Forming bad subordinates

[djerv]

Hi, im a young (25) supervisor/work leader in a company specializing in servicing the local metal industry as well as construction.

I work 95% of the time doing uncomfortable, dirty, heavy, "high risk" jobs/projects in the metal industry. 

Personally i enjoy the challenges of my job as long as i got somewhat driven and motivated subordinates, they are however rare and far between.

Most of the people i get are older, foreign men (language barrier) who are unmotivated, sloppy, continuously complaining as well as lacking in discipline. 

Grown men complaining over being cold, tired, dirty etc. 

Lead by example, check. As to making them care i am clueless, most of the time i'd rather have eight 17 year old apprentices.

[mynewunit]

This is 2 problems. First problem is you need to find a way to recruit more people who life hasn't ruined. See you if you can speak at a local high school or tech/trade school about working in your field. Also look for people who might fit this type of work, but have considered it or been asked. I got tons of job offers when I was working in the Music and Movie department at Circuit City, and then when I was the AV guy / sound man in college. Ask the muscular grocery store worker if he would consider working in the steel trades.

Second Problem. The guys you have. Adam Carolla says "No one dreams of being a roofer. Roofer is just the job you do when you need enough to pay for your child support and you alcoholism." The guys you have are beaten up by life. They live from chaos to chaos. How do you get them motivated? Skip that. How do you get them disciplined? You have to have the discipline for them, and then take it away. Before they can run, they have to crawl. Also understand some of them wont. If you want their tools all organized, organize them for them. Show them how, where and why. It will take your time, then your time and their time, then their time.

For this to work it will have to be framed as very positive. Let them have some say in the plan. Let them be a part of the leadership. Then when they slip up, they are not following the rules they made.

This is a Culture thing. Be very aware. One or 2 guys can drive this in the right direction or wrong direction. You need a few guys who are "on your team". It might mean finding the "NCO", the most senior worker, and get on his team or, if he is toxic to the team, fire him. Obviously this is all a difficult science. The prime driver is knowing all of your team. Where they come from, what their current life is like, and where they are heading or want to end up.

Keep up the good work.

[djerv]

Mar 9, 2018 6:14:08 GMT -8 mynewunit said:

This is 2 problems. First problem is you need to find a way to recruit more people who life hasn't ruined. See you if you can speak at a local high school or tech/trade school about working in your field. Also look for people who might fit this type of work, but have considered it or been asked. I got tons of job offers when I was working in the Music and Movie department at Circuit City, and then when I was the AV guy / sound man in college. Ask the muscular grocery store worker if he would consider working in the steel trades.

Second Problem. The guys you have. Adam Carolla says "No one dreams of being a roofer. Roofer is just the job you do when you need enough to pay for your child support and you alcoholism." The guys you have are beaten up by life. They live from chaos to chaos. How do you get them motivated? Skip that. How do you get them disciplined? You have to have the discipline for them, and then take it away. Before they can run, they have to crawl. Also understand some of them wont. If you want their tools all organized, organize them for them. Show them how, where and why. It will take your time, then your time and their time, then their time.

For this to work it will have to be framed as very positive. Let them have some say in the plan. Let them be a part of the leadership. Then when they slip up, they are not following the rules they made.

This is a Culture thing. Be very aware. One or 2 guys can drive this in the right direction or wrong direction. You need a few guys who are "on your team". It might mean finding the "NCO", the most senior worker, and get on his team or, if he is toxic to the team, fire him. Obviously this is all a difficult science. The prime driver is knowing all of your team. Where they come from, what their current life is like, and where they are heading or want to end up.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks for an insightful answer.

When it comes to recruiting it is largely out of my hands, and the people i get generally come from employment agencies, They will have some vocational training and experience but thats about it as selection goes. 
However i can for sure ask to be handed out younger people, as i have in the past had better experiences with 18-20-somethings in general as they are generally more attentive and easier to fire up than grumpy 50 year old romanian welders/metalworkers. (Obviously generalising now, nothing against older romanians.)

