody Sunday).

I am profoundly influenced by my family my hardworking Mum & Dad and my two brothers and one sister, I am the youngest. I went to secondary school having failed my 11plus exam (a test primary school pupils are given, to stream them into academic orientated grammar education or vocational secondary education, though society made it feel like pass or fail at life).

The RAF Years

Leaving school at 16 years old I started an Electrical Technician Apprenticeship but after two years I joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an Aircraft Technician, working in electronic workshops and flight lines around the world, including Germany, Canada, the US, Belgium, Norway, Australia, the Netherlands, Kuwait and Northern Ireland. One of the things I realised as a non-commissioned Airman was that there is so much untapped talent in those ranks. So much attention is given to officers, a lot of the time deservedly, but other ranks are often as worthy. Regularly they are just given general direction but with self-motivation, intelligence, experience and tenacity they always get the job done. I have taken this with me into civilian life and found it to also be the case in the blue-collar workforce.

Here I am on an exercise inside the Norwegian Arctic Circle (image by author)

During my life, I haven’t chased one career path but looked for the most interesting thing to do. A tour in Northern Ireland looked to be interesting, so I applied, a tour is Germany looked interesting so I went there, Teaching looked interesting, so I became an Electrical Maintenance Instructor, a bachelors degree looked interesting so I signed up for the Open University (one of the finest British institutions, second only to the NHS, IMHO), Change and Organisational Psychology looked interesting, so I did a part-time Master’s degree in that (at Birkbeck, University of London).

The Lean Years

Eventually, I volunteered to go to a Lean team, this was the military’s attempt to reduce running costs by utilising the approaches that the auto-manufacturing industry used to remain competitive. I had come across it during my degree and thought it looked interesting and that it would remove much of the frustrations Airmen and Airwomen faced just to do a day’s work. I have pretty much stayed in Lean / Continuous Improvement ever since.

One of the main self-discoveries from my time in the RAF and in Lean is my main motivation is to help people, whether it is to help people by removing frustration in doing their work, helping them towards job security by making their organisations more efficient and competitive, or by teaching improvement principles and techniques to teams and leaders. I have carried this into my after-work time having held various Scout leader positions where ever I have ended up.

By the time I had reached the rank of Chief Technician I had done everything I had wanted to in the RAF. I had done 23 years and qualified for an immediate pension, I was now ready for something new. A recruiter emailed me and asked if I fancied working in the oil industry, I said yes.

I joined BP in Nov 2012, I was part of their central CI Team and I was also to work with their BP Trinidad & Tobago Quality and CI team to develop CI into a culture.

People would say the problems in the Oil Industry came about because there was too much money and therefore there was little impetus to change, that sentiment falls down when you see the RAF, a very cash strapped organisation where every pound had to be accounted for, facing the same problems as the rich Oil majors, these problems are not just one company or industry, they are faced by every organisation: getting the kit ready and keeping it working, getting just the right amount of stuff to where it was needed, planning the work properly so nothing was missing, removing wasteful practices, people feeling disempowered to make the decisions they are qualified and experienced (and best placed) to make.

Here I am facilitating a cross-industry team in removing costs from the sector (image by author)

In 2016 I moved to Aker Solutions, a major Norwegian contractor and equipment manufacturer in the Oil & Gas industry. I eventually ended-up as their Head of Lean Training; I was reaching back into my training developer past creating corporate Learning Strategies for all the levels of expertise as well as their Leadership.

Why I Started Writing on Medium

I was just getting traction in rolling out the new learning when Covid-19 hit, the bottom fell out of the oil market and I was one of the one-third of the workforce made redundant. This is when a friend suggested Medium to me. I wanted to write articles about Lean, CI and other improvement stuff to raise my profile and show potential employers what I could do. I hope it works:-)

Most of my stories are about business improvement and can be seen on The Innovation (thanks Esat Artug). I also write and publish on a website I started with two friends The Improvement Hub. I can also be reached on LinkedIn.

Here are some of my previous stories: