Culture + Trust for Plant Managers: Creating a Family Mindset That Strengthens Loyalty and Team Commitment with Paul Younes #65
Release Date: 02/08/2023
Three Questions That Turn "We Told Them" Into "We Got It Done" | Manufacturing Team Leadership | Ep. 178
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
🎁 Free: 10 great questions to ask your leadership and drive engagement → Connect with Trevor: LinkedIn 👉 Website 👉 Have you ever walked past your visual management boards and still not been able to tell if your team is winning? Trevor takes you inside a global food company where executives kept saying "we told them the standards" and supervisors kept saying "we need more clarity." Both were right. Neither was fixing the board. Inspired by Shane Zutz's High Impact Leadership newsletter, Trevor unpacks why accountability is usually a clarity problem in...
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The Unwritten Rule That Quietly Ran His Whole Plant with Ryan Forte │ Manufacturing Team Leadership │ Ep. 177
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
🎁 Free: 10 great questions to ask your leadership and drive engagement → Connect with Trevor" LinkedIn 👉 Website 👉 What if the hardest person to lead in your plant is you? Trevor sits down with Ryan Forte, Owner of Jefferson Metal Products, whose team had quietly built one unwritten rule: keep the boss happy. Ryan introduces the five-step curiosity model — a new way to think about manufacturing team leadership that starts with getting curious about yourself first. When Ryan made that shift, his culture changed, his people grew, and turnover at the plant dropped...
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Why Write-Ups Break Trust and What to Do Instead | The Accountability Gap | Ep. 176
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
🎁 Free: 10 great questions to ask your leadership and drive engagement → Connect with Trevor: LinkedIn: Website: Have you ever written up an employee and felt sick the second they walked out of the office? Trevor unpacks the third gap in the Manufacturing Greatness framework: the Accountability Gap. He walks through what happens when leaders skip the conversation and go straight to progressive disclipine, and the three questions that turn pressure into partnership.
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Culture of Ownership in Manufacturing: How Owners Stop Being the Bottleneck with Josh McKain | Ep. 175
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
🎁 Free: 10 great questions to ask your leadership and drive engagement → When was the last time you went on vacation and didn't check your phone? Trevor sits down with Josh McKain, founder of Throughput Mastery, to unpack why manufacturing owners get stuck putting out every fire, and the three-part framework for building a culture of ownership: create the environment, model the standard, install the system. Ownership isn't a personality trait. It's a structural condition you can design for. Connect with Josh: LinkedIn: Website:
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When 'You Should Just Know' Stops Working | Communication Skills #174
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
Welcome to Manufacturing Greatness with Trevor Blondeel, where we work with organizations to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have to achieve greater retention, productivity, and profits. To learn more, visit and to subscribe to Trevor’s monthly newsletter. Have you ever assumed your team should just know what you expected, and watched the project go sideways anyway? In manufacturing, the expectation gap between what leaders think is expected and what teams actually understand drives missed deadlines, rework, and six-figure mistakes. Most of...
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Silencing Self-Doubt and Leading with Confidence with Jenn Donahue #173 I Labor Shortage in Manufacturing
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
Welcome to Manufacturing Greatness with Trevor Blondeel, where we work with organizations to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have to achieve greater retention, productivity, and profits. To learn more, visit and to subscribe to Trevor’s monthly newsletter. Now, let's jump in! What if the biggest threat to your production efficiency, workforce development, and manufacturing productivity was not a supply chain disruption or a failed kaizen event — but the voice inside your own head? On this episode of Manufacturing Greatness, learn more with...
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Workforce Development and Leadership Development: The Showing Up Gap That Is Undermining Your Manufacturing Productivity #172
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
Welcome to Manufacturing Greatness with Trevor Blondeel, where we work with organizations to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have to achieve greater retention, productivity, and profits. To learn more, visit and to subscribe to Trevor’s monthly newsletter. Now, let's jump in! Most manufacturing leaders believe that if they were clear, the message landed. But there is a gap that almost no one sees — the distance between how you think you show up and how your team actually experiences you. In this episode of Manufacturing Greatness, Trevor...
