Supercharge Your Blue-Collar Workforce

Supercharge Your Team

Focus on character first and competency second.

“ Do not tolerate brilliant jerks. The cost to teamwork is too high.” ~ Reed Hastings

A few unscripted thoughts on video to support the quote above and the article below:

Supercharging teams is what I love to do! With over 11,000 hours of leading blue-collar leaders and their cross-functional teams through process improvement, organizational change, and cultural transformation, I’ve learned how to take a team of strangers, often who don’t know me or each other, and achieve amazing results in just five short days.

Working with these teams is where I truly learned to lead and apply the leadership principles I’m so passionate about.

You must understand, often they didn’t like me because I was an outsider. Often, they didn’t like me because they didn’t like the last consultant. Often, they didn’t like change. Often, they didn’t want to change. Often, they didn’t like their boss. Often, they didn’t like each other. Often, they didn’t want to be on the team. Often, they had been there 20 years, and I had been there 20 minutes. All of these challenges were happening at the same time. I loved leading these teams.

Imagine that’s your team, and you get a new one every week just like it. By the way, there’s one catch. If you can’t get them to work together and achieve amazing results within five days, you’re fired. The team simply goes back to work and isn’t held responsible. You carry the full responsibility of failure alone. However, there’s another catch. If there is success, the team gets all the credit as you stand in the back of the room on Friday while they all stand at the front of the room and share with the executives what they were able to accomplish as a team.

There are very few leaders that can lead the team I’ve just described. Managers of people don’t stand a chance. I’ve seen them try. It’s really ugly to watch. High impact leaders are the only leaders capable of leading teams like this successfully.

I learned how to quickly supercharge the teams I led.

How did I do it? I always started by focusing on character development, not only theirs, but also mine. I applied everything in Blue-Collar Leadership & Supervision and much more. I also had to learn to do it quickly.

Five days isn’t a lot of time to connect, build trust, develop relationships, develop people, teach them how to analyze the process, allow them to study the area and develop a plan, allow them to execute the plan and make changes, allow them to validate the results, allow them to create a presentation, and finally allow them to present their achievements to the executives and other leaders.

Most often, these teams had no experience in doing what they were expected to do. The only one that knew what to do was me, but I wasn’t going to be doing it. I was the leader, not the doer. They were being taught to do it while they were doing it.

I remember one team improved output per person per hour 376% in one week. They were literally cussing me on Monday and loving me by Friday. Another team reduced changeover/setup time from 108 minutes down to 17 minutes in one week.

I never had a bad week or a bad team. I’m not special. However, I am intentional. I intentionally and methodically applied the character-based principles of influence(leadership). These principles are special. They apply to all people in all situations. Not sometime. Every time.

What did I really do to make it all happen? I dedicated most, if not all, of the first day to leadership development. I didn’t care who was in the room, what their title was or wasn’t, and I didn’t care what the mission was. I wanted to get everyone on the same page thinking the same way. I call it “priming the pump.”

I was helping them look in the mirror and understand why it was important to their success for the team to be successful. I helped them understand why and how they should work together. I helped them understand their success was important to me. I made sure they trusted me and knew they would get all the credit for the team’s success. I helped them begin to think like high impact leaders.

Your success depends on your team’s success.

I want to help you be more successful. How? By helping you help your team be more successful. I intentionally made Blue-Collar Leadership & Supervision: Unleash Your Team's Potential the second in the Blue-Collar Leadership Series because I wanted to be sure I had the first one ready for you to use to engage your team through growth and development. I want to help you help your team begin to think like high impact leaders while they are still on the front lines.

I wrote Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines specifically for leaders to use to develop their teams. You can learn about it, listen to a 5 minute audio sample, access 30 short videos where I speak on the content of each chapter, and even download the first five chapters all for free here. If you truly want to be a high impact leader and build a high impact blue-collar team, I highly advise you to check it out. There's nothing like it on the market today because the blue-collar workforce is most often overlooked and underdeveloped. You will also learn a lot from it, and you will see how beneficial it will be for your team.

Some high impact leaders have purchased a copy for each of their team members. The most effective leaders not only purchase it for their team members, but also lead them through a 30 day book study, one three page chapter at a time (6-7 minutes of reading).

The best teams read each chapter together with each person underlining their key points. Then, the leader briefly discusses his/her key takeaway. Next, each team member briefly discusses their key takeaway. Then, everyone is dismissed. (See the special-offer below to purchase 200 blue-collar series books for your team and receive up to 4 hours of complimentary onsite leadership development presented by me.)

This is a powerful learning model for developing your team and building relationships. We learn more subconsciously listening to others speak about what they learned than we do by listening to someone tell us what we should have learned.

“The ability to mobilize the skills and competencies of the people around us has a bigger impact on our performance than does the amount of experience we have.” ~ Liz Wiseman

What our clients are saying...

"My first words are, GET SIGNED UP! This training is not, and I stress, not your everyday leadership seminar! I have never been apart of anything like it. After 30 years in technology and two years in Concrete Construction, I have attended dozens and sent hundreds to the so-called 'Leadership-Training.' I can tell you that while all of the courses, classes, webinars, and seminars, had good intentions, nothing can touch what Mack and Ria Story provide. I just wish I had it 20 years ago...I could go on-and-on. We had 98% in attendance and 100% of the team that attended said that they were 'blown-away, they did not see that conviction and passion coming.' Many thanks, Mack and Ria!" ~ Sam M.

Sam provided the words above in a formal LinkedIn recommendation a few days after taking advantage of my special offer below. He is already making plans to do it again!

SPECIAL BLUE-COLLAR LEADERSHIP OFFER

What I will do for you…

If you or your leaders will invest in your team, I will too. I’ll pay all of my expenses to travel anywhere in the USA to conduct up to 4 hours of complimentary, on site leadership development training for any size group, large or small, at any level. This is my money and my time, not corporate money on company time. Why do I make this offer? Because, I have a passion for growing and developing the often overworked, overlooked, and underdeveloped blue-collar workforce and those who lead them.

Click here to watch a short testimonial from a blue-collar leader who went through many of my 1/2 day on site, leadership development workshops.

What you must do for your team…

Purchase 200 copies (direct from me for $3,600) of any combination of my three Blue-Collar Leadership Series books and/or Change Happens: Leading Yourself and Others through Change and distribute them to your blue-collar workforce.

Note: 52 weeks X 40 hours = 2,080 hours per year. $18.00 per book per person / 2,080 hours = $.009 (less than a penny per hour per person annualized investment)

Learn more about the 4 books included in this special offer here:

• Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines
• Blue-Collar Leadership & Supervision: Unleash Your Team’s Potential
• Blue-Collar Kaizen: Leading Lean & Lean Teams
• Change Happens: Leading Yourself and Others through Change

I'm happy to get on a complimentary call at 334-728-4143. Let’s make it happen! 

Note: This offer is limited to on-site training within Blue-Collar industries and does not include conferences, seminars, etc. Learn more about my unique Blue-Collar Leadership content at www.BlueCollarLeadership.com.

Visit our Top Story Leadership online store to browse our 20 books on personal growth and leadership development. Then, shop there or search for them on Amazon as paperback, eBook, and many are also available there on audio too.

Note: I encourage you to be a river, not a reservoir. Please share my blogs with others if you find value in them. I believe in abundance and write them to help others become more effective, successful, and significant.

Make an impact!

Mack Story

I help leaders engage the front line to improve the bottom line.