Manufacturing Greatness | Productivity | Retention | Profits | Continuous Improvement | Safety | Workforce Development | Labo

Trevor Blondeel
  • 5.0 (128)
  • Management
  • Weekly

Whether you're a plant manager, operations manager, or frontline supervisor, you'll discover practical strategies for lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, and operational excellence. We cover critical topics like workforce development, employee retention, safety culture, and change management—helping you navigate challenges like labor shortages, skills gaps, and the evolving manufacturing landscape including Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. 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. You'll find new ways to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have acheiving greater retention, productivity, and profits.

  1. 2d ago

    How Your Team Really Sees You with Meredith Bell | Leadership Development | Ep. 201

    An executive coach put a 360 report in front of her client. His own ratings were positive in every area. The people who worked with him described a leader who was harsh and demanding. She asked him which one was true. His answer: the one he filled out was the real him. He had come up under bosses who led the other way, and he thought that was what a leader was supposed to do. Meredith Bell, co-founder and president of Grow Strong Leaders, has spent 30 years helping leaders get honest feedback and act on it. She and Trevor get into what a 360 actually measures, why you should never tie one to pay, and what to do after the report comes back so it doesn't end up in a drawer. For leadership development in manufacturing, the work starts with seeing yourself through your team's eyes. Then Trevor puts a tool from his book on the table: the relationship audit, seven questions, two for each of the three gaps and one to close, for any plant manager or supervisor without a 360 or the budget for one. Meredith tells him where it works and the small change she would make to the last question. The relationship audit is in Trevor's book, Manufacturing Greatness, coming May 11, 2027. Connect with Meredith: Grow Strong Leaders 👉 https://growstrongleaders.com Grow Strong Leaders Podcast 👉 https://growstrongleaders.com/podcasts/ LinkedIn 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithmbell/ Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe at manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    How Your Team Really Sees You with Meredith Bell | Leadership Development | Ep. 201

  2. Nov 4

    The More We Automate, the More We Need People | Skills Gap | Ep. 200

    Episode 200. Seven years ago this podcast started as Mindfulness Manufacturing, with co-host Mike Hillman. Two hundred episodes later, Trevor looks back on a Manufacturing Month spent at Made in Kentucky in Louisville and the Kentucky Industry Conference in Lexington, and on what senior leaders kept telling him: the investment in technology is creating more jobs, and those jobs need people with technical skills. The skills gap isn't a machine problem. The more we automate, the more we need people to run the equipment, lead it and fix it. Trevor shares Andrew Parker's Be Pro Be Proud, trailers of simulators that let students weld, drive a semi and run heavy equipment, and why manufacturing is the best kept secret in our schools. From his panel with Shawn Herbig of IQS Research: in the Kentucky Association of Manufacturers' 2026 Wage and Workforce Study, 92% of companies use referrals from existing employees. Your current team is your strongest recruitment voice. Trevor also shares what's next: more guests from manufacturers, and his book, Manufacturing Greatness, coming May 11, 2027. Thank you for listening, whether this is your first episode or your 200th. If this show has helped you, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/manufacturing-greatness-productivity-retention-profits/id1491367665 Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe at manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    The More We Automate, the More We Need People | Skills Gap | Ep. 200

  3. Oct 28

    Ask Questions Instead of Giving Orders with Dale Carnegie CEO Joe Hart | Shift Supervisor | Ep. 199

    Joe Hart was a young lawyer when he made a mistake on a case. The partner called him in, put his face in his hands, and said the firm needed more supervision for its associates. Thirty years later, Joe still remembers that moment, and what an opportunity it could have been. Joe is President and CEO of Dale Carnegie, co-author of Take Command, and host of the Take Command podcast. He recorded with Trevor on Dale Carnegie's 114th anniversary. They get into why Dale Carnegie shows up in so many plants, why some plants get results from the training and others don't, and how a shift supervisor can talk about a mistake on the line without tearing someone down. Joe retells the hard hat story from How to Win Friends and Influence People, which turns 90 this fall, and the screwdriver story from Take Command. Trevor shares the three gaps from his book, Manufacturing Greatness, coming May 11, 2027. Joe explains how Alan Mulally used the same principles to change the culture at Ford, why culture starts with the plant manager, and why most people have more capability than confidence. Connect with Joe: Dale Carnegie 👉 https://www.dalecarnegie.com Take Command podcast 👉 https://www.dalecarnegie.com/en/podcast LinkedIn 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephkhart/ X 👉 https://x.com/josephkhart Trevor's review of Take Command 👉 https://www.manufacturinggreatness.com/take-command-book-review/ Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe at manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    Ask Questions Instead of Giving Orders with Dale Carnegie CEO Joe Hart | Shift Supervisor | Ep. 199

  4. Oct 21

    The Book Cover I Loved Wasn't the One My Readers Needed | Change Management | Ep. 198

