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DW
Key challenges for me with my last job was the hiring process and finding the workers to create the team itself.

JP
The biggest challenge at my new job is diversity dealing with language barriers learning new ways to communicate

EPC
In team dynamics
Constant turnover makes it hard to build a cohesive relationship and team.
Listen to other people’s ideas or opinions. We aren’t always right and be open to other perspectives
Leadership development:
Learning your employees- everyone has a different motivator that you need to learn to reach them and build a relationship with them
Listening to everyone’s ideas, you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, just part of a strong team
Always be teaching, there’s a teaching lesson in every instance.
Make sure expectations are communicated clearly and support them to be successful

JM
The biggest thing I’ve come to realize in managing people is that you have to play into their strengths, they each have their own strengths and weaknesses and if you can manage to put them into positions that they will succeed it will only boost team morale and effectiveness. My favorite way to do this is with collaborations on projects putting two people together that will first of all get along but also push each other to a higher standard. It’s not always perfect, but even when it isn’t great it comes out as a learning experience.

MG
Well one of the most recurrent is that there a some employees that are team lead but their attitude is not one of a leader, they want to act as an regular operator like I am just going to do what my work tell me to do anything else will not do it and I don’t think that’s the way I always try to teach everyone to always get where they need help no matter what your job description say and of course if you are trained.

CC
In my experience there are a few key aspects that are critical developing a successful team. Communication is a relatively large aspect of being successful. When pertaining to efficiency it usually correlates strongly with how well the team communicates with one another. Accountability is another one of these aspects. When each member of a team holds themselves accountable for their actions and responsibilities it shows they care thus creating better results when working with one another. Appreciation is also a very important part of building a strong team. Whether it is a small acknowledgment daily or something in terms of compensation for hard work can help build a better team environment. Such as putting some kind of incentive on the table for the associates to strive and be better.

Some of the challenges I have had are motivating a team of individuals that are being underpaid. Dealing with certain individuals who are there do not care about others or themselves. Being understaffed for certain jobs causing stress on hard working associates that know and understand it is up to us as a team to complete the task at hand regardless of circumstances. One of the worst problems is having ineffective management regarding in management that does not take into consideration the perspective of the associates actually performing the job. If there is a problem that has been acknowledged and communicated to upper management and no action is ever taken to address the issue that is clearly a problem for the associates.

I hope this helps with your project and if there is anything else I can do please do not hesitate to ask!

CH
I took over this Operations Manager position 6 months ago and what I’ve encountered was basically a business that was not operating honestly and uncovered a lot that could have potentially shut the business down so I’ve basically had to start fresh with new people. Finding quality people over quantity has been a huge issue in the area I live in. I have learned people do not value themselves, have integrity, loyal, take pride in themselves or the company they represent. They’re just looking for a paycheck and could care less about anything else. I have never in my over 20yrs of management experience seen anything like the time we live in. This includes guards and supervisors. I always said I was born in the wrong era and I know now for a fact I was. Challenging to say the least, but quitting and giving up is not an option. I was hired to do a job, run the company, and I will fulfill that with upmost respect to the owners that believed in me.

AG
In businesses that have no accountability standard chaos will ensue and a great culture will never be established there has to be a fine balance of accountability in order to lead.
Iv launched two buildings across numerous shifts and have never had issues in either setting with direct reports due to my leadership style.
Great culture is easy to mantain, bad culture is hard to flip. If you’re looking for specific circumstances feel free to ask.

HH
In my area, there is a lack of leadership derived from explicitly job position—basically the area has no team leaders, so I have had a tough time getting individuals to showcase leadership because they’re more of an individual contributor by design. Being a union shop doesn’t help here either. I’ve been trying to navigate delegating leadership opportunities to individual contributors, and I’ve found some people are hungry for more responsibility and have been limited by their role/responsibilities. These individuals will pounce on an opportunity to step up to make a difference. On the other hand, there are plenty of people that use their role as a shield from responsibility—these people have no desire to take on any leadership. I think finding the right players and being able to work around the cards you’ve been dealt have a big impact here.

