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

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

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

You inspect for hazards every single day. When did anybody last inspect the culture? In new research across the United States and Canada, a toxic or unhealthy work culture ranked above unsafe or hazardous working conditions as a reason people would leave a new manufacturing job inside the first three months. Forty-seven percent against forty-three. Most leaders hear that and file it under the soft stuff. Trevor takes a different position. Four points apart is not two problems, it is one. Culture is a safety system. A plant where people do not speak up is a plant where near misses go unreported, and an unreported near miss is an incident waiting for its turn. He walks the mechanism one link at a time, from the grinding shield nobody wants to cross the plant to get, to the fork truck rolling a stop sign on midnights when nobody is watching. Then four questions to take back to your plant, starting with the one most leaders never think to ask: what does your near-miss reporting rate look like next to your incident rate?

Also inside, why the most experienced workers are the most certain that culture is the dealbreaker, and a confession from fifteen years as a materials manager about what really gets communicated when the truck is late. A practical look at safety culture 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

Your best people rarely quit in a dramatic moment. They leave a little at a time, and by the time they give notice the decision was made weeks ago. Gallup ties about 75% of voluntary turnover to the manager, and our own national research found that 35% of workers open to manufacturing have never had a single one-on-one development conversation with their manager. You can't keep people you never really talk to. Darcy Eikenberg, executive coach and author of Red Cape Rescue: Save Your Career Without Leaving Your Job, joins Trevor to turn the retention problem around: instead of replacing the people who leave, how do you help a good employee rescue the job they already have? A practical look at employee retention and manufacturing team leadership for plant managers, operations leaders, and frontline supervisors tired of watching good people walk out the door.

🎁 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 do six in ten of your people feel unheard at work? Trevor goes one level up from the first-week mentor: the new leader nobody onboards. He unpacks why a badge and a shift turn your best technician into a command-and-control boss, what the study of 1,250 manufacturing workers with Crossover Solutions and The Center for Generational Kinetics says people actually want from a leader, and what to build into a new supervisor's first 30 days so the concerns keep coming.

🎁 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

What if the only machine in your plant with no maintenance plan is you? Trevor sits down with productivity expert Marcey Rader, author of Reclaim Your Workday, to bring health-powered productivity to the shop floor: the red headphones rule that protects deep focus without an office door, why burnout comes from lack of recharge rather than workload, the burn-it-down audit nobody runs on the supervisor's role, and the rule of three that separates relentless prioritization from endless optimization in manufacturing team leadership.

Connect with Marcey:

Website 👉 helloraderco.com
Book 👉 reclaimyourworkday.com

🎁 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

What if your newest hire decides whether to stay in their very first week? Trevor opens a new solo series built on a national study of 1,250 manufacturing workers, run with Crossover Solutions and The Center for Generational Kinetics. The frontline wants a first-week mentor far more than the leaders who sign off on one, and that blind spot is feeding turnover. He names the Expectation Gap and shares the near-zero-cost move in manufacturing team leadership that closes it before your next hire walks in the door.

🎁 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