Resources for crew leaders.

[oceans]

Thanks, Nora. Bang on!

Ending one's employment is quite a valid point, and should be considered in certain cases. I'm wondering if a discrepancy between a business owner and a foreman could make things sticky for the foreman if he has an issue with a certain crew member. (owner wants the crew member to stay, foreman wants him to go, etc...)

I remember working for a guy that was impossible to meet with. I had to "catch" him, and that made it difficult to really address the issue and have a meaningful, focused discussion with a decent outcome. That was a good lesson for me, now that I am an owner. I want to make myself available to the crew as best I can, but I'm usually the one that asks them for a meeting rather than the opposite.

Sometimes, I have found that a crew member needs specific training, and I have to bite my tongue, go some extra distance myself to compensate, then be sure to address things later. Another thing is allowing specific training and practice time, since certain old habits can be tough to break for some crew members.

 

[S_Laug]

Great topic, EntreLeaderhip by Dave Ramsey and anything by John Maxwell are good books to read about leadership.

 

[banjo]

This has been a great read, thanks for all contributions!

 

[tomthetreeman]

When in doubt, your jefe can also be a great resource for guidance.

 

[frashdog]

Motivation/ moral: Directly: by working with to show safe and efficient operational procedures. Indirectly:Incentives and or bonuses, whether its cash, time, food or energy drinks, stoke the fires. Room for fooling around.

Safety: "You need to, it's part of the job", no room for fooling around on this topic. No emotion needed when stating required behaviors regarding industry safety standards. "this is what we do."

Educate: Continuous improvement as a core philosophy/value by means of improving productivity while maintaining high level of safety and quality.

In the end it is communication that lubricates a crew. At first it is out loud words that grows into to subtle body languages where as people do things to aid in the goal of the operation with out being directed.

Past life I was a line supervisor for a world class manufacturing facility where my line had $10 million in product "work in progress" and $2 million per day was our out put. I had a 40 person crew to start. They gave me all kinds of leadership training. As a leader your job is to delegate/direct wherever possible. Do not micro manage, enable people to be unsupervised. Any short comings of your people is you a reflection of your shortcomings, own it. Don't react with emotion to problems, only solutions. First day I told my crew I was to be their "activity coordinator" not baby sitter. Conflict negotiations were done be means of lots of questions. The answers to the problems came to light with innocent and polite questioning of the situation at hand.

Be cool, be fun, be safe, and be a good example.

Simply
Treat others as have others treat you.

 

[AboveTheLines]

Damn, I wanna work for you! I agree with starting out a little more strict and then mellow out. You do it this way you will gain the respect and then after you have that you can mellow out and become more of a friend. Do it the other way and you will end up with people thinking they can take advantage.

 

[treehumper]

I wouldn't say you mellow out but that you, through observation of crew performance and development, allow them to take on more decisions. Consistency in your behaviour as a manager will make for the same in your crew. They'll know what to expect in a given situation.

"Any short comings of your people is you a reflection of your shortcomings, own it." After the orientation and training period I'd agree with this. But during that time those short comings will come to light and allow you to identify what needs to be worked on. Our new groundsmen gave a good example of this recently. They left a couple of the big saws out overnight. The owner found them the next day and called me about it. He also sent a pic via text to the groundsmen. One first apologized for the oversight to mean with real concern for the error. When I suggested he send the same response to the owner he flipped out and went off on a rant about how his previous boss always blamed him when things went wrong regardless of who was actually accountable, etc, etc... Wow, I was stunned at how completely opposite his attitude was when it came to owning up to the owner vs. his crew leader. Talk about baggage! It allowed a dialog on care of equipment and overall crew responsibility to each other and the company.