Detroit

August 2023

Welcome Back!

Happy Summer! In last month's issue, we challenged you to take some time to rest, recharge and review the year, to see how it's going for you compared to your hopes and goals that you had early in 2023. If you haven't already done that, do make an appointment with yourself in these next few weeks. You are every bit worth it and will be a better person for it!

I have been doing some reflection of my own these days and wanted to share a few things that came to my mind:

1) Each new day is a gift. Don't be afraid to live it to your fullest!

2) Start where you stand. Are there things that you have been putting off? Things you can pass along in this life, or things that you would like to get done that you just haven't done yet for some reason? Well, now is the time and today is the day. It doesn't have to be perfect, just start where you stand! Don't keep telling yourself, "I'll get around to it someday," because that someday may never materialize.

3) What's your legacy? If today was to be your last day on earth, what unfinished business would you be leaving behind that your loved ones will have to tend to and what good legacy are you leaving them?

4) Cultivate relationships. Whatever you cultivate will grow. Are you cultivating those relationships that mean the most to you?

As I pondered the topic for this month's newsletter, the words "fear" and "purpose" came to me. So I have selected two articles below that I think meaningfully address both topics. Be sure to give them a read. But first, check out our Featured Candidate(s) and Position(s).

Proven Automotive CEO (up to $5 Billion revenue automotive supplier)

This candidate has led transformative strategy initiatives for large, global automotive suppliers. Coming up through manufacturing engineering, product engineering, program management, and sales, this candidate has touched all aspects of the automotive supply chain. An effective leader of people, this candidate has led the growth and profitability of one organization from $3.5 Billion in revenue to $5.2 Billion. Can relocate anywhere in the Midwest or Eastern USA. If you have interest in setting up a confidential conversation with this candidate, call us at 313-887-8300 ex.102 or email us: information@tieronesearch.com.

POSITION 1 (Repost) - Director of Validation, Mechatronics, worldwide leader in engineered product technology and manufacturing

Our client is a dynamic global supplier of critical systems/components to the automotive industry and is seeking a highly skilled and experienced professional to join our team as the Director of Validation, with a focus on Mechatronics and Functional Safety. In this leadership role, you will be responsible for overseeing and guiding the validation activities related to mechatronic systems while ensuring compliance with functional safety standards. Your expertise in both mechatronics and functional safety will be essential in driving the successful development and validation of our products. You have the opportunity to build the global validation structure in the company’s new mechatronics business around products including motors, high voltage battery modules/packs and other electronics and software configured equipment. The company has built the architecture and design side of the vee, now are seeking to build the validation side.

Responsibilities:

1) Develop Validation Strategy: Define the overall validation strategy, plans, and methodologies for mechatronic systems, considering functional safety requirements and standards such as ISO 26262.

2) Functional Safety Expertise: Provide subject matter expertise in functional safety, including hazard analysis, risk assessment, safety concepts, and safety integrity levels (ASILs). Ensure compliance with relevant functional safety standards throughout the validation process.

3) Team Leadership: Build, lead and mentor a team of validation engineers and specialists, providing guidance, setting objectives, and fostering a culture of excellence and continuous improvement. Effectively manage global resources and workload distribution within the validation department. THE PREFERRED LOCATION FOR THIS ROLE IS IN ONTARIO, CANADA but potentially also Michigan.

If you are interested in this position, call us at 313-887-8300 ex.102 or email information@tieronesearch.com.

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POSITION 2 - Multi-plant Director, Northeast USA

Our client is a global manufacturer of forged products for commercial and military use. The company is a very profitable organization with an excellent leadership team and vision. Due to a promotion, we are looking for a talented manufacturing executive who has a proven track record in improving metrics for a sizable and unionized plant. In this role you will ensure operational efficiencies to enable consistent customer delivery, cost improvements, safety improvements and quality improvements across the board. You will be an excellent team builder and people leader with the ability to influence people at all levels of the organization. You will have experience in automotive OR aerospace OR other high-volume manufacturing environments. If you are interested in this position, call us at 313-887-8300 ex.102 or email information@tieronesearch.com.

originally published September 27, 2021 by TRANSEARCH International

The fear factor

One of the reasons a weekend respite from one’s executive leadership responsibilities – or a longer holiday break away from the office – can be so productive for one’s state of mind is because it allows us the time to reflect on our work and absorb important lessons learned by others.

We would all be better served to understand the role that fear plays in our daily life, our identity and our interaction with others.

There is no shortage of illuminating quotes, allegories and simple epiphanies circulating on the Internet, in social media and in a multitude of books and short stories that provide ample education for those of us willing to learn and absorb to improve ourselves as leaders and people.

