Leadership
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Developing People Within the Organization to Handle Higher-Qualified Work
- April 10, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
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When you’re trying to recruit highly-skilled employees for a highly-skilled job, you have to look everywhere you can. However, those candidates are not always available for you to just pick one out of a pile of résumés, ready to start work at a moment’s notice. In a lot of cases, you can focus on developing
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Panel Discussion: Digital Transformation and Plastics Manufacturing
- March 20, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Leadership, Manufacturing
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of serving on a panel at the Plastics Executive Conference in Naples, Florida. The panel was entitled Digital Transformation and Plastics Manufacturing, and it was moderated by my good friend, Nanette Gregory, senior partner at NSG Consulting. I was joined by Rajiv Menon, founder of Informulate; Gary
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How To Make Sure You Made the Right Business Decisions
- February 6, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Measurement
One of the great things about being president of a company is that you can, within reason, do whatever you want. You don’t have to ask anyone or get permission. Of course, that depends on the magnitude of what you want to undertake, but for the most part, you get to call the shots and
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How Do You Fight the Status Quo When Leading a New Company?
- January 30, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
It’s an exciting time to walk into a new job at a new company and know that you get to set the tone for that company’s vision and performance. If it’s a brand new company and you’re an energetic leader, you’re starting with a clean slate, so you get to create the culture. But if
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Bob Blair: Understanding the Difference Between Leadership & Management
- December 12, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
I recently had a chance to ask some of my old friends and reps to contribute a guest article to my blog. “What do you want us to write about?” they asked. “How about something you’ve learned in our years working together?” I said. This one was written by Bob Blair, an industrial engineer I
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Kris Kumnock: Win Hearts With Iconic Events
- December 12, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership
I recently had a chance to ask some of my old friends and reps to contribute a guest article to my blog. “What do you want us to write about?” they asked. “How about something you’ve learned in our years working together?” I said. I’ve been in the “iconic event” business for several years, helping
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The Time There Was Nearly a Knife Fight on My Factory Floor
- November 7, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management, Safety
You run into all kinds of problems when you’re managing a factory and running a business. I’ve had to fire people for sleeping on the job. I locked my own son out of a meeting for being late. And I once had to talk a naked guy down out of the rafters. So it shouldn’t
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Leaders Shouldn’t Have to Motivate Others
- October 31, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
I recently read an article on LinkedIn about how leaders shouldn’t have to motivate others, and I had a bit of an “amen!” response. To me, motivating someone means applying some kind of pressure to get someone to do something they might not otherwise do. As author Maurice Evans said: Motivation has to do with
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Top Skills I Looked for In My New Hires: How Important is an Executive Résumé?
- October 24, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
When I was hiring executives, I wasn’t always concerned with the issues that the human resources department thought was most important. For example, I often didn’t care whether someone had a degree in their field unless it was absolutely required. I’ve met some PhDs who were absolute idiots, and I’ve met people with nothing more
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How I Handled Interpersonal Conflict Between Employees
- October 17, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
It’s inevitable that you’re just not going to like someone at work. They’ll rub you the wrong way, get under your skin, and generally irritate you with everything they say and do. Don’t worry, they feel the same way about you too. But even if this is the case, I never wanted — or allowed