leadership

  • Watch Out for Seasonal Silliness Around the Holiday

    • November 4, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Manufacturing
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    Holiday hangover

    Down in Texas, just like everywhere else in the United States, there are quite a few holidays that bring the silliness out in people — reasons to drink, celebrate with friends, set off fireworks, and generally get a little rowdy and obnoxious. While Christmas may be called the “silly season,” every manager knows he or

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  • How to Develop Good Leadership Habits

    • June 26, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Leadership
    No Comments
    Good leaders are always open to new ideas about how to become better leaders.

    Good leaders are always open to new ideas about how to become better leaders. They don’t assume they know everything, especially as they ascend to higher and higher positions. They know their strengths and work to make them even stronger. They know their weaknesses and work to make them, well, stronger, too. You don’t have

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  • How Modern Leadership Creates a High-Performance Manufacturing Team

    • June 19, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Manufacturing
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    Modern leadership can create a high-performance manufacturing team, but you need to stop with the old-school management style.

    Finding the ideal employees in any organization can be tough. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, the customers you serve, the work you do, or the jobs you’re hiring for. It’s tough finding quality employees. But too many employers try to find exactly the right employee who has all the right skills and can

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  • Your Company’s Management Style is Driving Off Employees

    • June 12, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Management
    No Comments
    Winston Churchill is one of my heroes and I look to him as a leader I admire.

    Manufacturing does not have the reputation of being progressive or forward-thinking when it comes to management style, allowing their employees to grow and develop, or considering their employees’ mental health and feelings. Maybe you think it’s soft and you think, “We never had any of that nonsense when I was young! We just sucked it

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  • No More Company Cars

    • June 5, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management
    No Comments
    I upset a few people when I put an end to company cars. But they cheered right up when I gave them a car allowance instead that allowed them to get paid to drive their own car.

    I’ll admit, I hate the idea of company cars. They’re a royal pain in the ass and they cause a lot of problems and strife within a company. One thing I did whenever I started in any new leadership role at a company was to eliminate the company cars completely. After all, we were in

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  • How Managers Can Keep Unions on Their Side

    • March 27, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Management
    No Comments
    I always tried to keep unions on my side by never surprising them and making sure they agreed with my decisions.

    I had a rule as a manager that I would never take union leadership by surprise. If anything, despite the traditional “management versus the union” conflict, I always believed they were an important part of my team. For example, if I was ever thinking of initiating a new process or major idea, I would share

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  • How to Develop Good Habits as a Leader

    • March 20, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership
    No Comments
    Good leaders are always open to new ideas about how to become better leaders.

    Good leaders are always open to new ideas about how to become better leaders. They don’t assume they know everything, especially as they ascend to higher and higher positions. They know their strengths and work to make them even stronger. They know their weaknesses and work to make them, well, stronger, too. You don’t have

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  • How Can You Address the Skills Gap and Workforce Development?

    • February 28, 2024
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management, Manufacturing
    No Comments
    You can address the skills gap in your operation by recruiting at the local trade schools.

    It’s getting harder and harder to find skilled workers for the manufacturing segment. Too many recruiting strategies are based on hiring people away from other companies, keeping them for a couple of years, only to have someone else hire them away from you. If you want to address the skills gap and improve your workforce

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  • The Importance of Having a Mentor, No Matter Your Role

    • December 27, 2023
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Leadership, Management
    No Comments
    Even if you're an executive, you need a mentor. Especially if you're learning about new technology like social media.

    When you were coming up in your career, you no doubt had mentors, people who would help you in your job and prepare you for the next step in your career. These were people who were undoubtedly older, wiser, more experienced, and very knowledgeable. But does that stop once you reach the C-suite? Once you’ve

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  • The Importance of Being a Mentor

    • December 20, 2023
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Measurement
    No Comments
    It's important that you mentor younger and newer employees who might benefit from your experience and wisdom.

    Recently, I talked about the importance of coaching employees to help them become better. The other side of that same coin is the idea of mentoring. Mentoring is when you influence and guide someone who is less experienced and often younger than you are. In a professional setting, a mentor is someone who influences the

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