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

Trevor Blondeel
  • 5.0 (128)
  • Management
  • Updated Biweekly

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. 11h ago

    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

  2. Sep 30

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

  3. 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

  4. Sep 16

    Silence Is Not Agreement | Psychological Safety and Manufacturing Team Leadership with Dr. Sunita Sah | Ep. 193

    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 your plant. Sunita is a physician turned organizational psychologist, a professor at Cornell, and the author of Defy, a USA Today national bestseller. She joins Trevor to talk about insinuation anxiety, the reason we go quiet because speaking up would imply someone else is wrong, and about the piece almost every plant skips. We train for safety and we never practice the conversation. As she puts it, under duress you do not rise to the level of your expectations, you fall to the level of your practice. Trevor tells the story of a termination he carried out because he did not say no, and it is still the worst one of his career. Her line to sit with: compliance might be our default, but it is not our destiny. Defy is available in hardcover as Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes and in paperback as Defy: How to Speak Up When It Matters. Find Sunita at sunitasah.com. 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

    Silence Is Not Agreement | Psychological Safety and Manufacturing Team Leadership with Dr. Sunita Sah | Ep. 193

  5. Sep 9

    It Was Due Thursday and It's Still Sitting There | Manufacturing Accountability | Ep. 192

    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 was ever an agreement or just a date somebody said out loud. And what a real accountability conversation sounds like, which starts with what got in the way rather than why it wasn't done. The question to steal: if this had been done, what would have been different yesterday? It will not move the material any faster. But there is going to be another Friday morning. Also in this one, a short update on the book, out 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

    It Was Due Thursday and It's Still Sitting There | Manufacturing Accountability | Ep. 192

  6. Sep 2

    Be Curious Rather Than Furious | Manufacturing Team Leadership and Culture with Karin Lindner | Ep. 191

    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 client, be curious rather than furious, and the story of a general manager who described himself as passionate when what he meant was that he lost control under pressure. Trevor tells the story of the whiteboard he once wrote on, and the shop floor leader whose feedback stopped him cold. They walk through the five non-negotiable shifts from the book, starting with the way you open your very next production meeting, and finishing with the one every leader avoids: stop tolerating what hurts performance. Karin's line to sit with: we judge ourselves by our intentions and we judge others by their actions. Making Manufacturing Sexy by Karin Lindner is available now. Find Karin on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/karinlindner and at karicosolutions.com. 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

    Be Curious Rather Than Furious | Manufacturing Team Leadership and Culture with Karin Lindner | Ep. 191

  7. Aug 26

    You Cannot Recruit Your Way Out of This │ Manufacturing Recruiting │ Ep. 190

    What if the reason nobody applies has nothing to do with what you pay? In new research across the United States and Canada, concerns about physical safety ranked as the number one barrier to even considering a job in manufacturing. Pay came in fourth. Trevor assumed that was a perception problem, an old black-and-white picture nobody had bothered to correct. So he went looking for proof, and could not find any. The people closest to the industry name safety right alongside everybody else. What he found instead was a gap inside the plant. Employees named physical safety at forty percent. Managers, forty. Executives, thirty-three. The people who approve the capital are the least likely to name the barrier keeping people off the floor, and it is not because they do not care. An executive learns about the floor through a report and a recordable rate. An operator learns about it through their body. Same plant, two completely different pictures. Trevor tells the story of a hundred-person meeting where somebody raised a hand to say he could not get gloves, and what it took to find out why. Then three questions to take back to your plant. A practical look at manufacturing recruiting, the manufacturing labor shortage, and manufacturing team leadership for plant managers, operations leaders, and frontline supervisors. 🎁 Free: 10 great questions to ask your leadership and drive engagement → manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    You Cannot Recruit Your Way Out of This │ Manufacturing Recruiting │ Ep. 190

  8. Aug 19

    Why Nobody Pulls the Cord with Dr. Michael Gillespie │ Leadership Decision Making │ Ep. 189

    When was the last time somebody stopped your line and you thanked them for it? Toyota built the andon cord into the line decades ago and most plants still treat pulling it as a failure. Dr. Michael Gillespie, organizational psychologist at the University of South Florida and co-author of Distancing with David Marquet, studies why the person closest to a problem is often the least able to see it. Being locked inside your own point of view is the default setting, not an occasional lapse, which is how five people can walk up to one stopped line and each honestly see a different problem. Nobody is lying. Everybody is immersed. Mike walks Trevor through the three moves that create distance, be someone else, be somewhere else, be sometime else, and shares the research on why higher performing hospital units report more errors rather than fewer. Trevor brings the plant floor version, including the moment he admits he spent years defending his own department instead of the whole line, and applies temporal distancing live to a month-end budget decision every operations leader will recognize. Ends with one exercise you can try tonight, and it sounds cheesy until you read the research behind it. A practical conversation about decision making, critical thinking, and manufacturing team leadership for plant managers, operations directors, and frontline supervisors. 🎁 Free: 10 great questions to ask your leadership and drive engagement → manufacturinggreatness.com/subscribe and get bonus content in our newsletter! Connect with Trevor:  LinkedIn 👉 linkedin.com/in/trevorblondeel  Website 👉 manufacturinggreatness.com

    Why Nobody Pulls the Cord with Dr. Michael Gillespie │ Leadership Decision Making │ Ep. 189
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5
out of 5
128 Ratings

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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