With team dynamics, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. I’ve had team based cells that did a complete 180 in morale and performance after just getting one bad player out. Challenging part is navigating the rules around choosing your players.

Hope this helps.

JO
How to manage a team of people who’ve done jobs I’ve never done. Basically, having to piece together job descriptions to make sure people are doing what they are supposed to or create order within the team if they are not.

Then, try to find ways to improve the process of what the team is trying to do.

This was challenging because people don’t trust outsiders, so it took a long time to gain their trust.

KD
My biggest personal challenge is learning who I can trust on my team with the right tasks, effective delegation. I default to doing everything myself and I can’t succeed that way.
Language barriers have become less of a challenge but still remain. (I use google translate or use team members that are bilingual to help)
Enforcing the standard and holding others accountable especially peers and superiors can be challenging.
Creating buy in and helping the team understand the why behind the task at hand can be challenging.
I could continue, on a larger picture basis my particular facility has division between departments and shifts, and radically different approaches to how to run operations across the different levels of management, not all the arrows are going in the same direction.
I hope that helps Jaison

DH
Hey Jaison, I’d be honored to give you my little bit of insight on team management, dynamics and leadership development.

First and foremost leading with integrity and having a disciplined mindset as a leader as always proven very helpful in my roles as a supervisor. I have to be the example to each and every team member and I do that through integrity and discipline. Secondly, I invest in ALL team members the same but over time focus on the ones that are receptive of growth and a little discomfort. Complacent people and I don’t want to do it someone else can mindsets are crippling the work force at a rapid pace. I never give up on any team member but investing your time wisely is a crucial key to success in leadership. I am not afraid to let my team members fail at times but when it is failing at the same thing or something that should be a quick step to learn I intervene and look at the situation from all angles. Promoting a safe efficient and fun atmosphere is key to success from the start to beginning. Being a leader means in tough times have the same mindset everyday and demonstrate your teachings through actions. So it all ties together by being a great communicator verbally and physically and lead with integrity and discipline.

I hope this helps!

ZA
Hey Jaison,
For me management is about mutual respect. Especially in manufacturing. Being a leader is extremely challenging but the reward is sweet. My team is a great team of hardworking individuals who not only wanna be there but wanna finish the job with everything they got. For my own development I’m working over the hump of awkward conversations. I’m a young leader out of school and sometimes it’s hard to have awkward conversations with staff who have years of experience over me. But it’s always making sure we’re on the same page and business is business.
Hope this helps a little and have a great rest of your evening!

DH
Hey Jaison, thank you for reaching out.
That is a great question, my largest challenges with group dynamics is the drama that occurs within my team. Sometimes it feels like I’m an adult babysitter, and it can be somewhat difficult to navigate through it all without being thrown into it myself. Another challenge that occurs is when personality’s clash and one person refuses to talk to the other. For leadership development I have problems with people only wanting to do the bare minimum. While this does cause a major problem in leadership development, it can also make my employees that have an amazing drive and work ethic shine above the others. I love what I do, and I love watching my team members grow and reach their potential. I am extremely new to management and still have a lot to learn.

CA
Jaison,

I appreciate you reaching out, and thank you for your service!

In my experience, finding the right balance between empowering team members with autonomy and fostering collaboration/communication to achieve common goals can be delicate. Despite the close-knit nature of our team within a small shop, communication breakdowns between processes can impede the flow of information to all relevant parties, affecting our ability to execute.

Engaging our team to tackle these challenges serves as an opportunity to identify natural leaders and individuals committed to generating effective solutions. By fostering collaborative efforts, we are generating opportunities for improvement and enhancing our operational dynamics.

