Successful Shift Startup Meetings
You, as a front line leader, need to know how to conduct successful shift startup meetings to start your team’s day off right. Many leaders will conduct a short, five-minute meeting to start the shift. Sometimes it’s called a toolbox meeting or a tailboard meeting. It’s designed to be a standup gathering of your […]
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Praise: How to See and Say it
Let’s look at praise: how to see it and how to say it. Every leadership program, including ours, will tell you that positive reinforcement is a good thing. It helps motivate your team and builds on the good things happening in your department. The question for you is how many good things are happening […]
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Motivate by Not Demotivating
We’ve talked about team motivation in previous Leader Feeder episodes, but we haven’t talked about demotivation – the things you do as a leader that can actually demotivate your team. These demotivators should be eliminated first before you worry about how to motivate your team. Here are a few of the top demotivators to […]
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Create a Thriving Subculture
Even if the rest of your organization has somewhat of a dysfunctional culture, your own department’s subculture can thrive. Think about the various departments in your organization. Would you say that all of them have the same culture? Or does each department, shift, or location have its own unique subculture? Most people report that […]
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Creating a Safety Culture
If you’re a leader in a production or operations role, safety should be your top priority. When leaders emphasize safety, workers know that management cares about them. What is it that motivates unsafe or risky behavior? Usually it involves the worker deciding that productivity and shortcuts will save time, and they think that […]
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The Importance of Productivity
Productivity should be a major focal point for virtually every leader, because your team’s output has a direct impact on revenue and cost. Productivity is how much output your team can generate within the resources you have available. The more you can produce with the resources available, the greater the value your team generates. […]
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Avoid Communication Confusion
Words can be interpreted differently by different people, so it’s important as a leader to avoid communication confusion. Leaders who use vague words can be easily misinterpreted. Here are just a few examples: “That employee is always late.” “Sometimes the machine is down.” “We almost never have an issue with that supplier.” The problem […]
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Is it Skill or Will?
Is it a matter of skill or is it will? That’s the question you need to ask yourself when a team member isn’t meeting your expectations as a leader. Knowing whether the gap in performance is a skill issue or a motivation problem helps you gain the clarity you need to create the most effective […]
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Leaders: Document Observations and Issues
There are two main reasons that leaders should document observations, questions and issues: Provide back up for any disciplinary actions. Ensure employee questions and issues get addressed and closed out. It isn’t uncommon for supervisors to rush to the HR department with an employee issue and want to provide disciplinary action only to discover […]
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Creating a Sense of Urgency
It isn’t unusual for leaders to complain that their team members are lazy, work harder at avoiding work than actually doing the work, and have no sense of urgency when it comes to completing tasks. The pace of work in any environment is important because the more you can produce, the better the results. […]
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