Over time, one will recognise that many of these lessons have been shared through centuries of human experience and observation. Whether they come from Plato, Churchill, Lincoln or others who’ve own leadership journeys have transcended their own time on Earth, there is much to learn and model as we try to lead and inspire others.

Yet there is one particular topic that many of history’s teachers seem to have observed as a critical litmus test upon which they felt compelled to opine. That topic, and one that merits serious contemplation by today’s global executive leaders, is the matter of fear.

Sure, we’re all familiar with the words attributed to United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

But there is a striking focus on the part of some of the most revered leaders from a great many walks of professional life on the topic of fear that suggests – particularly in the COVID-19 dominated environment in which we all operate today – that we would all be better served to understand the role that fear plays in our daily life, our identity and our interaction with others.

Is fear holding you back?

The truth, in the opinion of many of the world’s most historically significant leaders, is that fear is holding us back from achieving all that we are capable of realising, in our workplaces, our homes and our relationships.

It is also likely holding back our employees and our organisations, as an extension of the fear-based decision making of those with authority.

Just consider these interesting observations about fear:

Find your mastery of fear

As one considers the existence of fear as part of everyday humanity, and the need to overcome it to achieve maximum human and organisational performance, it is striking that so many leaders who have come before us have focused so consistently on fear as an obstacle to success.

Yet, as we consider the drivers and consequences of fear, we must also realise its duplicitous nature. Many of the most admired global business leaders have admitted that, particularly in their formative years and even more consistently for those who grew up from hardscrabble childhoods, fear was both a constant companion and catalyst to the very actions and habits they created to achieve greatness.

Maybe this is why fear itself is so big a challenge for global executive leaders to figure out. On the one hand, fear motivates action. On the other, it also denies us from the future we could achieve.

For these reasons, consider this a call for you to consider the influence of fear on how you behave, how you lead, what you say and how you interact with others. You may just find that fears are holding you back, and if not, all the more time for you to help others acknowledge and address their own fears.

After all, the more fears are holding back others, the bigger the impediments to their success and fulfilment and, in part, your own.

So, examine your own life to understand fear better. Once you do, you may find your mastery of fear and the development of individual fortitude can help you get to where you’re going, faster and perhaps more confidently than ever before.

This article is © TRANSEARCH International and was originally published on the TRANSEARCH International website.

originally published June 19, 2020 by TRANSEARCH International

Opportunities abound. It is your duty to set your own course, reset your own career compass, and decide what you intend to do about making a change.

Your purpose, your time and your priorities

If you found time recently to reflect on where you are on life’s journey or on the pathway of your executive career, you may have found yourself thinking more about your purpose, your time and your priorities.

Finding meaning in your work, and the example you set as a leader, is a powerful motivator when business demands require you to travel to far away time zones or when urgent matters require you to stay up late or arise very early to monitor emails and more.

Perhaps it is time to start creating new options that can connect you more often to the things you want to do and less often to the things you can’t wait to get over.

As the demands on global leaders continue to escalate and complicate the balance between work and life, it is imperative to take stock of why you’re committing so much of yourself to your current role, your current employer and its employees and customers.

Sometimes, finding the energy to keep doing what you do requires nothing more than the force of will, and the ability to push yourself beyond others’ barriers.

Then comes the important consideration of your time. After all, you spend most of your waking hours focused on the affairs of your organisation, your strategy and your people. If things aren’t quite going the way you want them, perhaps it is high time to start creating new options that can connect you more often to the things you want to do and less often to the things you can’t wait to get over.

Whatever time you are spending on your current professional calling may be too much considering what’s left on your personal ‘To Do’ list. If you’re not feeling a real sense of mission and alignment to what the owners of the business want to achieve, perhaps it would be better to take your skills and experience to someone else’s door.

Your defining goal for the next 12 months

Just remember, standing idle is itself a choice. Spending one more year, let alone one more month in a job for which you don’t feel a real connection or sense of internal motivation to excel in would be an utter waste of time. Opportunities abound. It is your duty to set your own course, reset your own career compass, and decide what you intend to do about making a change.

Be it purely professional and/or a bit personal, your defining goal for the next 12 months must put you in a position that you can truly own and identify with. If it brings you more money, all the better. But it might also bring you a clearer sense that you are spending your precious time on the right things, and with a keener sense that you can sort, manage and live your priorities.

The success you have already achieved should give you the confidence to figure out your next step, boldly and without fear.

No matter what the future holds, resetting your internal compass by re-enforcing or re-imagining your purpose, your priorities and how you spend your time will provide the momentum you need to align them all.

This article is © TRANSEARCH International and was originally published on the TRANSEARCH International website.

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