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

A reporter calls Jason Bates every week looking for the big layoff story. The five-hundred-people-let-go story. Jason keeps telling him the truth: layoffs are happening, in small numbers. So is hiring. But the catastrophe the headlines want isn't what he sees across hundreds of Ontario plants every day. Trevor sits down with Jason, Manufacturing Consortium Manager at EMC, Canada's largest manufacturing consortium, to unpack what's really going on, the plants that are quietly adjusting and diversifying, and the peer community most owners haven't tapped into. Growth doesn't sell papers. Manufacturing team leadership doesn't happen inside your four walls. The vast majority of plants are doing just fine. Most owners don't know that.

Connect with Jason:

LinkedIn👉 https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jasonbates3

Website 👉 emccanada.org

🎁 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's the last time you said yes when everything in you wanted to say no? Every yes is a no to something else, usually the work that mattered more, and we end up drowning in our own yeses. Trevor breaks down the hidden math of saying yes, why productive beats busy, and how to say no without burning the relationship, even when it's your boss asking. You don't refuse, you reframe: I want to help, here's what I'd have to move, which option works best. It comes down to capacity and priorities, the heart of manufacturing team leadership.

🎁 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 team member you've quietly given up on is the one your plant needs most? Trevor sits down with Nir Eyal, author of the New York Times bestseller Beyond Belief and the global bestsellers Hooked and Indistractable, to apply the three powers of belief (attention, anticipation, agency) to manufacturing talent development. The judgment trap stops development cold. This conversation breaks it open. Manufacturing team leadership starts with the beliefs you carry about the people on your floor.

Connect with Nir:

Website 👉 nirandfar.com

Book 👉 geni.us/beyondbelief

Free belief change guide 👉 nirandfar.com/beyond-belief-live LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nireyal

🎁 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

It's Wednesday afternoon and the report due tomorrow isn't going to be in on time. Do you push harder, or fix what actually broke? Trevor takes a real plant scenario, a report feeding a hiring decision, and walks it back through three gaps: how you showed up, whether "done" was ever clear, and what happens when no one follows up. You'll hear why chasing harder is manufacturing midness, and the one move that keeps next Thursday from looking like this one: question yourself first.

Applies the Manufacturing Greatness model from Episode 170 👉 https://mindfulnessmanufacturing.libsyn.com/manufacturing-leadership-development-the-3-conversations-that-fix-accountability-alignment-and-results-170

🎁 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 most important leader on your shop floor doesn't have the title? Trevor sits down with Jason Hopper, a thirty-year manufacturing veteran who rose from the floor into team leadership and then chose to go back to the floor, on what good leadership actually looks like to the people being led. They get into the trap that catches almost every leader, why safety has to mean stopping, and the coaching, trust, and patience that keep good people in the role.

🎧 Mentioned in this episode: Episode 14 with Horst Prelog and Scott Turner, on slowing down to go fast (June 3, 2020). Listen 👉 https://mindfulnessmanufacturing.libsyn.com/horst-prelog-and-scott-turner-part-1

🎁 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