Welcome to The Blue Collar Blog! Sponsored by Blue Collar University® and Bart Gragg. Our goal is to help blue collar managers succeed by working with both them and those who manage them. To get the most out of these blog "hints and tips" subscribe to the RSS Feeds or by Email. Read the posts and leave your comments so that others can learn from your experience as well.

Leader or Manager – What the Hell’s The Difference?

by Bart Gragg

My bet? 99% of the people out there haven’t given this a thought. Those that have? Did you really?  I challenge you to bring it – bring your best thinking and writing to this post’s comments. Right now I disagree with everything I have read. Everything. Want to know why? Here’s why – the typical [...]

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Tagged as: Leadership, Manager, Training

Is Prior Experience (or Training) A Guarantee of Future Safety?

by Bart Gragg

From time immemorial man has discussed whether prior experience is a guarantee of future results from an employee.  There are ever many factors involved in ‘guess-timating’ their potential for success, but the one that I continually come back to is “In what context will they be a success? What are your criteria??

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Tagged as: Safety, Teaching and Learning, Training, Work Environment

Roll With It? Be Prepared? Or Be Prepared to Get Rolled?

by Bart Gragg

Do you prepare ahead of time or do you just roll with it? In many industries we are trained to “be prepared to roll with it.” Which is someone’s way of saying “We don’t know what to expect.” This is such a problem that when it happens frequently enough it becomes embodied in the culture [...]

Tagged as: Management Challenges, Professional image, Training

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Raising the Professional Image of Blue Collar Workers

by Bart Gragg

I was reminded today of the need to maintain a professional image regardless where we work or what we do.  I was referred to a manager (by his manager) that needs some help with basic skills.  When I called the cell number I got a greeting that was definitely recorded by someone else for this [...]

Tagged as: Communications, professionalism, Training

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No Wonder New Managers Beat Their Heads Against The Wall!

by Bart Gragg

It turns out that the brain has an automatic mode and a manual mode and they are very real and different parts of the brain for handling different functions. I am not talking about the autonomic vs. somatic nervous systems. I am referring to portions of the brain which handle our experiences in different ways. [...]

Tagged as: Management Challenges, Management support, Training

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Social Networking For Blue Collar Workers and Managers

by Bart Gragg

Let’s just be plain, old honest here.  Blue collar workers and managers are the original and best social networkers you will ever come across.  How can I say that when you rarely see them on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc? Because as I wrote in another article, the words ‘social’ and ‘networking’ are more meaningful than a [...]

Tagged as: Employee Motivation

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