Bruce Outridge

Can They Count On You?

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Bruce

When I write about business and entrepreneurship for my blogs and columns I often talk about creating a brand for yourself as your name is one of the most important parts of your identity. If you can’t be trusted it doesn’t matter how good you are at talking with people or how good the product or service is that your selling. In transportation the idea is no different. Your company wants to know that you can be trusted with their thousands of dollars worth of equipment and that you can handle the freight that may be worth millions of dollars. They also trust you will arrive at the appointed time for delivery. In other words they are putting their trust in you, in your abilities based upon previous performance. Needless to say that you have follow the rules and regulations of the road and do it in a timely manner. After all your name is at stake and integrity is everything. Don’t believe me just ask any dispatcher or terminal manager who they rely on when the going gets tough, when the load has to get there without problems, when there is high dollar freight involved? It’s not that driver that never arrives on time, drives like a maniac, and could care less about customer service.

It can be a double edge sword to be the good professional driver. It can be great for your career and your pocket book as you get higher profile loads, dedicated runs, are asked to move freight for larger clients and so on. With a good name in the industry it can take you along way even into the ranks of management and beyond. However there is a small downside, you get more work. Now most of us are looking for the miles so that isn’t always an issue, but as you become more of a brand and someone that can be counted on you will find you are asked to do more above and beyond the call of your job.

For me I was known as the clean junkie, washing my truck before each run, keeping it looking good at all times, well that would get me working the parade route for our company. It was fun at first, but as the years went by the preparation time before the parade got shorter and shorter until one day arrived home from a run and didn’t even have time to wash the truck because the company knew it would be the clean even without the wash. This happened at several companies and today I don’t even like parades. This however is a small price to pay for a good name in this industry. The recognition of being a quality driver has taken my career to heights I never imagined and has opened many doors within this industry.

If you are looking at a long career in this industry then integrity is everything. It will help you create income and help you come back from setbacks. Integrity is what you do, who you are, and who you stand for, integrity is your brand. Protect it like you would your children.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant for the transportation industry. He helps professional drivers and owner operators have successful careers. More information can be found on his website at www.outridge.ca

Is it Time for a Career Change? Project Planning for Staff.

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Bruce

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Marsha walked over to Francine’s desk with an armful of papers hoping to get some help with an assignment due over the next week. As she approached her desk it became apparent that this would not be an easy conversation, Francine had that look on her face, intrigued with her cell phone, and certainly not interested in talking about a new project. Marsha was very nice as she approached her desk and was hoping it was just her mind playing tricks with her. Marsha began, “Francine I am really overloaded right now and would like some help on a project. Would you mind doing some research work for me?” Francine scrunched up her face and replied, “Marsha I don’t do research work, I have been here ten years and I have passed the stage of doing
research work, get a student to do it!” Marsha was stunned since Francine was Marsha’s assistant and her job description was basically to do what Marsha asked her to do. The research work got done, but not without the usual fight and tension that always seemed to accompany the task in question.

How many of us have seen this type of scenario in our office space or place of employment. It doesn’t seem to matter what industry you are in, there always seems to be one person at least in each office, maybe that person is you. There are three reasons for this problem, entitlement, laziness, and complacency. I have seen this happen many times in the past within my career and if it is left alone too long it can be very hard to stop or change later on. Many times this is because someone has been in their position for a long time and now feels above doing work that they believe is below them, maybe they have been promoted in their mind because they stopped being asked to do mundane work on a regular basis, maybe it is time for a career or job change?

