management
-
Why Not Just Cut Everyone’s Hours During a Downturn?
- October 30, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management
No Comments
When you see that an economic downturn is on the horizon, just like the one we’re seeing now, the knee-jerk temptation for many managers is to start making layoffs and staffing cutbacks. “We need to reduce expenses by 10 percent, so let’s just cut 10 percent of the workforce.” That works in the short run,
-
Are You Serving on a Good or Bad Board of Directors?
- August 28, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership, Management
As someone who has served on a board of directors at different times, I pay attention to corporate and nonprofit boards. A few weeks ago, I received an email newsletter from a fellow named Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures about his experience with boards of directors and the two types of problematic boards. He
-
Improve Productivity in the Back Office
- August 7, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Measurement
When you embrace measurement as a way to improve productivity of your manufacturing processes, you’ll find all sorts of problems you never knew existed. When we started measuring everything at Robroy, we not only found different problems and issues in different facets of our manufacturing facilities, we discovered that there was a 16 percent rejection
-
The Benefit of Executive Mastermind Groups
- June 19, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management
As an executive, it’s often hard to find someone you can share your experiences and your fears with. The only people who truly understand what you’re going through are your fellow executives, usually at other companies and even in other cities and states. Discussing these kinds of thoughts, fears, and ideas are where executive mastermind
-
Impostor Syndrome vs Dunning-Kruger Effect
- June 12, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
Last week, I wrote about the Impostor Syndrome (How Do Executives Deal With Impostor Syndrome?) and the effect it has on people. I said Impostor Syndrome is. . . . . . the fear that you’re not good enough for the job you’re supposed to do, and that you’re going to be discovered and outed
-
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
-
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
-
Managers, not HR, Should Spend Time Doing Talent Recruiting
- November 28, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management
When it comes to finding new talent, the onus shouldn’t be on Human Resources to do all the work. HR can find potential talent by ticking off all the boxes, but it’s ultimately the manager who should be responsible for testing the individual skill sets and determining whether they would be a cultural and talent
-
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
-
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