If the work stalls when one person is away, that’s a signal. Vacation season is in full swing. Someone is at the cottage. Someone is travelling with their family. Someone is taking a much-needed break. And someone else is trying to keep the work moving while half the usual people are away. That’s not a problem. That’s normal. But it does reveal something important. How strong is your bench? In mining, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and energy, too much knowledge of

Now’s the time to clear the noise before the pace picks up August has a funny rhythm. The work doesn’t necessarily stop. The projects keep moving. The deadlines are still real. The customers still need answers. But the people around the work can be harder to pin down. Someone’s away. Someone’s covering. Someone’s waiting on an answer from someone who’s finally taking a proper break. On paper, it still looks like there’s plenty of time. The days are long. People are trying to

Trust means hearing the hard stuff. A topic I hear a lot about these days is trust in teams. Most leaders want honesty. They want their people to raise concerns, challenge assumptions, and let them know when something’s going wrong. But trust isn’t really tested when the news is good. It’s tested when the deadline is slipping, the client’s unhappy, the equipment is down, or a decision has created an unexpected problem. That’s when leaders need to pay close attention to their