How do you deal with someone in this position? The best way is to curve the behaviour before it gets too far along, and the best way to do that is through a regular performance evaluation. The second way of helping that situation is to make sure you are mixing up the work on regular intervals. To do this you have to almost create a project plan for your employee and the best part is you don’t have to tell them. To create your project plan look over the job description for your employee, this is also something that should be reviewed in the performance evaluation as well, and plan their workload. You would start with their basic duties that are the staple of work that happens every day. Then you might give them a project once in a while to help them grow, to feel like they are climbing the ladder so to speak. After the large projects give them something that is within their job description, but that they don’t normally do such as research work which may be at the other end of the scale. This way you are creating a wave and dip system for their position so they don’t get the feeling that all they ever do is major projects and never have to do any grunt work. If you want them to work on the major projects all the time then give them a proper job promotion or maybe it is time for a career or job change. I’ll
let you be the judge of that.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a leadership and business consultant/ speaker helping supervisors and their operational staff create successful careers. Bruce is a regular comunist in many magazines and blog in the transportation industry. For more information visit his website at www.outridge.ca

Pairing Employees for Success

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Bruce

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Do you have one, two, maybe three employees that given the authorization may not be working with your company in the future due the amount of problems they seem to have? Everyone does, I don’t know any companies that don’t have this problem. In this day and age it is a very big problem to get rid of an employee without significant documentation. Many times due to labour laws you might even be stuck with them, so what do you do? One thing that many supervisors forget is that the employee may not listen to you outside of a direct order, but they may listen to someone else on your team. So if things aren’t going your way anyway why not try some out of the box thinking. Pair the employee up with another team member that you they get along with and see if they can change some habits. Sometimes if a person is shown a different way of thinking about situations, gets a chance to talk with someone who is not in an authoritative position it can help to break down walls. Some employees will do this naturally and other times you need to push them into the situation a bit to see if it works.

If you have an employee that is always having trouble in a certain area and you have tried multiple times to get them to change then try this; Find an employee you can trust and see if they are willing to show this other employee the way to do the task the right way. Maybe have them job shadow for a week with them or check on them once in a while. You don’t even have to make a big deal of it, try keeping it casual and see if a bond is made naturally. There are many benefits to doing this. You get a second set of eyes to evaluate what the problem is, whether it is an attitude problem or an application issue. You’ve given the employee another way of
completing the task, in essence extra training, and you’ve proven that you’re willing to work with this person to help them be successful. If the pairing doesn’t work you are no worse off than you were before you started, and at least you have had a second set of eyes to evaluate the problem. Remember some people learn by doing, some by watching, and others by listening, so be open to
out of the box methods to help your team. By doing that you will create a better team environment, and hopefully eliminate some bad behaviours.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant. He has over 30 years of experience in the transportation industry. More information can be found on his website at www.outridge.ca

Have You Created Chaos or Structure in Your Team?

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Bruce

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Jeff is a supervisor that wanted to have a good relationship with his team. They had lots of experience, knew how to do their job in a professional manner most of the time so Jeff didn’t feel that he had to keep a tight eye on the team. He didn’t want to be known as the micro manager and really couldn’t because he lacked the expertise of actually doing the job although he had plenty of knowledge of the processes. They were left to their own as far as departure with their loads, how they conducted the run as a whole, and how many days they stayed on the road. It sounds like a great deal for most companies and the job of supervising the team should roll along fairly easily. In the beginning things worked great until upper management decided to shift things around and brought in a new supervisor. This new supervisor did have actual experience in the job of delivering product to their customers and with that knowledge started to notice problems in the team’s performance. As the new supervisor tried to correct the problems the team started to fall apart. For too long everyone had their own schedule and way they liked to do things so when changes started to occur it created chaos with many of the team members.

This happens in many organizations and is usually a result of giving too much power to team members or a supervisor or boss without the knowledge needed to properly lead the team. By giving the team freedom to do their own thing you set a culture that lacks structure and control. Once this type of program has started it is very hard to change this later on down the road. The problem is usually more apparent in large organizations where there are many levels of management and different teams focusing on different types of projects or processes. If this goes on for too long it will be virtually impossible to repair in the future. So how do you change the situation if this exists at your company?

