Talk It Up, Back It Up

11/3/2026

Traditionally, maintenance and engineering managers have gone out of their way to avoid bragging about their professional accomplishments, and they weren't much more interested in talking up their departments' performance.  

Institutional and commercial organizations encouraged this low-profile attitude. Managers and their teams often worked in offices and facilities far from the public eye and often were excluded from decision-making related to the very facilities they oversaw. 

The situation has changed in recent years ... kind of. More managers are willing to spotlight their successes and those of their teams, and they're a bit louder in pointing out the insights and benefits they bring to organizations. 

Still, amid daily struggles with technology, finance, compliance and staffing issues — to name just a handful — it's easy for managers to lose sight of the need to brag about the critical roles they and their teams play. 

But as baseball's Dizzy Dean reminded us, "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up." 

Facilities can't maintain themselves. Building owners and executives won't make maintenance and engineering issues high priorities without "encouragement." And managers won't succeed using the same old tactics to get over the do-more-with-less hurdle they've faced for decades. 

Bragging alone won't change anything for managers, but backing it up with results will. 

Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.