Leadership
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Five Strengths Every Leader Needs as We Resume Operations
- June 10, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership
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I read a recent article in Industry Week — Five Strengths Every Leader Needs as We Resume Operations — that discussed what leaders at every level need to bring back to their manufacturing operations even as states open up and try to return to normal. As the author, Jay Richards said, “where some see doom
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How Did We Handle Racism at Robroy
- June 3, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
We never had to deal with too much racism during my time at Robroy, mostly because I made sure people knew that wasn’t allowed. One day, we had an incident where someone had scribbled someone’s name on a bathroom door, and calling them a racial slur. I certainly wasn’t going to stand for that or
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Your Return to Normalcy May Depend on How You Treated Your Associates
- May 20, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
The last few months have been pretty rough, and many companies had to lay off associates or at least furlough them, just so they could collect unemployment for the 2+ months no one was working. But now that we’re reopening the country, the return to normalcy may be a little harder for some companies than
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Billie Traywick: Lessons Learned From a Career in a Male-Dominated Industry
- May 13, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership
I recently had a chance to ask some of my old colleagues 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. Billie Traywick was the Controller at Duoline Technologies and VP of Operations at
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My Four Non-Negotiables: #4 – Check Your Ego at the Front Door
- April 4, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
Over the years, I have developed a management philosophy I call the Four Non-Negotiables. Over the last few weeks, I’ve shared what each of them are and what they mean. This final week is about Non-Negotiable #4, Check Your Ego at the Front Door Actually, the full title is “Check your ego at the front
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How Much Should Manufacturing Be Concerned About the Environment?
- January 15, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
Like it or not, whether you believe in climate change or not, the manufacturing industry should be very concerned about the environment, period. I certainly understand a lot of industry is living with legacy technology, dealing with machines that are 50 – 60 years old but are still operational. And legacy tech does not recognize
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Greenfielding can Help Integrate Several New Pieces of Tech Into a Manufacturing Facility
- January 8, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Manufacturing
How do you bring 10 new projects together at once? If you’re looking to make major wholesale changes in your operation, how do you do it without interrupting the flow of what’s already there? How do you revamp an entire facility, replace old machines with new ones, old processes with new, and even old mindsets
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How Do you Get Your Staff to Buy Into Your Goals?
- December 4, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
When you’re a leader, getting your staff to buy into your goals and overall vision is not just a transactional event. You don’t just offer them something in exchange for supporting you. It’s not their job to automatically buy into your vision. And you can’t just do it because you’re the boss. That’s not leadership,
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What are the Economics of Sustainability vs. Remediation?
- November 27, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership, Safety
Companies that spend a lot of money on remediation, and are doing it only to avoid penalties and fines, are going to end up having bigger and more expensive problems than they were hoping for. When I was at Robroy, we had an old Duoline factory that was costing us $2.5 million every year in
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The Importance of Networking at Every Opportunity
- September 4, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership
I spent a lot of time at the Center for Creative Leadership and the Darden School of Business, networking with and learning from a lot of great people. People who were doing important work for a number of different government agencies, large corporations, and wide-reaching nongovernmental organizations. The faculty put us through the wringer most