This is a Blog about Real Life Examples we face as Leaders, and various methodologies we deploy to turn these challenges in to Life-Changing WINS! The competitive advantage of Striped Collar Leadership takes an Average Leader, and empowers them to become World Class Leaders who change lives for the better because, make no mistake, Leadership Changes lives. The issue is, most people's leadership knowledge changes lives for the worse, not better.

Striped Collar is like a rising tide, it lifts ALL Boats.







False Constraints- the hidden stress factor hurting your team

November 2025



Real Life Scenario:

It was Monday morning and as it often goes on Mondays, things went sideways and we had some issues in our Plant. Later that day, I followed up with our plant manager to see how things were progressing. We chatted briefly, but I could tell he was annoyed. Recognizing his heightened emotions, I let it be for the moment. Later that afternoon, I approached Pete and asked if everything was ok between him and I. Hesitantly, he said, "yeah, I just get tired of everyone fussin at me." I asked if I was part of that frustration and he said, yes. I immediately apologized, saying that was not my intention, and asked if he could give me an example so I can be sure to avoid doing it again in the future. "Sure!" he said. "Just a few hours ago, you asked, "How's the plant progressing?" There was a pause, as I was waiting for his detailed example, but that was it! that was the whole example! After I realized that was all and his example was complete, I was shocked. "Wow, Pete, I'm really sorry, I didn't realize I was fussing by asking those questions." We then continued our conversation and improved our communication to become more aligned.

Think about what Pete considered as his boss "fussing" at him, causing additional, unnecessary stress. I had no idea a very basic check-up question was imposing more stress on a teammate. For the rest of the day, I had an ill feeling in my gut, reflecting on my past discussions and follow-up questions to see where else my team's perceptions were causing unnecessary stress to them. I also realized that my relationship with Pete was weakest out of my whole team, and ultimately, there was some lack of trust needing to be addressed. To be clear, I as the leader, own that responsibility to ensure the relationship is mended.

The lesson learned in in this example is titled - FALSE CONSTRAINTS. That experience helped me realize that our teammates sometimes create false perceptions that create stress or constraints in their minds, that don't really exist. Most times, the leader or the "causer" of this stress is completely unaware that their teammate created this false perspective. But we as Striped Collar Leaders know, Perception is Reality and if your team is perceiving a constraint imposed by their leader, or their company, they are making their job more difficult than it really needs to be. The last thing we want is for our teammates to have their health and well-being destroyed by work stress, especially when it's not real!

False constraints can be everywhere and you, as the Striped Collar Leader, must take intentional steps to uncover them, address them, and free their team from said constraint. Some other examples can be a certain KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that is a very small part of the business, but causing extreme stress in the field. Not every KPI is created equal and if the VP shoots a "Do better" email to the supervisor once or twice regarding that KPI, the supervisor will naturally prioritize and elevate that KPI in his mind. That VP moves on to other areas needing attention, yet the supervisor remains laser focused on the KPI, beating himself up and his team any time they come close to a miss. The VP has long moved on and not even focused on that KPI any longer. However, that KPI is a huge daily focus for the supervisor, causing extreme stress for his entire team, and in reality, it doesn't really matter much. This is a very common source of False Constraints, creating undue, unnecessary stress.

Folks, your team works hard enough, and is stressed enough. Not only am I encouraging you to avoid creating these false constraints, like the VP did, but to get out there and actively pursue and uncover existing False Constraints. These small wastes of energy and emotion detract from the critical aspects of the business being ignored. Eliminating these frustrations can have compounding affects to their team, creating improved engagement and execution.







Process, Mirror, Employee -Approach (PME)

dated 11-6-2025



Ever work for a boss that seems to have everyone's back but yours? His first assumption, almost every time, was his employee messed up and needed to be blasted and taught a lesson. Sound familiar?