My CEO asked me yesterday if i felt i lacked subordinates with some special competencies and i replied "attitude, show me the best welder in the world and i'll show you someone who'd get insulted just by having to step foot inside a smokepipe at a steel plant." I think at some level he got what i meant. 


As of improving my situation the way i see it first and foremost i need to take action on sending the ones bringing the team down sooner and more often, if i carry nonperformers on one project, my management will just give me the same ones on the next. 

If i could attain enough solid people over time that when a proper team leave work rotation i could get a fresh equally good team to take over everybody would from my perspective be better off, Grumpy lazy workers fired, primadonna welders welding in clean, properly lighted places and younger physically able grunts doing grunt stuff cramped far inside narrow underground ducts or in a basket 150 feet in the air etc. 


Going off topic but a couple years back i got a team including three 18 year old high school students during summer-vacation to change some industrial filters a weekend. We started first shift friday at 4pm, Saturday one less showed up and Sunday 7am only one of them remained in ready to change the last chamber, To put that in perspective they got payed by the same overtime rates as we others, which would get them a cold 600 bucks before taxes for each shift. I heard later that the reason one of them didn't show up was that it "wasn't worth it." 

Unfathomable from my perspective, a couple days of getting an athletic sweat going as well as getting a bit dirty for a wad of cash, an extra reccomnendation on the resume, possibilities for more similiar jobs later within the company etc. 1500 bucks for a poor high school student is literally a drivers license and a car, potentiall lifa changing, but yeah what is it worth if you cannot have that instant gratification of sleeping in and playing wow or whatever. 

[mynewunit]

Different problems. Obviously you understand why Mike Rowe had a show called Dirty Jobs. The whole premise is that they got paid a premium because no one else wanted that job.

So the kids don't want to get dirty or do hard work. The answer is that you need a team. You need a marine platoon. They need to do this job for the team, not the pay profit or customer. You are going to want to get them to be willing to die for each other.

[djerv]

Mar 17, 2018 14:33:32 GMT -8 mynewunit said:

Different problems. Obviously you understand why Mike Rowe had a show called Dirty Jobs. The whole premise is that they got paid a premium because no one else wanted that job.

So the kids don't want to get dirty or do hard work. The answer is that you need a team. You need a marine platoon. They need to do this job for the team, not the pay profit or customer. You are going to want to get them to be willing to die for each other.

The group of guys who taught/mentored me pretty much inhabited those traits (Nobody ever complained, never saw any doubt in their eyes no matter how many months of 12 hour shifts they had done or how hung over they where or how many blisters they got etc. if someone threw up or fractured a bone etc. they'd never admit it before at least a couple weeks had passed. 

Most of which are gone by now for various reasons. And since their departure employment agencies have gotten a firm grip around this whole industry which again makes creating a solid work-culture within the units challenging as people are constantly coming and going, but obviously even within my means and resources at hand there is tons to be done. 

To be honest i'm tentatively moving away next fall, but May through July will be super intense due to most industry-plants choosing these months for their anual main maintenance-shutdown. I know i will be in charge for some badass projects and as this will most likely be my last summer doing these types of jobs in these types of plants im kinda fired up as to making everything run as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.


I have one concrete question though, time and time again i witness when i get some super-stud that the others on the team are quick to do whatever they can to put him down, badmouth him etc. try to get rumours started about him etc.
From their perspective he is making them look bad, which from my perspective is blatantly wrong as they managed that just fine on their own. When this happend i cannot just send home the entire team except the stud even if that's what i want. Do you have any thoughts on this particular situation? 

[mynewunit]

Good question. It is good to have a formal if not official indoctrination program. Back in the Day, it was called hazing. Jordan Peterson talked about this with "lunch bucket". Jordan worked on a Rail crew. It was a great paying summer job for college kids. One kid got the nick name lunch bucket. That nick name turned to teasing, turned to throwing stones, and ultimately be too much for "poor Lunch bucket". This is a way of testing someone. If they can't take some teasing, they aren't self confident, humble, intelligent, funny, or have good character.

