Management

  • The Leadership Blind Spots That Hold Back Manufacturing Transformation

    • April 30, 2025
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Management
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    Learning about 3D Printing is a must for manufacturing transformation, even if you don't use it yourself; your suppliers should.

    After a few decades in the manufacturing industry, I’ve seen every kind of manufacturing transformation initiative imaginable. Some succeed spectacularly, and they deliver game-changing efficiency and growth. Others plant themselves on their faces, getting bogged down by delays, wasted investment, or resistance on the shop floor. What separates the winners from the failures? It’s rarely

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  • The Rise of Resilient Supply Chains: What Every Manufacturer Must Prepare For

    • April 23, 2025
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management, Manufacturing
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    Having ready access to your supplies and raw materials are a sign of a resilient supply chain.

    I’ve been in manufacturing leadership for a long time, and I’ve seen some amazing technological advances. Gains in efficiency, gains in productivity, an increase in safety and sustainability — they all came from tightly-tuned (tightly-wound?) supply chains. For decades, the goal has been to adopt the Japanese method of “lean manufacturing” and reduce redundancy, minimize

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  • Developing Executive Presence: What Sets Great Leaders Apart

    • March 26, 2025
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Management
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    Photo of a woman giving a speech. This is one way to develop executive presence.

    Great leaders are great communicators. They don’t just spew all the leadership bon mots that they memorized from the leadership course they went on last week, and they had better not get their inspiration from those damn posters! Instead, you need something of a personality, and you need to be really, truly interested in the

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  • Manage Upward: How to Influence Those Above You in the Org Chart

    • March 19, 2025
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Management
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    A pair of hands typing on a laptop. Communicate everything in order to manage upward with the people above you in the org chart.

    A lot of leadership blogs all talk about the same thing: How do you motivate your staff? How do you get them to buy into your vision? How do you make them do what you want them to do? But how do you influence those people who are above you in the organizational chart? How

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  • How to Identify and Nurture Future Leaders Within Your Organization?

    • March 12, 2025
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Management
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    A photo of a small presentation around a table. Good way to identify future leaders in your company.

    Some of the best leaders for your company are the ones who started as fresh-faced newbies a few years ago and had trouble navigating their way around the office. Now, they’re one of the people that everyone turns to when they need help with a project or advice on something bothering them. They’re the team

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  • How to Avoid Micromanaging Your Employees

    • March 5, 2025
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management
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    A photo of a microscope, which I think every micromanager uses in micromanaging their employees.

    Micromanagers are some of the worst managers there are. They get bogged down in the details that, if we’re being honest, should no longer concern them. Managers should be executing visions and motivating employees, not on the front line, producing and counting widgets, or performing the functions of the people who work under them. A

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  • The Biggest Professional Mistake I Ever Made

    • February 12, 2025
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management
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    An old-fashioned ledger.

    We’ve all made big mistakes during our careers. Not just the little “oops” moments like a late report or missed deadline, but the big mistake that you’re sure is going to derail your career and see you switch to becoming an insurance claims adjuster. While I never switched my career, I did end up switching

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  • The Angriest a Customer Has Ever Been at Me

    • February 5, 2025
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management, Manufacturing
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    An angry businessman. This is a story about the angriest a customer has ever been at me.

    You can’t go through your business life without a customer getting angry at you. The thing that defines you is how you deal with that problem. Do you fix it, ignore it, or twist it around so it’s the customer’s fault and you can wash your hands of the entire problem? I remember an incident

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  • How to Recognize and Avoid Leadership Blind Spots

    • December 26, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Innovation, Leadership, Management
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    Your leadership journey can certainly be derailed by unseen obstacles and leadership blind spots. These are the areas where your perceptions or behaviors don’t align with reality. We all have them, and if you think you don’t have them, well, there’s one right there. It’s like the scene from Catch-22 where Yossarian tells Appleby, “‘You’ve

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  • How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset Across Your Team

    • December 18, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Innovation, Management
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    A hand holding a plant that's beginning to grow, representing a growth mindset at work.

    “Growth mindset” is not just a trendy leadership buzzword. I mean, it is a trendy leadership buzzword, but it’s also a new leadership philosophy that works for most companies, regardless of industry, function, or size. It means that you see your team not as a collection of cogs in a machine but as a group

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