For those who practice Striped Collar Leadership (SCL), this is never an issue. In SCL, our leaders don't start with the assumption that the employee is at fault. After all, we hired that employee and put her into that role because we believed she was the best and most qualified to perform in that role. We believe that her desire was to do her best, not to show up and hope to fail. We, as Striped Collar Leaders, extend 100% trust to those on our team and expect that to act in aways that honors that trust. That's how we start. Candidly, that's how many professional relationships start, but don't last long beyond the honeymoon phase because that's when the first issue pops up. When those issues arise, the 'other' leaders immediately get upset and blame the employee. The Striped Collar leader withholds that discernment until we work through our process called:



PME; Process, Mirror, Employee. We deliberately walk through the steps:



Process: Dig in to the Process, the SOP. Was the process executed as expected. Was something wrong with the process, essentially, was this a process issue? If we can fervently affirm that, yes, the process was tight, and worked as expected, then we can move on to the next phase.



Mirror: I need to take a long, hard, look in the proverbial mirror. That's You! Did you do your part? Did you ensure the employee was set up for success? Did she receive the proper training and instructions to avoid this issue? Did you set proper expectations? If you can honestly answer Yes to those questions, and others, and you feel good on the inside that you've done your part, then it is time to turn to the third phase, which is the Employee.



Then, and only then, can we turn to the Employee and ask them what occurred, and why. From there, we haven't found our scapegoat, we've found the opportunity to train, coach, and hold accountable via the Striped Collar Approach,



Real Life Scenario:

At a trucking company, they've recently installed GPS Tracking on their trucks. As with any new corporate initiative, there's tons of focus, reporting, tracking and verifying to ensure this new initiative takes off as expected. After the first week, one guy had very low scores at one branch and it was glowing red on the report that was emailed out. The score was so low, that the VP immediately responded all and said, "Hey Tom, if your techs don't want to work safely at this company, then they can go find an unsafe company to work for! you better fix this safety behavior, it's unacceptable!"



This Manager didn't take the time to walk through PME. Once the branch manager responded back to him, I bet he felt a bit embarrassed. The subordinate responded, "Sir, the unit dislodged from the housing and was hanging by the wire. Since this happened, the unit was swinging back and forth giving false readings for yesterday's shift. This has been fixed and you'll notice our scores jump back up."



This VP could've easily avoided a "foot in mouth" situation where I'm sure he lost some credibility. Start with Process: What's the process and is it working. We know that the process isn't for the unit to be swinging wildly from side to side giving false readings, nor did her driver want to fail and put forth that bad score. Instead, the email should've looked like this: " Tom, that's a really low score, what's the reason behind it? Can you verify this is accurate and get back to me?" That would've shown trust in his subordinate, trust in his technician that wants to do a good job, and enabled the subordinate to investigate, get back to the VP, and correct the issue without ever burning a relationship.



PME Works, and saves you from that nasty taste of your foot in your mouth.





The Secret to Greater Performance in any area of your business

December 29th, 2026



Most everyone, by now, has heard of some form of "Employee Engagement." This is one of those buzz words that everyone uses, especially consultants selling you their latest tool to improve that Employee Engagement, which we'll reduce to EE for our purposes.

What actually is EE? At heart, EE is a measure of an employee's level of G.A.S. for a company and employee group. G.A.S. is a very technical term, derived in the mid-11th Century from King Abercrombie. Well, not really, it just stands for Give A Sh$%. If an employee Gives A Sh$%, they are engaged. If they don't, they are not. And if they don't give a blank, sometimes they'll actively be trying to tear down what you're building, and that's called an actively disengaged employee; they are the most destructive. PLEASE DO NOT MISS THIS POINT! If an employee is actively disengaged and tearing things down, they need to go, immediately! Re-engaging employees can only be accomplished when said employee has some level of care for the management team, the company, and his performance. Huge Difference, please don't forget that critical aspect. The Secret is to convert employees who don't give a full hoot, to really caring what's going on and wanting to be a part of the winning team by improving results. How do you "convert" people to be more engaged? It's easy, really, you just need to Engage them. OK, how do I "engage" them?

