ADMO

  This week at ADMO, we started a new training with our supervisors and other manufacturing leaders. Based on a recommendation from our Molding Manager, Hugo, we asked the team to read the book " The Servant: A Simple Story About The True Essence of Leadership " by James C. Hunter.  This book had been impactful to him in his past leadership training and he thought it would be helpful for our team right now. Over the coming weeks, we will be following along with John Daily as he embarks on a journey to discover the secrets of leadership at a weeklong retreat at a remote Benedictine monastery. As we move through this process, some of the information will seem simple, but profound. Other themes might be considered risky to talk about in a business setting. The author has this to say about it: I feared if I addressed business audiences and started talking about love, Human Resources people might go into spontaneous human combustion with cries of 'Mr. Hunter, we're trying ...

Photo Credit:  https://www.instagram.com/mindfulmellows/  It's time for a check-in! As a company, it's important that we teach and train our employees in the tasks necessary to complete their jobs. At ADMO, we're also concerned about the whole person and any personal growth goals our employees may have. We are a better community when we recognize and see each other as more than our internal goals and tasks.  Self-awareness and reflection is key for growth. Take a moment and see how you measure up against this checklist: Do you accept your flaws and mistakes? Are you able to differentiate solitude and loneliness? Are you more self-aware of your behavior? How often is your happiness determined by others? Do you let things flow? Do you understand everyone is unique in their own way? Do you focus on what you can control? How often do you worry about what you can't control? Do you have a growth mindset? Take a few quiet minutes to reflect on these items. One of our Key Value...

  Are you coachable? Are you a life-long learner? Do you want to be the expert in your field? All of these desires make you someone who makes a difference, no matter what you do for a living.  "If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you" - Zig Ziglar Which are you? Are you someone who doesn't like change or says, "This is how we've always done it"? Or, are you someone with a curiosity that demands you find out more? Do you hunger for wisdom and respond with the courage to learn something new? What can stoke that hunger? What do you think it would take to stir up that desire to learn? If you knew that learning was the key, would you see it differently?

  "Communication is the oxygen of execution". Someone shared this quote with me today and I believe it is a concept that is vital to our business. Oxygen gives life. It's literally the air we breathe. Communication within our business should be the same. How many times can you think of where better communication, up-front, would have avoided a situation? Maybe it was a lack of clear communication in training or a failure of the the trainee to ask questions and thereby making a mistake. Or, perhaps expectations weren't communicated clearly. In other instances, a ball gets dropped because the communication stops and there is no follow-up. If communication is truly the oxygen of execution, then why are we holding our breath?  A moment for self-evaluation: Take a moment and think of a recent failure of execution in your department. Ask yourself the following questions: 1. What was the cause of the failure? 2. What could we have done better? 3. How was our communication th...

We took a hiatus from our leadership training to focus on implementing a 5S program throughout the plant. As we are entering the maintenance stage of that project, we hope to be up and running with leadership training in the Fall. New posts to follow soon...hopefully!

This week in our pursuit of excellence through leadership growth, we talked about Acting as One in our organization.  "If you harness the power of every member of your organization, your competition doesn't stand a chance." ( Randy Gravitt ). As an example of an organization who does this well, Mr. Gravitt shared a picture of the Corporate Purpose carved on a stone outside of the Chick-fil-a headquarters. Photo Credit: Sandy Washburn Every person who enters that building is greeted with the corporate purpose.  Do you notice that it doesn't actually say anything about chicken?  Chick-fil-a has made a name for itself that reflects the purpose above.  Certainly, stewardship and positivity are hallmarks of the Chick-fil-a experience and corporate structure. What is your corporate purpose?  Is your team aligned with it?  "Anytime an organization lacks alignment, the opportunity for reaching its full potential is squandered." ( Randy Gravitt ). ...

Have you ever found yourself keeping busy with something insignificant because you were procrastinating on a big project or afraid to tackle something difficult?  How often do we confuse activity with accomplishment?  Sometimes we just need a win, so we get busy with something that can be completed.  But, without clarity of purpose, we can find ourselves having spent our days without achieving anything at all.  Purpose is important because it gives us a goal and singular vision. At ADMO, our purpose is to produce quality parts and develop and maintain strong relationships with our customers, vendors, and each other.  Mr. Krieps , The President of the company gave us a litmus test this week that can be applied in our decision making.  When trying to decide a course of action, ask the question, "What is in the best interest of ADMO?". This should point us to that purpose and give us clarity as we proceed.  Hopefully, we begin to understand that eac...

In many organizations, leaders can cause a bottleneck by trying to have all information and decisions flow through them.  An organization that is playing chess is made up of leaders who grow their leadership team.  By empowering our leaders, we can share the load and accomplish bigger dreams than we could ever approach on our own. This week, we learned some interesting facts: - To create "Snow White", Walt Disney managed more than 700 artists responsible for more than 2 million drawings - NASA employed more than 400,000 people in order to put a man on the moon - More than 1 million people helped build the Great Wall of China Could you imagine a dream so big that you would need 1 million people to accomplish it?  How exciting would that be? What if we were to dream big and ignore restrictions and limitations? What do High Performance Organizations do?  How do they "Shoot for the Moon"? According to Randy Gravitt of InteGREAT , they: 01. Define ...

Do you remember playing checkers as a child?  Checkers is a fast paced, highly reactive game where the pieces pretty much have the same purpose and usage. What about chess?  It's a little bit different, isn't it? The board has the same layout as the game of checkers, but the pieces have different shapes, sizes, and abilities.  There's much more strategy involved in the game of chess.  It's important to think ahead, see the whole board, and move strategically in order to win. This book, by Mark Miller , takes the reader on a journey through changing a culture in a business from reacting, like playing checkers, to behaving more strategically, like playing chess.  Here's a quick peek at what they mean: This week, at ADMO, we started to look at the first move, "Bet on Leadership".  By working through the Chess Not Checkers Field Guide in conjunction with the Videos taught by Randy Gravitt , we are embarking on a culture-changing adventure....

When you think of the word, "Leader", what comes to mind? Maybe your list looks something like this: Person of Authority Person of Position Well-Educated Appointed Gives Direction Boss Higher in the Organizational Hierarchy Higher in the payscale Too often, we think of "Leaders" or "Leadership" within this context and frame.  We assume that all leaders are given their authority and we must have a "position of leadership" in order to lead. I'd like to challenge you to re-frame this in your own mind.  Consider this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and in our Country in the 1960's) “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” t...

Thank you for visiting ADMO's blog.  This site will be used for articles related to our life and learning at ADMO, Inc. You are welcome to share these articles as you'd like.  I'm hopeful that we can learn from one another in this space.