This approach, akin to a "confidence test," has demonstrated its efficacy across diverse settings, including both military and private sector environments. Through structured engagement and targeted problem-solving, we are unlocking an untapped potential and elevating our team's performance.

Hope this helps!

MM
Key challenges for Team Dynamics and Leadership Development:
- Staffing and scheduling: Due to multiple reasons, staffing has always been a challenge... especially when we have to make our people accountable, and we let them go so now we have to train new people and it takes a while. In the same topic. On the same topic, when people call off it's another issue. By the end of the day, we prioritize our production areas and allocate the people based on the business needs trying always to keep everything running as good as possible with not so much manpower.

- Indecision: When developing new leaders, one thing that I found is that they don't know where they want to go or what they want to do next... I started doing 1:1s with the junior members of the team to engage and empower them but not only that but also to identify their strengths, opportunities of improvement and also what they want to do or what they are interested in.

- Foundations: I am always looking to make our foundations stronger so every month I try to bring a new topic, concern or something to remind everyone on my shift about the basics we automatically do, and we might miss. This way, we prevent finished goods on hold, we continue saving on waste or losses and that way we promote a culture of continuous improvement.

JC
Hey Jaison, most of my challenges I face involve getting the people I manage to complete tasks in a timely manner and the quality of work they produce. I usually have a conversation with them and show them the areas of improvement and what needs to be done to meet the standard that is being set by the company. I’d love to see the results of this project!

JC
Hey man! I would say the biggest challenges I face, is obviously dealing with 85 different personalities and backgrounds. The best way I learn to adapt and connect with my team is meeting one on one and really dialing in and listening to them when we meet. You can lead any team if the team feels like you respect them as well understand them. And leadership development can only be for employees that are willing to learn, I can coach and guide anyone into leadership but they have to be willing to learn and accept change!

SF
Some challenges I have faced over the years are as follows
I have always tried to build leadership. I will progress my team leads and give them the resources and the knowledge for growth.
Team dynamics- that’s a different story. In my current role I have a lot of the “younger generation “. As you are aware this presents challenges beyond the production aspect. The younger generation is a total different workforce. I try to build a quality relationship based on trust and compassion. This seems to go a long way.
Regards,

MG
The one challenge I can say once entering leadership at an you age peers and veterans in the feild that may fall under your leadership view you differently. In some ways it is easy to relate and convey a message. In others ways you’re frowned upon due to young age which they see as lack of experience. I can say the biggest thing thats gets me through connecting is effectively communicating.

DN
The most important thing to me is to put your associates where they can be successful and comfortable. It's all about knowing your team what there strengths and weaknesses are. After you are able to identify those things everything else will fall into place.

DD
The biggest issue I face is support from maintenance and IT/Controls. As far as operators the biggest issues I see is people staying focused and the other major one is phone/earbud usage

PT
Communication, and following directions would be the top two I can think of now

IP
One of the biggest issues I've came across is the team always looking for a scapegoat and failing to take accountability for their actions. When it comes to leadership development, one thing I see a lot is the inability to delegate labor properly and prioritize accordingly. I see both these issues as coachable issues and I like to call it out as it happens, so they get into a routine of what's expected and be able to set that standard. I hope this response was in the realm of what you were looking for. Thank you for reaching out. If I can help with anything else, please feel free to continue asking questions as they also help me explore different topics that might get put to the side at times.

PM
Turnover & Building Capability – both hourly & salary
I would say the biggest challenge is keeping up with the pace of turnover & effective development of people. When I started my career in the early 2000s people in the salary ranks didn’t jump jobs nearly as much & thought about their career in longer intervals, say 5 – 10 years vs 2 -3. Since people stayed in jobs longer, they had more time to master their craft & organizations tended to be staffed to allow bench strength. I would also add that changes in technology was slower so training material was done well & didn’t change as often in terms of content & how it was stored/communicated.