Employee Engagement requires a leader who is talented and trained in Engaging them. It requires a leader to actually get out of his office, out of the conference room, off the conference calls, and physically go out and meet their subordinates where they are: In the Yard, On the Floor, In the Plant, In the Bullpen, At the Water Cooler, anywhere that the Employee you're wanting to be engaged is present. You cannot engage your employees over text, at least not effectively. You need direct human contact, at the very least, over the phone, but ideally, in person. They need to hear your voice, your tone, your passion, and see your body language. They need to know you CARE!



Step 1. Go to where your employee is and make contact. (Don't do this with a coffee in your hand, or your hand in your pockets. Blue Collar workers, especially, frown upon a boss like that. Those are "Big-timing" behaviors, which is body language and virtue signaling showing that you are the BOSS. You can walk around with Coffee, because Pete is out here bustin his butt on the fabricator machine...he can't be hanging drinking coffee, so you shouldn't flaunt that perk in his face. ) If possible, you will extract the best outcome if you're able to actually start helping him out, working while you talk. If he's unloading boxes from a truck, maybe you can help unload, safely, and talk while you work. Think of that approach, compared to the hand in pocket, coffee in hand impression.



Step 2. After you make contact, follow a very simple formula to start building a relationship. Relationships are established based on two factors, frequency and intensity of that contact. You can pass by 3 times a day with quick touches, or ride with him on his route for 5 hours for the intense approach, but either strategy will begin to establish a relationship. When appropriate, get to know the person. A great outline to follow is using the "FORD" method. FORD stands for Family, Occupation, Recreation and Dreams. For example, I may ask someone while I'm riding with him on his route, "So Carlos, when you were in Middle School or High School, what did you want to do when you grew up?" That will touch on what his Dreams were as a child, and open the door to all sorts of awesome conversation. If you're thinking to yourself, but I don't genuinely care what my employees' dreams are, then don't worry, you can still engage and build relationships. For that person, I challenge you to focus on what you DO Care about. Maybe you care more about sports, then connect with them about sports. Or maybe you're just all business. OK, if you're purely "All Business", then I'm here to tell you- If you want to be successful in that business, you need to build relationships with your employees through engagement, care and FORD. And if you simply can NOT do that, then you must partner with someone that complements your weakness, and that's OK because we all have them. However, I've met very few people in my 25,000 hours that couldn't find some way to connect with the team if they really chose to do so. You can do it!



Step 3. Lean on that relationship to INCLUDE your teammate on "stuff." Think of it as a Rifle Scope. Your scope is very wide, encompassing most activities throughout the organization, while your frontline partner's scope is much more narrow, focused solely on their individual contributions: their job, their supplies, and what they need to do. When you engage them and share information, get their opinions, and discuss big picture items, they will feel included in the process, effectively widening their scope to see much more that "goes on around here." Think about that, if your employee can see more with a wider scope, they can engage more, and they feel part of it; they feel engaged.



Let's look at the alternative. We don't engage and widen their scope, so the scope stays narrow. When they observe something going on, and it's outside of their scope, it doesn't mean they won't guess, speculate, and then "Decide" what it is. Once they decide, they then tell their peers what "it" is and a false rumor is created. The frontline team is now discussing false, possibly destructive rumors instead of being engaged by their leader who had involved them in professionally gratifying information. In the latter, that employee, instead of spreading false rumors, is spreading company information about initiatives and exciting projects that the Boss told her about.



We can go on for many pages discussing the details of EE, so in summary, I encourage you to take the simple approach of meeting your teammate where they are, both physically and figuratively, engaging them through FORD, and then strategically building a relationship to where you can share even more information to widen their scope of all that goes on within the organization.



Lastly, be sure to follow up. If they tell you Frankie Boy is playing in a soccer tournament next month, make that an important piece of information to you, lock it in, or heck, sneak a note in your phone, but the key is to FOLLOW UP. Next time you see your teammate, you don't ask, "How's the family?" That's fake. That's a place holder. Be an engaging leader and use their son's specific name, withe specific event. Hey, how did Frankie boy do in the big soccer tournament? Your teammate, who loves Frankie boy more than anything in the world, will have dopamine firing in their system and feel engaging emotions for their leader. Employee Engaged? Check!











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