As long as humans are humans, there will be conflict. No matter how well you think your team gets along, there will be times when people on your team disagree. This kind of conflict could be constructive or it could delve into chaos. The kind of conflict you have is a reflection of the kind of team you have around you.
We encourage our team members to speak their minds, even if sometimes what they say might ruffle feathers. As long as what they say is respectful, they can bring up their concerns and feel heard. The leadership at Bridgeview encourages an open environment where team members can approach them at any time for a one-on-one. We listen to concerns, take all sides into account, and encourage team members to come up with their own solutions. By doing this, we have created a tight team of people who work hard and enjoy each other's company. No one likes conflict but sometimes conflict can be helpful in coming up with creative solutions that might have been overlooked before. We welcome it. Richard (left) and Peter (right) work incredibly well together. They bounce ideas off each other, quickly resolve any differences of opinion, and pull together to get the job done.
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This week, Kevin and Christina were out of the office on Monday, so Ashlee led the team meeting. The topic? How can team members contribute to forming a dynamic team.
While leadership is needed to communicate the company vision and help the team members see the way forward, the team members themselves have to put in the effort to work together and create an environment of respect and encouragement. When team members appreciate each other, give compliments, listen to constructive criticism, and offer suggestions to problems, they create trust amongst themselves and this trust is the foundation for an amazing team. We believe that our work environment should be supportive. Team members are given what they need to succeed, whether that be extra training or even just a comfortable chair. In turn, they work hard for our company and show up everyday with a winning attitude. It's the team that makes the company and we feel blessed to have an amazing team. Below: Chris and Collin (left) work together to figure out the wiring diagram for a new assembly. Ben (right) keeps everyone entertained with dad jokes and random trivia. Every Monday afternoon we have a team meeting. We start each meeting with a trivia question. The first person to get the correct answer wins $5. It's a fun way to start the meeting and gets everyone excited about gathering together. This Monday we asked how many squares does a chess board have. Do you know?
We put a lot of emphasis on team meetings. Everyone knows that no matter what their schedule might be for the week, they have to make the Monday team meeting. It's a time for us to go over basic info (like upcoming shop closures and who's cleaning the bathroom that week), but it's also a time for us to focus on a specific topic and have a team discussion. Sometimes the topics are fun and sometimes they're deep but they always present an opportunity to learn and better ourselves. Monday meetings allow us to connect as a team and work together to advance the mission of our company. Below: Christina leads our weekly team meeting. Ben (left) and Greg (right) love giving her a hard time. It's all in fun and makes for a fun meeting. We had a fun training today based on the famous book Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson.
The point of the book is to remain flexible and to keep your eye on the prize. Life happens and you have to learn to ride the waves, no matter how challenging. Some people get stuck and can only keep doing the same thing every day, even if that same thing is no longer working for them and stops pushing them towards their ideal future. In order to succeed, you have to be able to take a step back and course-correct when needed so that you're never stagnant but always moving forward. How do you make sure you're always moving towards that cheese? Below: Greg (left) is always cheering us on, reminding us that we can accomplish anything. Haley (right) is always up for a challenge and has a great attitude when it comes to learning new skills. "Light It Up Blue" for autism! We all wore blue at work today to show support for our neurodiverse brothers and sisters. ❤ We have a variety of people working at Bridgeview and that includes people on the autism spectrum.
Below (from left to right): Seth, Peter, Chris, Greg, Ben, Collin, and Kevin A few years ago our founder, Kevin, saw a "Thug Life" t-shirt and jokingly said we were living the "Plug Life". It stuck. Since then we've made t-shirts, stickers, mugs, and postcards all with our Plug Life graphic on it. We encourage our team members to wear their Plug Life t-shirts to work and on work outings. We say "Plug Life!" when high-fiving or fist bumping. It has become a part of our company culture.
