Control Bias and the Maintenance Manager: How I Learned What to Hold and What to Let Go

 

Control bias is something I’ve had to work through myself, especially working inside operations where everything feels urgent and important. Early on, I believed that if I stayed close to every decision and every issue, I could keep things under control. What I learned, often the hard way, is that this mindset doesn’t create control at all. It creates dependency, slows everything down, and keeps the team stuck in a reactive cycle.

This realization became a core part of my Paint It Red Philosophy, which is really about making better decisions and focusing on what actually matters. One of the pillars of that philosophy is control bias.  Focus on what you can control and stop wasting energy on what you cannot.

In a maintenance environment, that distinction changes everything.

I’ve walked into plenty of facilities where maintenance teams were constantly firefighting, jumping from breakdown to breakdown, feeling busy but never making real progress. When I looked closer, it wasn’t always a technical issue. It was a leadership issue. Too much focus on trying to control every outcome, and not enough focus on building the system that drives those outcomes.

Over time, I had to shift how I thought about control. I stopped asking, “How do I stay on top of everything?” and started asking, “What actually moves the needle?”

What I Can Control

• Preventive maintenance structure and execution
• Work order flow and CMMS discipline
• Scheduling, prioritization, and planning
• Clear expectations for quality and completion
• Training, cross-training, and team development
• Problem-solving approach (root cause vs quick fixes)
• Communication standards between maintenance and production

When I focus on these areas, I’m not reacting to the business, I’m shaping it. These are the levers that create consistency, and consistency is what drives reliability.

The more I invest in these areas, the less I need to insert myself into day-to-day issues. That’s when a maintenance department starts to run the way it should.

What I Had to Let Go Of

• Every equipment failure or breakdown
• Every decision made on the shop floor
• Operator behavior in every moment
• Supplier delays or part availability issues
• Unplanned disruptions and variability
• Every outcome, even with strong systems in place

This is where the real shift happened for me. Maintenance is full of variables, and no matter how good your systems are, things will go wrong. Machines fail, people make mistakes, and external issues show up at the worst possible times.

I used to take that personally, like it was something I should have prevented or controlled. What I’ve learned is that trying to control all of it just pulls you into constant firefighting. You end up chasing problems instead of building solutions.

This ties directly back to the Paint It Red Philosophy. When I’m dealing with an issue now, I ask myself a simple question: what is the simplest thing I can control here that will actually make a difference? Once I recognized that pattern, it became easier to step back and let the system and the team do their job.

When I focus on what I can control and let go of what I cannot, I create a department that is more stable, more capable, and far less reactive.

Chris A. Ortiz. Website. Click Here