If you can formalize the "bonding" process, build the relationships, and let the team defend the young stud, then being mean to the new recruit is less fruitful. I see this as having the new stud spend each day of his first week being trained by a different member of a team. Also, realize that this will take time from "real work". Dedicate some budget and clock to the guys getting to know each other. Some good old football style hazing wouldn't hurt. Have the new recruit sing for 3 minutes straight, give a speech about his hometown, high school or college. Push up competitions. Games for status. Competition.

Leif and (Delta Platoon Commander, he who shall not be named) said it was at least a month before they saw Jocko smile or laugh. Be slow with praise. Don't let them know what you think of these recruits. Maybe the reason they treat the "Studs" different is because you treat them different.

[djerv]

Mar 19, 2018 4:27:58 GMT -8 mynewunit said:

Good question. It is good to have a formal if not official indoctrination program. Back in the Day, it was called hazing. Jordan Peterson talked about this with "lunch bucket". Jordan worked on a Rail crew. It was a great paying summer job for college kids. One kid got the nick name lunch bucket. That nick name turned to teasing, turned to throwing stones, and ultimately be too much for "poor Lunch bucket". This is a way of testing someone. If they can't take some teasing, they aren't self confident, humble, intelligent, funny, or have good character.

If you can formalize the "bonding" process, build the relationships, and let the team defend the young stud, then being mean to the new recruit is less fruitful. I see this as having the new stud spend each day of his first week being trained by a different member of a team. Also, realize that this will take time from "real work". Dedicate some budget and clock to the guys getting to know each other. Some good old football style hazing wouldn't hurt. Have the new recruit sing for 3 minutes straight, give a speech about his hometown, high school or college. Push up competitions. Games for status. Competition.

Leif and (Delta Platoon Commander, he who shall not be named) said it was at least a month before they saw Jocko smile or laugh. Be slow with praise. Don't let them know what you think of these recruits. Maybe the reason they treat the "Studs" different is because you treat them different.

I should have worded myself more clearly.

When i say stud it doesn't have so much to do with age, or lack of experience, as it has to do with work ethic and drive.

On roughly average, when i am given a ten man team. 
I will get 4 gray men (whom i never really notice, they for the most part do their duties and thats that.) 

There will be 4 opiniated, difficult, complainers, who don't really bring any substancial output in any sense. 

And then there will be 2 "studs" who quietly put their objective at hand above everything else all the time, who works their ass of no matter what and no matter who sees it, simply because that is what they do, in their eyes it's their job.


Now, obviously the loudmouths will try to bring the people who don't play any games and who literally just want to do a good job down, as they look at them like threats, they will also try to get the grey men on their side, they will try to manipulate me, manipulate the project managers, the ceo etc. 

Obviously being extras there is always a reason as to why we don't just send these slimeballs home immediately, often they have good experience, they are good steel-fitters, good welders etcetera, they will occasionally come with good ideas. (The idea part is difficult for me to deal with, as i always know there is a chance the idea they come with is actually nothing but a clever plan of hindering progress so they get to stay some days longer and work more shifts before rotation ends etc.) 


More info:
All the workers i get are for the most part Romanians or Polish (most definitely both more machismo-oriented cultures than normal in Norway.), most of them are 30-50 years old, occasionally a 19, 20, 21 year old foreigner will show up but they are never any problem, they will want to impress and get a long with everybody, so as long as i keep them occupied, informed on the plan and make sure they follow safety guidelines.


Yeah sorry for rambling, don't know if i actually asked a question, i guess leadership is difficult no matter what, and there are most definitely factors that are out of my hands that make it even more challenging, like having this pretty random roulette of workers whom i know and whom i dont. showing up for one intense week-long projects, or four intense week projects.

