In March of 2000, as a 23 year old 250 ton stamping press operator (and carpenter on the side), I applied for and was somehow offered a position implementing the latest and greatest Lean manufacturing initiative the company I was working for was pushing down from the corporate office. I had been wor...
Before we even begin unpacking any of the specific action steps you or would need to consider to capture even the slightest bit of that profit lost due to poor leadership, I believe it’s absolutely critical to quantify just what we’re likely leaving on the table. I mean, I’ve heard countless executi...
Organizations of all sizes invest significant amounts of time, money, and energy on improving their processes with hopes of becoming more profitable. Sometimes this is based on a goal of becoming best-in-class but sometimes it is just to stay competitive with customers or in attracting talent. All t...
The Rolling Stones shared a bit of wisdom with us years ago when they said, “You don’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need…” That may hold true in some cases but when it comes to leadership, you get what you are! Leaders truly do set the ton...
In many cases, the team members within an organization will indeed follow the leader because, at least for the most part, people do what people see… I’ve seen that hold true in companies with world class performance and I’ve seen it in places that were struggling to stay afloat. Even in the worst cu...
Expecting anyone to blindly Follow the Leader is more than a little naive, especially over extended periods of time or in performing difficult tasks, because our teams are much more apt to do what they see us doing when we’re in similar situations! But let’s be honest with ourselves here, telling ou...
Having just worked through the importance of responsiveness, especially when it comes to showing we value the teams we lead and maintain the influence we’ve worked to earn with the folks on those teams, I want to challenge you to really think into this question: Why is it important to lead by exampl...
Since we can’t realistically expect others to just be patient indefinitely and maintain any level of leadership with them, or any respect for that matter, let’s look at what we can each do to make sure we’re sending the message we intend to - knowing that failing to reply completely often sends a lo...
Not so long ago, a gentleman who had recently joined a civic organization I’m a part of sent an email to several other members of the group inviting them to catch up over lunch or coffee individually with hopes of getting to know each of them better since he was relatively new to the area. After a f...
Let me emphasize it again just in case we’re not on the same page… Quiet quitting may be a relatively new term but it ain’t a new thing! And while I’ll never suggest I’m OK with someone giving less than satisfactory effort expecting a world-class reward, I’m also not OK with the folks charged with l...
Since looking at Who’s to Blame last time, my mom shared something she had just seen on Dr. Phil where he suggested that quiet quitting was a societal issue largely caused by lack of initiative on the employees’ part. I usually attempt to be fairly mild and respectful with my language when talking w...
There’s certainly a lot of hype around it currently, but I maintain that quiet quitting is no new issue - even though I’ve never seen anyone seem to care the least bit about it until just recently! With hopes that you’re tracking with me on the importance of EARNING engagement from the 50% of team m...