Looking at the hourly side I think some of the same my comments about staffing levels & training material apply. However, what is a little different is standard that people held for those acquiring the next skill level seemed to drop. Hourly folks that participate in qualification seem to value advancing their peers vs maintaining a standard, which gets compounded because of a level of checks and balances is missing if you don’t have strong salaried leadership.

Effective Use of Technology
Let me start by saying that technology is awesome & puts a wealth of information at your fingertips. It also creates different ways to communicate & connect through multiple levels of an organization instantly. I can sit in my home office or look at my phone & observe real-time plant data anytime I want but it is not without issues or challenges. I think organizations can become saturated by data, reporting, and metrics which can dilute efforts/results. I try to be purposeful about defining clear a problem statement and using simple metrics that can be made visible by the teams. I am a big advocate of the K.I.S.S model. When teams can connect to goals and know the score it is amazing how quickly course corrections can occur without a lot of intervention. Other issues I have experienced is that there is a tendency to manage at lower levels in the organization than you should because there is so much access. Also, it can become had to disconnect because of so much connectivity.

TD
I would say a big challenge, and a key to mitigating hindrances, is to make sure objectives are aligned.
Often, new teams or projects lead to unfamiliar and unexpected dynamics for contributing individuals. These dynamics can result in contributors holding back, or refraining from showing their true strengths. These situations become especially evident, or compounded, when there are seemingly competing or unparalleled objectives. Best case scenario, you get 75% out of your team. Worst case scenario, your team loses faith in the project or mission altogether.
In order to evade scenarios like these, objective alignment is incredibly important. Make sure everyone is on the same page and in pursuit of the same goal. Or, make sure multiple goals are in support of one another.
Hope this provides a bit of insight! Let me know how the project goes. Good luck!

AL
Hi, Jaison.
Key challenges I’ve encountered would be keeping my leader employees motivated just as much as my “slacker” employees. Multiple different areas of the departments I manage require my employees to work in group settings. Although it may be easy to focus on trying to motivate your slow moving employees, you also have to motivate your hard workers just as much because these slower moving employees can lower the leading employees moral very quickly. I always try to remind myself that every employee needs some type of attention - the type of employee they are determines what type of attention and motivation they need.

TK
For me personally, the biggest challenge for me is developing myself as a young leader and being able to develop people at the same time. I work with a lot of people older than me and learning how to connect with other generations! We have a very diverse team and connecting people is the best feeling and coming together as a team.

CM
Hi Jaison! With franchising specifically, I think the biggest issue you run into is folks who don’t fully buy into the brand. The analogy we like to use is if you go to IKEA and buy furniture, you use the instructions to make sure you’re building it correctly. You don’t buy IKEA furniture and throw away the instructions because you think you can do it better

IM
In managing your team, what are some of the key challenges you've encountered, particularly in team dynamics or leadership development?
As a young leader, one of the most significant hurdles I face is the challenge of initially earning the trust and respect of my team members, many of whom are older and more experienced. Initially, there is always a bias to overcome. There is always doubt lingering regarding my capabilities, experience, and maturity. All of which are reasonable concern for a young leader who lacks experience . Often times the teams I lead have had poor experiences with "younger" leaders in the past. This is always a challenge and sometimes leaves you feeling already behind the 8 ball before you even begin.
However, I've learned that actions speak louder than words. The best way to earn your teams trust is to lead by example. Leading by example means, acting with humility, having a fierce commitment to your teams ultimate success, and commitment to reliability. Always keep your word even for the smallest of promises. Don't promise anything you are uncertain you can achieve, If you say you are going to do something for an individual then do it. Treat everyone on your team with equal respect and fairness. Establish a standard and hold everyone including yourself accountable to that standard. Doing this will quickly establish a culture.
But most importantly, learn your team and the process you are managing before you do anything. I have found implementing these basic leadership traits foster trust and respect but also contribute to the continuous improvement of the team dynamic and culture. As a young leader this is the fastest way to gain the respect and trust of your team and make impactful, positive change in an organization.