Building Better Leaders from Day One: Build a Better Team with SK Battery America
The sun was just coming up over Commerce, Georgia, when I pulled into the SK Battery America lot. I got there early, as I always do, and I was ready to go. There’s something special about being the first one on site, watching a massive manufacturing facility wake up, and knowing that in a few hours a room full of leaders will be laughing, competing, and learning together.
This day was a little more special than most. SK Battery America is turning old office space into an onsite leadership center, and our Build a Better Team workshop was the first training held there, before it was officially the center at all.
Designed to Connect to What Comes Next
SK’s Shift Managers and Department Managers are starting a multi-month leadership development program. Each cycle asks leaders to learn a leadership principle, build a specific plan to apply it on the job, show that they’ve applied it, and get graded on the result.
I designed our one-day kickoff to tie directly into that program. The training was 95% interactive. Participants didn’t sit and listen. They practiced skills they could use on the floor the very next shift, including:
- Three problem-solving techniques to apply immediately
- A one-minute “personality styles” tool for reading people quickly
- Building deep connections fast by clarifying personal values
- Creating shared team values
- Recognizing invisible barriers
- Communicating and collaborating successfully
- Checking our assumptions outside our own thought circles
A Great Group of Leaders
These leaders were terrific. They were open to new ideas, performed well under pressure, loved to compete, and showed real creativity and flexible thinking. By the end of the day, people who had worked in separate departments were solving problems together like a long-standing team.
In the Client’s Words
Here’s what SK Battery America’s leadership shared afterward:
“The workshop was engaging, meaningful, and well received… In a manufacturing environment like ours, strong leadership and results depend on strong partnerships across teams. The team-building activities helped create connections that will support better communication, collaboration, and problem-solving long after the workshop concluded.”
They also said they valued how we took the time to understand their internal leadership program and connected the workshop to the key messages they’re reinforcing with their leaders.
Why It Matters
Great leadership programs work best when the people in them trust each other from the start. Setting up those relationships early gives every later lesson a stronger foundation.
Thank you to the SK Battery America team for a fantastic day. We’re proud to have helped open your new leadership center, and we can’t wait to see what your leaders build next.