    After four months of work with his publisher's design team, Trevor had two book covers and a favorite. Then he asked the people the book is for. More than 60 people voted, and two out of three picked the cover he liked less. The split told the story. Newsletter readers and people who work in manufacturing chose the orderly cover, with puzzle pieces holding the title together. Marketers, speakers and authors chose the bold one. What does that mean for change management in your plant? Trevor's answer: the change you love can still miss if the people it's for see it differently. He shares what an author coach taught him, "A book is not about someone. A book is for someone," why a supervisor once told him "bring me along for the ride," and what the Minnesota Vikings' patience with Dallas Turner says about developing people. Manufacturing Greatness releases May 11, 2027. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe at manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    The Book Cover I Loved Wasn't the One My Readers Needed | Change Management | Ep. 198

  5. Oct 14

    Why Perception Isn't Reality with Shawn Herbig | Plant Leadership | Ep. 197

    As a young engineer on the Ford Explorer line, Shawn Herbig chased a strange complaint. Drivers said their radios were changing stations on their own. Dealers swapped the units, and every one passed the bench test. The cause: in cold-weather states, drivers wearing thick winter gloves were hitting two of the small buttons at once. Nothing was wrong with the radio, and to the customer, it was still broken. That moment started a career. Shawn founded IQS Research more than 25 years ago and his team runs the Kentucky Association of Manufacturers Wage and Workforce Study. He and Trevor get into why perception isn't reality but still changes behavior, what people outside manufacturing get wrong about what's behind the door, and why child care is underreported in workforce data. What does it mean to be a good consumer of data? Shawn's answer: confirming data deserves the same scrutiny as contradicting data. You never run a study to confirm a hypothesis. You run it to test one. For plant leadership and manufacturing workforce development, that's curiosity applied to the numbers. Shawn and Trevor share the stage at the Kentucky Industry Conference this week. IQS Research 👉 iqsresearch.com Bluegrass Bitters 👉 bluegrassbitters.net Frequency Matters, by Kristin Mackey and Shawn Herbig 👉 amazon.com/dp/1504332938 Shawn on LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/shawnherbig Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe at manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    Why Perception Isn't Reality with Shawn Herbig | Plant Leadership | Ep. 197

  6. Oct 7

    Nobody Quits Over Onboarding | Manufacturing Employee Retention | Ep. 196

    An HR professional in manufacturing told Trevor her onboarding program is strong for ninety days, and then it starts to dip. Her instinct was to extend it. The research says something else. Once somebody is past three months, lack of onboarding is the last reason they leave. Toxic culture, unsafe conditions and feeling disrespected are at the top of that list. And on the stay side, job stability and competitive pay are almost tied, with a cluster right behind them worth nearly a third of first place answers: feeling valued by your manager, a positive team culture, and clarity of expectations. Not one of them is an SOP. Trevor walks through what changes on day ninety-one, why pay climbs in importance with age while stability stays flat across every generation, and why the youngest workers rank being heard above being paid. Onboarding has an end date. The conversations do not. Based on national research with The Center for Generational Kinetics and Crossover Solutions, 1,250 U.S. and Canadian adults open to working in manufacturing. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe at manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter!

    Nobody Quits Over Onboarding | Manufacturing Employee Retention | Ep. 196

  7. Sep 30

    Your Best People Are Burning Out on Work They're Good At | Frontline Leadership with Greg Harrod Ep. 195

    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 dependable at, and nobody notices what it costs until they quit. Greg is a business coach, a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and he spent more than thirty years in manufacturing, including Johnson Controls and Caterpillar. He grew up in his family's welding shop. He and Trevor get into why the blue-collar instinct to just get it done eventually turns on you, what a design review taught him about who is actually in the room, and the simplest question a leader can ask on a Monday. His line to sit with: that is okay until it isn't. The Six Types of Working Genius is Patrick Lencioni's model, available through The Table Group at workinggenius.com. Take Greg's free Leadership Clarity Scorecard at leadershipclarityscorecard.com. Find him at GregHarrod.com and on LinkedIn. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe at manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    Your Best People Are Burning Out on Work They're Good At | Frontline Leadership with Greg Harrod Ep. 195

  8. Sep 23

    Your Veterans Want Clarity More Than Your New Hires Do | Frontline Leadership | Ep. 194

    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 the one to worry about. The veteran who isn't clear will push back and ask. The new person often won't, because they don't know yet what to ask. The absence of questions doesn't equal clarity. He also tells the story of a three o'clock meeting invite from his boss that threw off his whole day, and what a clear invite looks like instead. Source: national research study by Crossover Solutions and The Center for Generational Kinetics, 1,250 U.S. and Canadian adults willing to work in manufacturing. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe at manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    Your Veterans Want Clarity More Than Your New Hires Do | Frontline Leadership | Ep. 194
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5
out of 5
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About

Whether you're a plant manager, operations manager, or frontline supervisor, you'll discover practical strategies for lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, and operational excellence. We cover critical topics like workforce development, employee retention, safety culture, and change management—helping you navigate challenges like labor shortages, skills gaps, and the evolving manufacturing landscape including Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. 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. You'll find new ways to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have acheiving greater retention, productivity, and profits.

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