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Lean Manufacturing Leadership for Plant Managers: Why Kaizen Fails Without Curiosity with Dr. Debra Clary #171
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
Welcome to Manufacturing Greatness with Trevor Blondeel, where we work with organizations to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have to achieve greater retention, productivity, and profits. To learn more, visit and to subscribe to Trevor’s monthly newsletter. Now, let's jump in! What if the biggest obstacle to your lean manufacturing results isn't the process at all? It might be the person leading it. In this episode of Manufacturing Greatness, learn more with Debra Clary, author of The Curiosity Curve, about one of the most overlooked blind...
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Manufacturing Leadership Development: The 3 Conversations That Fix Accountability, Alignment, and Results #170
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
Welcome to Manufacturing Greatness with Trevor Blondeel, where we work with organizations to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have to achieve greater retention, productivity, and profits. To learn more, visit and to subscribe to Trevor’s monthly newsletter. Now, let's jump in! If you’ve ever thought “I already explained this” but still are not getting the results you expect, the problem may not be effort, it may be alignment. In this episode, Trevor Blondeel explores how gaps in communication skills and unclear expectations impact...
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Manufacturing Leadership Development: Why Connection Drives Productivity and Retention with Morag Barrett #169
Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gaps | Industry 4.0
Welcome to Manufacturing Greatness with Trevor Blondeel, where we work with organizations to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have to achieve greater retention, productivity, and profits. To learn more, visit and to subscribe to Trevor’s monthly newsletter. Now, let's jump in! In today’s manufacturing environment, the biggest barrier to productivity, talent retention, and employee satisfaction isn’t equipment or process, it’s connection. Organizations may invest in lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and process optimization, yet engagement,...
info_outlineWelcome to Manufacturing Greatness with Trevor Blondeel, where we work with organizations to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have to achieve greater retention, productivity, and profits. To learn more, visit www.manufacturinggreatness.com and click here to subscribe to Trevor’s monthly newsletter.
Now, let’s jump in!
Do you want to eliminate drama on the manufacturing floor and create a more focused, productive workplace?
In this episode, Cy Wakeman, president and founder of Reality Based Leadership and bestselling author, shares insights on manufacturing leadership, employee engagement, and accountability for Operations Managers, Production Managers, Manufacturing Managers, Team Leaders, and Shift Supervisors.
Cy explains how communication skills, self awareness, and growth mindset help leaders reduce workplace drama, strengthen trust building, and improve productivity. You will learn practical strategies for difficult conversations, feedback delivery, and authentic leadership that support workforce retention and create manufacturing cultures where people stay focused on results instead of distractions.
1:30 – To avoid drama—and your own ego—approach every situation by considering what you know for sure
3:30 – It’s easy to fall into situations where you believe someone else is the villain or that you’re doing the right thing, which is why it’s important to consider facts, mindsets, and what details you know for sure
9:07 – The power of self-reflection is the ultimate drama diffuser
10:19 – Instead of judging or making assumptions, approach situations with curiosity, patience, and grace
11:49 – By extending an invitation instead of a lecture, you can “call people up to greatness.”
13:20 – “As the leader goes, so does the team.”
15:05 – If something happens that’s unpreferred, you need to step up and impact it
20:02 – As a leader, you can set an example and set your team up to avoid drama
21:32 – By setting a strong leadership example and empowering your team, you can find productive solutions while still maintaining healthy boundaries and not falling into the trap of being a “fixer” for everyone’s problems
23:05 – A question to ask yourself: if I see behavior I don’t want, how am I enabling it?
24:29 – When you quit buffering your team member’s relationship with reality, they will make better choices
29:32 – To get through to others, state reality and ask for what you really need
33:16 – As a leader, you can only make the invitation—it’s up to others to decide what to do with that invitation
34:59 – With the correct leader, your team will step into brilliance most of the time
35:16 – If you have drama in your workplace, it’s because people are venting instead of self-reflecting
Connect with Cy Wakeman
Reality-Based Leadership Website
Read Trevor’s book review on No Ego