Diving Deeper Into Your Personal Brand: The Lessons Manufacturing Leaders Can Learn from Shark Diving

Would you go swimming with sharks? For many people, shark diving might sound like a literal nightmare. But for recent Mindfulness Manufacturing podcast guest Kenneth “Shark” Kinney, it’s a favorite hobby. Shark is a speaker and marketing specialist who uses his experiences with shark diving to help professionals find fearless, curiosity-driven ways to grow and expand their personal brand. In his podcast, he offers insights manufacturing leaders can use to get a “shark’s perspective” and dive deeper into their brand . . . no real sharks required!

Leadership and Shark Diving Have More in Common Than You Think

While shark diving might sound scary, Shark emphasizes that successful shark diving mainly requires three key tools:

Fearlessness
Curiosity
Respect

If a shark diver enters the water with fearless, curiosity, and respect on their mind, they’re far more likely to have an exhilarating experience. The same can be said about manufacturing leaders. If you enter the floor every day ready to hear from other perspectives, approach tough challenges, and respect others, you’re setting yourself up for a positive, productive day.

Whether You’re Dealing with Sharks or Social Media, Stay Fearless

One major topic of my podcast with Shark was social media and how leaders can use it to showcase their brand and expand their connections. When it comes to branding through social media, Shark’s best tip was to embrace the fact that your team will talk about your organization—and even you—on social media. As a leader, it can be nerve-wracking to know your employees use social media. You might worry they’ll post negative things about you, or that they’ll form connections with other companies and leave your team. But you don’t have to be afraid of possibilities like these, if you always put your best foot forward as a leader. Instead of worrying about what your team is saying on social media, why not put that effort in making sure they’ll speak well of you, your leadership, and your organization?

Dive Deeper Into Your Real Brand

If you want to expand your brand, it takes curiosity! For example, if you want to support a charity to connect with your local community, take some time to think about your values and goals. Ask your team what causes inspire or engage them and choose a charity that really reflects your organization—not just something that looks good. Similarly, get to know the real voices behind your team. Use your actual team members to promote your brand, rather than relying on stock images. By staying curious and taking the time to truly connect, you’ll find dozens of creative, authentic ways to grow your brand and spark real change in your organization.

Learn More on the Podcast

To hear more on leadership, branding, and shark diving from Kenneth “Shark Kinney,” listen to his Mindfulness Manufacturing episode here.

At Manufacturing Greatness, Trevor Blondeel works with manufacturers to connect the top to the shop floor. If you’re ready to improve your own organization, contact Trevor to learn how Manufacturing Greatness can help you build stronger leaders and develop a dynamic, high-performing workplace.

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

When a mistake occurs on the plant floor, your mind might jump to one question: who caused this issue, and should I write them up for their mistake? But there’s a more productive approach you could be taking—and in this episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing, guest Dr. Jake Mazulewicz breaks it all down!

With a background as a firefighter, EMT, and military paratrooper, Jake knows the challenges of high-hazard industries, and works with organizations to reduce errors and create safer, more reliable workplace environments. In this episode, Jake shares why you can’t procedularize everything, including the way you handle errors and accidents, and offers great insights and stories about how to use connection and curiosity to improve safety, address errors, and strengthen your organization.

3:35 – Procedures and policies are the work that is imagined, and on the floor is how the work actually gets done

4:19 – The work as-done is almost always radically different than the work as-imagined

5:20 – Even when you have standards and people show up wanting to do a good job, you can still see issues that need to be addressed

6:44 – There will always be areas that absolutely need to have procedures in place

8:02 – There are also adaptive jobs, which leans less into procedures and more intro troubleshooting and tacit human knowledge

10:56 – In an ideal environment, both mechanistic and adaptive models are used and respected and needed

12:11 – There are four levels, ranging from strict procedurals to looser guidelines that show what to do, but not how to do it

15:36 – Tacit knowledge gets shared through conversations

16:22 – A way to share important information is to have frontline experts record videos sharing their insights to problems, especially those that are not covered in procedures

19:44 – Through conversation and connection, more knowledge is shared

21:58 – Debriefing also plays a central role

23:45 – If you have strong discipline, you’ll find more freedom

25:31 – In most situations, errors are signals, not defects

27:07 – When an error occurs, be curious and find the deeper cause of the problem

Connect with Jake Mazulewicz

Find him on Linkedin

Visit his website