Growth

Tag: Leadership Development

  • Building an Effective Workforce: Key Skill Sets

    Reader asks “What is one skill set you wish more of your employees possessed?”

    This is a really thought provoking question for me personally, as I believe that different job roles and responsibilities do require different sets of skills, however there are skill sets that transcend job description and that can be applied in all cases.

    To start, I think I want to outline 7 skill sets that I personally think exist within the work place. Core , Leadership, Technical, Interpersonal, Organization, Creativity, Personal Development. I think these are the “skill sets” you are referring too.

    I’ll begin by saying we should always try to create an environment that fosters a productive work force and that these skill sets are generally taught and retained through employee engagement. Every employee is different and brings a different valuable skill set to work, we just need to find out what that skill set is.

    After saying all that, I believe the skill set I would want my employees to have naturally would be an employee that has a good routine and structure based skill set, or an organization skillset.

    This skillset would involve – Time management, Organization, Process Adherence, Attention to Detail, Consistency, Dependability, Task Prioritization things of that nature.

    Why did I choose this skillset? It’s because of Culture Index. Culture index is a quick snapshot of what your traits and tendencies are as a person. According to my profile I am a Deductive Macro thinker (big picture) that is driven by big picture goals and growth. My downside so to speak is that I have low patience for routine tasks and repetitive actions. So that is what I look for in employees, the exact traits and behaviors that I lack. By modeling my business in this way, I can steer and navigate where I want the business to go, while I can rely on my employees to conduct the necessary routine and procedural work to get us there. In short, I require employees with this skillset to allow me to run the business the way I want to, without it, we would have a wonderful plan and route but no way to get there.

    In summary, the skill set I want my employees to have more of, is the skillset that I lack. This will set up a functional relationship between myself and my employees so that we can focus on what we naturally gravitate towards. I highly recommend looking into culture index and using it to narrow down the profile for the job you’re looking for to ensure that you get the proper skillset you’re looking for.

    I appreciate the question and want to thank all of the readers so far who have enjoyed my blog. Please send me some feedback or some questions so we can continue this dialogue and continue to grow!

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  • Boost Work Culture by Enhancing Efficiency

    Boost Work Culture by Enhancing Efficiency

    Question: “My team seems to be running inefficiently and I’m not sure how to improve the work culture. Any advice?“

    Firstly, thank you for your question and by reading into the way the question is worded we can infer a couple of concepts. The first deduction can be made by understanding that the reader is (maybe unconsciously) tying work efficiency to work culture. The second is that they recognize that there is an issue. These two concepts are critical to making a positive change in your work culture – Recognition and Correlation.

    We’ll start with the correlation between work culture and work efficiency. This is tricky balancing act that needs to be done correctly or it can feel hopeless. The first step is to take a deep look at your current processes in place. In my experience, people don’t fail the process nearly as often as the processes fail the people. Let’s say (hypothetically) you work in manufacturing, and you’re manufacturing plastic bottles. Before you can begin to understand if the process is working or not, you need to understand what the process itself is. This sounds crazy, and it did when my boss about seven years ago told me to do it myself, but take 30 minutes to an hour and just watch the process work.

    Watch the people, the way they move, the way the end product is produced. You’ll find small things such as “why does that employee have to walk around the far side of the pallet to stack it?” or “why does the operator have to make constant adjustments to the extruder?”. Once you have these process inefficiencies, they you can begin to make improvements and become a better business. You may have noticed I did not once mention work culture, that’s because work culture is a lagging indicator, or result of the work that you put in for your employees. If you make these changes, make your employees lives just a little bit easier, you’ll see the results. Think of it this way, if you had to rewrite your report daily instead of using a template, you’d end up wasting hours and hours weekly doing something that is a waste of time. What if your boss walked out of their office and gave you a template?

    Lastly, let’s talk about recognition. I would like to give you kudos, as you are a manager that has recognized that there is an issue. It sounds crazy, but that is the oft overlooked step that is necessary to making an improve. It’s not just about recognizing that there is a problem, it’s recognizing that you do not have the proper tools or experience to fix it at this point in time, and that you need to ask for advice (hence your input to this blog) to try to overcome your problem. Networks are a wildly underutilized tool that will serve you well once you get comfortable using them.

    To summarize – Work Culture as a function of efficiency is a lagging indicator. That means to say that if the process is improved and the employees can feel as if you made their lives easier, efficiency (machine uptime) and efficiency (As a function of Work Culture) will improve. It doesn’t take much, turn the pallet around, save a couple seconds, buy that thousand dollar machine part, do the extra PM, to do a 180 on your work culture.

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  • Ask James: Your Questions on Leadership and Business

    Ask James: Your Questions on Leadership and Business

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    The intention of this blog is to interact with the readers by answering direct questions sent to myself that I may (or may not) be an expert on. Upon finding a solution, the answer will be published as a blog post, with the intent for both parties to learn more about the subject and “grow” together.

    To begin, the first blog post will be about myself. Who am I? What is my expertise? What are my most pivotal experiences? From these I hope to draw questions from my readers and create an opportunity for mutual growth and learning.

    Who am I? My name is James, I’m 30 years old and have a wonderful Wife with three kids. I live in California, though I have lived across 13 different states in the US, and have visited countless other countries across the globe through my work.

    What is my expertise? My expertise is founded in three separate categories – Leadership, building and running a Business, and Military Operations. All of these three categories either carry a degree or a decade plus of experience.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    What are my most pivotal experiences? My most pivotal experience was my half decade spent in the Army. During this time, I learned one valuable lesson; you must be a lifelong learner. No matter how much expertise you assume you have, or how much experience you have gained, there is always something to learn through a new perspective or through new data. The second most pivotal experience occurred during my first operations role in a foam manufacturing plant. My boss (whom I have an intense level of respect for) taught me the foundational lessons for running a business (successfully) and how to look at processes (not people) to improve your business metrics. It can be summed up in one phrase “You must work just as hard for your employees as your employees work for you”. These two lessons shaped my mindset and helped me become a successful leader in busniess.

    Now i ask: What questions would you like to discuss?

    Photo by fauxels on Pexels.com

    How can I get my questions on this blog?

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