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Are Your Best Workers Becoming Your Worst Bosses? Preparing Manufacturing Leaders for Success

Common mistakes in leadership development include promoting employees for the wrong reasons and underestimating training opportunities. Technical excellence is undeniably important, but it is a mistake to equate it with future management excellence. In order to create a robust leadership... Continue Reading

Latest Workplace Safety Best Practices

The latest trends and best practices in workplace safety in manufacturing, as highlighted by recent MTI materials, focus on a proactive, systematic, and technology-driven approach. Here are the key points: 1. Intelligent and Regular Machine Safety Audits Regular internal safety audits... Continue Reading

The New Year Reset: How to Build a Better January Before it Starts

With the New Year nearly upon us, Joel Garfinkle outlines ways you can make your intentions for 2026 stick by starting next year's work now. Most professionals approach the New Year in the same way every year: they make ambitious resolutions on January 1st, ride the motivation wave for... Continue Reading

Three Skills to Make Work More Meaningful in 2026

The surprising ingredients that keep motivation alive after resolutions fade. Every January, people set goals hoping the new year will feel better than the last. We want less overwhelm and more clarity, less friction and more flow. But if you look closely at the resolutions people... Continue Reading

The Cost of Flying Blind of Forecasting

In today’s rapidly changing and uncertain economic climate, neglecting to engage in sales trend analysis and economic forecasts means you’re flying blind: relying on outdated data, gut feelings, or anecdotal evidence. In contrast, companies that actively use MTI’s... Continue Reading

Six Essential Elements Every Organization Must Build to Weather the Coming Storm and Thrive Through

  With 2026 emerging as a defining inflection point for nearly every sector of the global economy, leaders must begin preparing their organizations for the sweeping transformations ahead. In a decade that will be shaped by labor scarcity, rapidly advancing technology, shifting customer... Continue Reading

Why Active Listening May Be the Most Underrated Leadership Skill

Active listening is one of the most essential outer core leadership competencies I teach. In every organization I serve, I see a clear pattern. Leadership communication becomes stronger, trust grows, and relationships deepen when leaders learn to listen with intention. Active listening... Continue Reading

MTI’s Education Committee Finalizes a High-Impact Program for the 2026 Spring Meeting in Albuquerque

As the Metal Treating Institute gears up for its highly anticipated 2026 Spring Meeting, April 13–15 at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the MTI Education Committee convened on December 3rd to finalize what promises to be one of the most dynamic and... Continue Reading

AI Anxiety Deemed Top Business Risk in 2026

The study reveals a shift in business priorities, with half now ranking AI implementation as their top business risk, surpassing traditional concerns such as an economic slowdown and supply chain disruption. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now the leading concern for U.S. business executives,... Continue Reading

How Stoicism can Make You a More Successful Leader

Practicing the principles of stoicism, including remaining calm and focused in a crisis, can improve your leadership, writes LaRay Quy. The first time I remember my emotions getting out of control was when I was 7 years old and crossing a flooding river on horseback. I couldn’t... Continue Reading

Why 2026 Is a Critical Year on the Road to the 2030s

Every decade has an inflection point…a moment when the forces of economics, technology, labor, and consumer behavior shift so dramatically that the choices leaders make determine the decade ahead. For the 2030s, that pivotal moment is 2026. Although the 2030s are still several years... Continue Reading

The New Essential Leadership Trait

Why AI demands a Renaissance mind. For more than a century, organizations have rewarded one kind of intelligence above all others: specialization. The great lawyer knew law. The great surgeon knew surgery. The great engineer knew engineering. Depth was the currency of competence. But... Continue Reading