We don't just say we're excited about empowering American manufacturing. We actually mean it. Our philosophy is that there is more to work than just earning a paycheck. Everyone wants to feel that their work matters and that they are contributing to something bigger than just making a faceless corporation rich. We live and breathe Plug Life here at Bridgeview. In everything that we do, we make sure that we are rooting for our customers and lifting them up them with our hard work. It fires us up when we can support veterans who are trying to break into a very competitive market. It motivates us when we know we are helping a husband and wife realize their dream of working in renewable energy. We feel proud when we can help a tiny tech start-up land a multi-million dollar contract. What motivates you? Below: We have reminders scattered throughout our shop, helping us remember why we do what we do. One of the exciting parts of owning a small business is when new machinery arrives. We were really fortunate enough to find a great overmolding machine and we are so excited by the possibilities of using it to help our customers.
While the great majority of companies that offer overmolding require a minimum order quantity of 500 or 1000, we are determined to continue to offer our services with a minimum order quantity of just 1. That means if our customer has a mold and needs just one plug, we'll take care of that for them. We're in the business to empower American manufacturing and that means working outside of the standard box. Below: Ben (left) is testing out our new machine, learning how to program it. As small business owners, we have the temptation to look around on social media and compare ourselves to what other small businesses are doing. What we have to remember is that, especially on social media, we're looking at the highlight reel for that business and not the struggles they go through. Every business, no matter how successful they appear to an outsider, has problems and failures.
"Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else." - Judy Garland At Bridgeview, we embrace who we are. We're a little quirky, a little nerdy, and a lot of fun. We're driven, hard workers who have a passion for seeing American manufacturing succeed. We have a strong sense of who we are and have no desire to be like any other contract manufacturer. What makes us unique is how personable we are, how willing to help we are, and how attentive we are to the needs of our customers. We live the "Plug Life" and we're proud of it. Below: Richard (left) proudly wears his Plug Life t-shirt to work. Seth (right) shows off his quirky cat calendar. Gary Chapman wrote a very famous book (that is now a series of books) called The Five Love Languages. His theory is that we express love and receive love based on one of the five "languages", which are acts of services, words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, and quality time. This theory of giving and receiving love became so popular that Chapman expanded his theory to cover appreciation in the workplace.
If you don't know your love language, you can visit https://5lovelanguages.com/. In the workplace we can show appreciation in the following ways: 1. Acts of Service - offering to help a co-worker or leader with a project, helping to clean the shop or office without being told, or offering to run an errand. 2. Words of Affirmation - compliments on work done, compliments on personality, positive feedback 3. Physical Touch - high fives, fist bumps, hand shakes, hugs (when appropriate) 4. Receiving Gifts - giving time off, giving gift cards/certificates, raffles, bringing coffee and donuts for everyone, pizza party 5. Quality Time - one-on-one meetings between team members and leadership, company events and outings, allowing team members a way to give leadership feedback Below: We encourage our team to learn soldering and reward them for their efforts with a certificate that we display at the shop. Peter and Seth (right) first bump to show their appreciation for each other. We recently read a news article where a CEO was complaining that her profit-sharing program wasn't working in motivating her employees. On the contrary, it was creating a sense of entitlement and when they didn't receive the amount they thought was owed to them, they were discontent and resentful. This CEO also felt unappreciated because she alone shouldered the losses of the business, something her employees couldn't understand.
An alternative to profit sharing is to spread the profit around in the form of raises and better benefits. Over the years, as Bridgeview has grown, our team members have reaped the benefits of their hard work. We have a program of growth, where team members that really put in the effort to learn their job get rewarded with a promotion and a raise. We have so many opportunities for growth in our company and what a team member earns is really determined by how much work they're willing to put in. We don't give out raises just once a year. Do you use profit sharing to motivate your team? Below: Ben and Peter (left) work together to build a long assembly. Ben started working at Bridgeview a year ago and went from working only 6 hours a week to now working full-time. Seth (right) started out on our production floor as an assembler. and, almost two years later, he helps to run our inspection department. |
AuthorsChristina and Kevin Hayward Archives
April 2024
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