Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labor Challenges | Skills Gap
Trevor Blondeel invites guests from the manufacturing industry (and beyond!) to have candid discussions about leadership and share stories from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 13
- Latest publication
- Sep 30, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 8, 2026
Latest episodes
Your Best People Are Burning Out on Work They're Good At | Frontline Leadership | Ep. 195 (opens the original)
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Greg Harrod noticed something strange partway through a career leading cross-functional teams in manufacturing. He was getting more and more of the work he was best at, and enjoying it less and less. That is not a workload problem. It is a sorting problem. We hand out work based on two things. Is this person good at it, and are they available. We almost never ask whether the work gives them energy or takes it away. So the most dependable person on the floor gets handed more of what they are depe
Your Veterans Want Clarity More Than Your New Hires Do | Frontline Leadership | Ep. 194 (opens the original)
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Walk into most plants and you'll hear the same thing. The new, younger people need everything spelled out. The veterans just go do it. New research says that's backwards. Seventy-six percent of Gen Z expect clear expectations of their performance and responsibilities. Among Boomers it's 98 percent, and it climbs through every generation in between. The longer someone has worked, the more certain they are that clarity is the leader's job. Trevor's take is that the quieter half of that finding is
Silence Is Not Agreement | Psychological Safety and Manufacturing Team Leadership with Dr. Sunita Sah | Ep. 193 (opens the original)
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Dr. Sunita Sah asked nurses in a large hospital what stopped them from speaking up about medical errors. They gave her two answers. They were afraid of the repercussions, and they had learned that speaking up changed nothing. Then she asked their managers the same question. The managers did not name fear or effectiveness. They said the nurses were not taking responsibility, and did not have the skill set. Same floor, two completely different stories. That gap is why near misses go unreported in
It Was Due Thursday and It's Still Sitting There | Manufacturing Accountability | Ep. 192 (opens the original)
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You walk in Friday morning and the material is still sitting in quarantine. It was supposed to be relabeled and moved out Thursday, and you need that space today because corporate is walking the floor tomorrow. What happens in the next ten seconds decides the whole conversation. Trevor takes one real scenario from a manufacturing leader he was working with and runs it through all three gaps. How you show up, because how people feel determines how much they can engage with you. Whether Thursday w
Be Curious Rather Than Furious | Manufacturing Team Leadership and Culture with Karin Lindner | Ep. 191 (opens the original)
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Karin Lindner has spent fourteen years trying to make manufacturing attractive to the people who work in it, and she says it is still not there. Her new book, Making Manufacturing Sexy, argues that most manufacturing leaders are not leading. They are surviving, stuck in a system that rewards firefighting. Karin and Trevor both worked at Magna. In this conversation they get into what actually changes a plant, and it is not the equipment. Karin shares the coaching tagline she uses with every clien
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