Libsyn Directory

Culture + Trust for Plant Managers: Creating a Family Mindset That Strengthens Loyalty and Team Commitment with Paul Younes #65

Release Date: 02/08/2023

The Most Important Leader Has No Title with Jason Hopper │ Manufacturing Team Leadership From the Floor │ Ep. 179

🎁 Free: 10 great questions to ask your leadership and drive engagement → Connect with Trevor: LinkedIn 👉 Website 👉 What if the most important leader on your shop floor doesn’t have the title? Trevor sits down with Jason Hopper, a thirty-year manufacturing veteran who rose from the floor into team leadership and then chose to go back to the floor, on what good leadership actually looks like to the people being led. They get into the trap that catches almost every leader, why safety has to mean stopping, and the coaching, trust, and patience that keep...

Three Questions That Turn "We Told Them" Into "We Got It Done" | Manufacturing Team Leadership | Ep. 178

🎁 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...

The Unwritten Rule That Quietly Ran His Whole Plant with Ryan Forte │ Manufacturing Team Leadership │ Ep. 177

🎁 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...

Why Write-Ups Break Trust and What to Do Instead | The Accountability Gap | Ep. 176

🎁 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.

Culture of Ownership in Manufacturing: How Owners Stop Being the Bottleneck with Josh McKain | Ep. 175

🎁 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:

When 'You Should Just Know' Stops Working | Communication Skills #174

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...

Silencing Self-Doubt and Leading with Confidence with Jenn Donahue #173 I Labor Shortage in Manufacturing

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...

Workforce Development and Leadership Development: The Showing Up Gap That Is Undermining Your Manufacturing Productivity #172

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...

Lean Manufacturing Leadership for Plant Managers: Why Kaizen Fails Without Curiosity with Dr. Debra Clary #171

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...

Manufacturing Leadership Development: The 3 Conversations That Fix Accountability, Alignment, and Results #170

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...

More Episodes

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 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

Newsletter

Read Trevor’s book review on No Ego

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