Trucking Executives Need to Step Up to Their Responsibilities (as well as their potential)

Regardless of a person's chosen field of occupation, the quality of their life (and business) is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence.

Character

Sometimes it's easier not to do what we know we should; to choose the easier wrong over the harder right. Try to be cognizant of the things you can change, as well as those you cannot. Searching for, finding, and embracing a repeatable process that's successful for your group or operation will provide you a roadmap to success.

Mentorship

By not seeking out the right advice from someone who's actually done it, you're relegating yourself, and your company, to-at best-mediocrity. Do you see your doctor for legal advice? Your interior decorator for tax advice? Go to an apple tree when you're craving an orange. Go to the tree that has the fruit you're looking for - someone who's been successful in dealing with your specific issues and can be a positive influence on your professional performance. But first, take a look at your ROI, margin, bottom line, or bank account.

There are almost as many "advice gurus" as there are books. I often wonder about those Sages standing back and slinging "should do" and "shouldn't do" coaching when they've not done it themselves. The industry is rife with advice givers who've never dispatched a truck, lead a turnaround, sold a pound of freight or led an operations team. I know of one specific instance where a "consultant" took on negotiations with a Mexican firm and made recommendations to the American counterpart to buy new equipment and supply multiples of tens of additional trailers-for a non-profitable operation. The lack of any international operations expertise, research, verification or negotiations with a Mexican service provider was a minor detail when compared to the main issue, which was a complete lack of understanding that it was crossing fees and insurance that put the operation at a loss. Consultants that don't know what they're doing can be costly for the person or company they're advising, and devastating to them from a credibility standpoint. Yet they're able to pass themselves off as experts. Why is this?

Things Change. Get Over It

Get off the golf course. Get off your yacht. Get away from the country club and exotic vacations and get into the character that made you successful in the first place. Do not succumb to the "hard times" copout. People don't care what you've done or what you know until they know how much you care. By and large, trucking leadership wants to do well, but they're limited by the challenge (or ability) to evolve, change, and do what's necessary to overcome today's business climate and be ready for tomorrow's world economy. Everyone has a comfort zone, and operates inside of that well defined arena. Let's call it "an incarceration of getting by".

The same character attributes and personal focus that allows professional athletes to excel also serves those in the business world well. By extending your comfort zone to embrace "a different way" (overcome, adapt), you're realizing that what you're doing now isn't working. The thousands of trucking related organizations that have shuttered their doors in the past two years can't all be wrong, but it serves notice that "the way it's always been" isn't going to get it done in the future. The old way of running a company must evolve to the way the world dictates a company should be run, never mind that either excess or lack of capacity will favor which part of the supply chain. For companies to succeed in today's challenging business environment, managers must become leaders and the right people put in place to successfully lead the transition to a proactive and future-oriented organization.

You're In The People Business

What part of the supply chain is your company? It should be the people part. Every day decisions are made not to include the best available talent to lead a company, a division, or a difficult turnaround. Why? Usually it's old ideas, perceptions, or maybe something as simple as the wrong resume format - as determined by someone in the HR department.

Goals must be specific and measurable. For the old school among us, let's just call them Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs. Do your top executives get "hands on"? Do they get in the trenches; visit the driver's room? Or do they have their "people" do it for them? Executives decide what will work or not work based on what they've heard, or by what's failed them in the past. But was it the change in process that failed, or was it the people in charge of that change that failed?

Regardless of the rhetoric, or feel good statements of positive attainment, sometimes dreams end up scattered in a circle of broken shards. It's time to return to the action that built your success, regardless of the prevailing politics or lending climate. It's time for you to take control of your destiny by finding solutions, not just talking about them.

Dare to Dream

In the history of trucking, the entrepreneurial spirit in ownership has started, led, succeeded, and transitioned thousands of carriers to family that carried on the tradition. They risk more than others think is safe, care more than others think is wise, dream more than others think is practical and expect more than others think is possible. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams.