Developing leaders: Mary Russell creates training for new manufacturing leadership

Mary Russell (Winston-Salem HR) lives by the quote, “Train people well enough so that they can leave. Treat people well enough so that they don’t want to.” 

Since joining Cook almost two years ago, Mary’s mission has been to train the facility’s leadership. In that time, she has developed a program to help those transitioning into manufacturing leadership roles. 

“The benefit is that they emerge from the training with a better awareness of themselves and others and how that impacts productivity,” Mary said. “The hope for the training program is that through the leadership skills they develop, they will create a culture in their department that leads to productivity and effective work relationships.”

The training is initiated any time they have two or more employees named to a manufacturing leadership position. In addition, Mary hosts an hour-long session once a month with all the facility’s group leaders and supervisors focusing on a certain leadership skill. This skill is sometimes selected by the managers or general managers of manufacturing. Sometimes, Mary also provides training to departments outside of manufacturing. 

“It’s about how to treat people; because technology changes, people and their needs don’t,” Mary said. “So, the bottom line is, without the people, there will be a drastic impact on the ability to accomplish the company’s goal of assembling nonintrusive medical devices that positively impact patient outcome.”

The trainings for new leaders consist of 10 two-hour-long sessions. According to Mary, these sessions are hands-on and cover topics such as emotional intelligence, work relationships, conducting effective meetings, good documentation practices, different leadership styles, and nonverbal cues.

Whitney Alderman is one of the employees who has taken part in Mary’s training sessions. She has been with Cook for over three years. She started in Metals and has worked in several departments. She served as group leader in Etching for 10 months and is currently the group leader for Balloons.

“I started my leadership training with Mary in November of last year when I first became group leader,” Whitney said. “I am very grateful for this training because it gives you an overview of the many different tasks that your new leadership role comes with.  The training covers everything from just learning how to take responsibility for your decisions to payroll and other day-to-day responsibilities.”

The one thing that has stuck with Whitney the most from the training is, “learn your people’s stripes.” But what does it mean to learn someone’s stripes?

“This is something Mary felt was very important to teach us, and I am so glad she did,” Whitney said.” As a group lead, you will interact with many different people throughout your day, and knowing what your employees like and don’t like makes everyone happier and more at ease with each other.  Some operators appreciate you saying good morning to them when you walk by, others would rather just keep focused on their work and speak when they see you in a hall or outside the department.  Little things like this make your employees feel more comfortable with you and willing to do their best when they feel you are respecting their wants.”

Kimberly King agreed that the idea of learning her employees’ stripes really stuck with her. She has been with Cook for 20 years and started in Etching. A year ago, she was named supervisor for Shipping, Finished Goods and Label Control and began her training with Mary in March 2018.

“Learning stripes allows leadership to earn respect and trust from employees,” Kimberly said. “We are leaders  as well as listeners.”

According to Kimberly, the sessions have also taught her to listen, to research before acting on a situation, to not be afraid of not knowing all answers, and to be open to learning and change.

Mary is in the process of identifying a data collection mechanism to gauge how employees are receiving the training.

“I’ve been told there has been a decrease in employee complaints pertaining to leadership, but we do not have the hard data,” Mary said.