The first piece of the puzzle is to evaluate your position as a whole. Do you know what your team does to get the deliveries done? Have you experienced a run first hand, carried the boxes into the customer to find out how tired a person can get? What problems are the team members experiencing on the road, that to me is the most effective way of gaining respect from your team and getting to know them. Once you have done that and by the way that should be an ongoing process, take a look at how the deliveries are structured, do team members have the proper equipment, enough time, and enough resources? With this knowledge you are now in a position to create new structure and processes based upon actual experience. You may have to rein in some of the freedoms the team had before and that may be hard for the team to take so just hold your stance, because letting it go will not help you down the road. Remember to make the changes you have to have the reason why a change should be made, the experience to know how it will affect the team, and the process to move the team forward. Too many supervisors put new processes in place, but don’t have the experience in the operation to understand how the change affects the operational team. This causes problems in the ranks making the change hard to accept. Being a team leader means not only managing the team, but supporting the team, and you can only do that through experience and knowledge.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a leadership and business consultant for operational staff and the people who lead them. He is well known in the transportation industry. Program details can be viewed on his website at www.outridge.ca

Owning Your Success by Playing by the Rules

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Bruce

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Have you ever watched the careers of different individuals and wondered why some succeed and are profitable and others always seem to be struggling? I see it over and over again in my travels and always wonder what makes some people tick and others lose out. Now there is two mindsets to this thought process; some say it doesn’t matter how you finish as long as you finish first, and others say it is best to finish second and ethically than to be first through cheating. I agree with the second thought process. Here is why, most criminals get caught sooner or later, and those types of people spend too much energy trying to beat the system rather than working within it. Now this article is not about becoming a criminal, but about steering your career by abiding by the rules of engagement. Let me share a story with you and you may recognize a person like this on your team. Now this story is based in the transportation industry but you can find similar examples in almost any industry. By the way I have changed the names to protect the guilty.

Let’s call this person Jack, he has been driving truck his whole life. He learned to drive from his father and the family has a long list of truck drivers in it. He was taught early on that the most important part of creating money as a truck driver is to put in as many miles as you can, no matter how you do it drive those miles under your belt. Jack succeeded at that and companies loved him because he would do anything they asked, run around the scale, driver over the allowable hours, and take heavy loads whenever asked. With that attitude it was no problem to get jobs and he always seemed to be working. There was one problem however; he didn’t care about his career. As long as he was making money he didn’t give another thought as to how to proceed to the next step. Due to his non caring attitude jack did a lot of damage to equipment, refused to go that extra mile by keep his truck clean and would eventually be fired. He only had one goal and that was to get on with a good company that paid well and even though he bounced around companies he finally got that chance and ended up with a great company. The problem was that the mindset he had created early on never left him and while trying to make that extra dollar again he ended up rolling the truck. He made it out alive however; he has a hard time finding decent companies to work for and will never find that gold mind that he once worked at again.

Now Tom on the other hand did not come from a long line of truck drivers, but a line of accountants. He started at the bottom of the industry moving furniture and gradually through hard work, passion for his positions, and putting extra effort into his career, moved up the ladder getting experience in various industries within the transportation sector. In the long run he made better money than his counterpart Jack by abiding by company rules, putting in extra effort, and looking for opportunities to do what he loves to do. How did he make more money than Jack you ask? He worked for better companies that paid more per mile, he achieved higher positions that paid in various ways such as salary or percentage that created more income than by the mile, and he kept his record clean giving him a good name in the industry. He has since gone onto other avenues and opportunities within the transportation industry.

Now I tell you that story so that you will look hard at your career in the past, present, and future to decide if it is taking you on the path you had hoped it would. Part of the reason people go down the wrong path is due to the fact that they listen to the wrong people regarding their career. I myself was told over thirty years ago not to get into the industry because you couldn’t make any money in it. Thank the Lord I didn’t listen to that guy or I would still be pumping gas at the local gas station. Owning your success is about believing in your own ways of doing things that make you unique while abiding by the rules and regulations of your industry. Sometimes money grows on trees so think of your career as the trunk and branches.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant with a strong background in the transportation industry. You can view more information on Bruce by visiting his website at http://www.outridge.ca