My CEO's answer would be to get rid of the bad apples and take care of the good ones, and even that is easier said than done because of family relationships, friendships among them etc, "if he go i go" etc. Even though i feel as if in most of those occasions Jocko's answer would be to get rid of both. hehe. 

[mynewunit]

I think Jocko's answer would be "If that is how it has to be" or give him the control. "This is the reason I want him gone, if you can fix that then you can both stay".

I see the assumptions I made about your team wasn't correct. I have lots of affirmations about what you said. 10 is a big team to manage day to day. If those people are changing monthly, you can't keep track of who has kids, married, what they drive, etc. Honestly, this is a tough nut to crack. You can try getting the big mouth to assign tasks and explain the day's tasks. The thing you definitely need to do, is acknowledge when someone has a good idea. Just because they have a good idea doesn't mean that it will be the one used. Jocko has a whole part about using someone else's plan. If I find it I will drop it in here.
My last outside the box idea is learn Romanian, or Polish. The real answer is seat time. The longer you are there. The more consistent you are. The more you listen to the guys on your team. You become a known quantity. They will accept you. Have thick skin. Listen to the players. Be fair. Let the best idea win.

[djerv]

Apr 3, 2018 12:59:08 GMT -8 mynewunit said:

I think Jocko's answer would be "If that is how it has to be" or give him the control. "This is the reason I want him gone, if you can fix that then you can both stay".

I see the assumptions I made about your team wasn't correct. I have lots of affirmations about what you said. 10 is a big team to manage day to day. If those people are changing monthly, you can't keep track of who has kids, married, what they drive, etc. Honestly, this is a tough nut to crack. You can try getting the big mouth to assign tasks and explain the day's tasks. The thing you definitely need to do, is acknowledge when someone has a good idea. Just because they have a good idea doesn't mean that it will be the one used. Jocko has a whole part about using someone else's plan. If I find it I will drop it in here.
My last outside the box idea is learn Romanian, or Polish. The real answer is seat time. The longer you are there. The more consistent you are. The more you listen to the guys on your team. You become a known quantity. They will accept you. Have thick skin. Listen to the players. Be fair. Let the best idea win.

To begin with i felt as if this apprenticeship was my last chance at ever becoming something, without knowing the terminology i took extreme ownership of everything during those first two years, never allowing myself any moment of inactivity, if my supervisor didnt have something for me to do i'd go ask the managers, if they didn't, id go ask the CEO, if he told me to brush the workshop floor i'd brush it with all the determination and intent in the world. 

And that was what led me to become supervisor exactly 2 years after starting an apprenticeship, i wasn't particurly organized or consciencious but through determination and never complaining i gained the goodwill of my project managers, (which is by the way why i am still the one designated to jobs that involve crawling around foundry plants with dust up to chestlevel. )

Because of numerous reasons i'm done with this company and this town during the next 6 months, so picking up a language is out of the question, (bear in mind i'm studying 3-4 hrs every day as is.) 

I have some cool jobs lined up this summer though (Like changing a rusty&dangerous 70 degrees steep roof 177 feet up in the air, (lots of rope access + working from basket hanging in a mobile crane etc. (gonna make sure to take lots of snapshots even though i can't share them for a good while, will be fun to show my coworkers when i get a nice office job.)))

My plan is to detach as much as possible, to listen more than shout and rather try to reach a common understanding, to let my subordinates partake as much as possible in the planning (or at least have them feel as if they did) to show emotion when deemed necessary and suitable. Not going to allow any slack, nor allow any actions that make me uncomfortable from a quality or HSE standpoint. 

Very determined to have this summer be my smoothest one, forever thankful for my current job and the memories and lessons learnt but i find myself daydreaming a lot about whats next. Have narrowed it down to offshore rope access work or saturation diving, gonna have to finish my mech engineering degree first, kind of having a 1/3 life crisis, time is running out, need to get after it harder.