CULTURE BY DESIGN: 4 Steps to Implement Today

Posted by Paola Velasquez on Jan 30, 2024 3:01:01 PM

You probably have seen this plastered across social media, a strong company culture attracts and retains top talent, keeps employees engaged, and creates a collaborative team environment, yet you find yourself like many manufacturers crunched for time, pressure, and cost. Your time, efforts, and money are spent on requirements to meet legal compliance. Yet according to a recent survey conducted by the National Association of Manufacturers, 74% of executives identified attracting and retaining talent as their primary challenge1.

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ENHANCE WORKPLACE SAFETY: How Bias Could Be Contributing to Workplace Injuries

Posted by Paola Velasquez on Nov 7, 2023 10:28:53 AM

Physical safety is a priority for manufacturers, yet we continue to see high incident rates of injury in the industry. In 2020, there were 373,300 total cases of nonfatal injuries and illnesses recorded in the private manufacturing sector according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, of those 36% had days away from work and 29% had days of job transfer or restriction.  Injuries can occur due to equipment failure, yet an often-overlooked contributing factor could be our biases and the immediate recipient of our bias is our employees.

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ENGLISH LANGUAGE DIVERSITY: Outsmarting Accent Bias

Posted by Paola Velasquez on Aug 21, 2023 1:47:03 PM

Last month, I had the opportunity to observe a leadership development training at a manufacturer. The difference between this training compared to others I’ve observed is that this training was facilitated in Spanish.
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Powerful Coaching Practices for Manufacturing Leaders - Part 6: And What About Those Tough Conversations...?

Posted by Stacey Curry on Jul 5, 2023 9:43:41 AM

A 6-part series focusing on impactful practices for developmental coaching conversations. 

"The hardest thing for people to understand is that the relationship is the delivery system of anything you try to accomplish."  - Peter Block

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Powerful Coaching Practices for Manufacturing Leaders - Part 5: Holding People Capable

Posted by Stacey Curry on May 9, 2023 9:05:21 AM

A 6-part series focusing on impactful practices for developmental coaching conversations. 

Holding people capable (accountable) is an important part of building trust, maintaining standards of excellence, and achieving goals in any organization or personal relationship.

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INCLUSIVE WORK CULTURE: Improve your Profitability and Competitive Advantage

Posted by Paola Velasquez on Apr 4, 2023 2:31:33 PM

Some challenges for manufacturers in 2023 continue to be recruitment & retention and meeting customer expectations, especially as customers are asking about your social responsibility.  These challenges have led to high turnover, inability to meet production demands, customer loss, and lack of market expansion.
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Powerful Coaching Practices for Manufacturing Leaders - Part 4: The Artfulness of Asking Questions

Posted by Stacey Curry on Mar 1, 2023 11:38:35 AM

A 6-part series focusing on impactful practices for developmental coaching conversations. 

If you have read the previous post in this series, thank you! If this is the first time you popped open one of my posts, thank you! 

Writing is not one of my stronger skill sets. Writing is an arduous experience as I tend to overthink grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, logical flow, and the greatest fear of all…being judged by an unidentified person behind a screen who I will most likely never meet. Better yet, what if they respond and like the post and I need to respond intelligently and respectfully? What if I sound like a complete ne’er-do-well? All this white noise in my head leads to me losing sight of the fact that I’m simply sharing my thoughts and ideas and that takes a ton of courage. When I write something and put it out there for public viewing, I am being completely, unequivocally, 100%, vulnerable! And therein lies the artfulness of asking questions – being completely, unequivocally, 100%, vulnerable. 

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Inclusive Mindset: 6 Tips to Lead Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives

Posted by Paola Velasquez on Feb 14, 2023 10:23:34 AM

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments are falling by the wayside. What was once a priority has turned into an annual check-the-box competency training for some. Unfortunately, annual competencies are not enough to drive change, create inclusion, and foster engagement. Below are 6 tips to assist you in your DEI journey.

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Powerful Coaching Practices for Manufacturing Leaders - Part 3: Holding Up the Mirror

Posted by Stacey Curry on Feb 14, 2023 10:00:07 AM

A 6-part series focusing on impactful practices for developmental coaching conversations. 

Recently I read two interesting books, Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday and Why am I Afraid to Tell You Who I am? by John Powell. Each book provided a fascinating opportunity for self-reflection (DEEP self-reflection) and although I don’t necessarily agree that ego is the ‘enemy’ per-say, I do believe it is vitally important to recognize the various shades of ego we naturally possess.

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Powerful Coaching Practices for Manufacturing Leaders - Part 2: Listening Simply to Understand and Not to Judge, Fix, or Solve

Posted by Stacey Curry on Jan 3, 2023 11:33:44 AM

A 6-part series focusing on impactful practices for developmental coaching conversations. 

Listening as a leadership competency is talked about often, but unfortunately a lot of our own “stuff’ gets in the way of actually listening with an open heart and mind.  We come to the conversation with a preconceived context, we have unconscious and sometimes conscious biases towards the person or situation, and even our mental, physical, and spiritual state of being plays a significant role in how we show up and listen to what is being shared.

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