Hi, I’m Jim Zelem and I am the creator of this blog site. I created this site to help others learn from my experiences as I worked my way from an average laborer to a VP of Operations.

There were many trials and tribulations in my career. One thing I quickly learned is that everyone has a value assigned to them. However, you need to protect your value and improve it. In essence, don’t be just a number. I started my journey as a simple tester at Cutler-Hammer and worked my way as a group leader, industrial engineer, manufacturing engineer, supervisor, manager, director, and eventually to Vp of Operations. As I moved from position to position, I continuously developed my knowledge of leadership and teamwork. I read a lot of books and articles on both topics and used that knowledge to determine what worked best. One thing that immediately came to light is if I took care of the needs of the team through leaders, the goals of business were met. I taught supervision/leadership at AAIM for several years. In addition, I served as the chairperson for the New Haven ASQ chapter. Presently I am retired but extremely active in volunteer work such as driving blood to hospitals for Red Cross and taking both seniors and vets to their appointments. I am also active in I & E (Inventors and Entrepreneurs) clubs. I am an Electrical Engineer and in my career, I became uncommonly proficient in both developing and revising processes in making them efficient. This includes the power of teamwork. My approach was to monitor things by the numbers and I let everyone understand what I monitoring so the team always knew the expectations. I promoted teamwork and provided the necessary tools for people to be successful. It is my hope that this blog will help others achieve their goals.  I realize I can’t reach everyone but reaching a few would be a great achievement.

 

The voice of experience…

Let’s say you want to take a walk in the woods. Take a look at the two pictures of the woods. Which one would you prefer to hike? I would hike in the woods that has a trail. Why? The one with the trail has been carved out with previous hikers. The chance of getting lost is greatly reduced if you stay on the trail. I would venture off the trail at times to see things, but I wouldn’t lose sight of it either. The trail in the woods represents experience. Experience is the core of our topics. Our authors are sharing their experiences with you hoping that you can learn from our experiences so you can become better. We are sharing the trails we have taken and carved out in our quest to improve.

So let’s talk about the topics in our blog categories.

Teamwork

Teamwork is essential in every area of life. When we pull together, we all win. This blog category encompasses various ways we can pull together as a team and move forward to be more productive in our personal life and the workplace.

To quote Henry Ford…

To come together is a beginning. Staying together is progress and working together is success!

Leadership

Basically, there are two types of leaders. There are natural-born leaders who display the traits, characteristics, and, personality of a leader. Then there are people who learn the skills to become an effective leader. This is accomplished through training, perceptions, continuous practice, and experience. This blogsite offers all these attributes, especially experience.

Process Improvement

 

Passion