INTRODUCTION
At one point or another we have all thought to ourselves,
“what is that person doing?”. In the trucking industry it is especially
easy to have this mindset. “Why did my dispatcher give me the wrong address?”.
“Why didn’t the driver use his hours more efficiently?”. “Why can’t the
customer service representative find any loads today?”. We are all stuck in our
own mindset of trying to accomplish what we need to do that we forgot we are
part of a larger puzzle that needs to fit together in order to be successful.
More often than not in the trucking world, we have such a heavy workload
stacked on the soldiers in the trenches, that they become frustrated with the
other parties who “failed” them in some way. That frustration builds and no one
takes the time to discover why that failure happened and what
could be done in the future to prevent it. It is important for everyone to
understand the roles of the people they are working with; if people are only
concerned about their own perspective, they can never help create change or
come up with ideas that may improve operations or generate efficiencies.
True understanding leads to improved communication between
all parties. It is very easy for people to say they understand, but have they taken
the time to really understand the issues that are facing the other
people they are working with on a daily basis? Taking time to learn about what
others are responsible for, and the challenges they constantly face, is crucial
to the success of an organization. If people in an organization are not
striving to look beyond their own challenges, then walls of misunderstanding
will begin to build-up. And those walls are very difficult to tear down.
A TALE OF
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES – A Driver is Late for a Morning Delivery
Fleet
Manager: It’s 07.30
and I cannot get my driver on the phone. He has a 09.00 delivery, is 30 miles
out and is not moving. Why is he not driving towards delivery? He has one thing
he has to do this morning which is make this delivery. I have 35 other drivers
I need to help and I am spending all of my time this morning trying to get in
contact with him and make sure he delivers on time. Why can’t he just do his
job? I was into work on time. I know he is a good driver, but when I finally
talk to him on the phone it is going to be the same old story. Customer service
is going to be very upset when I let them know about this. I don’t feel like
dealing with them yet so I will just try a little longer to get this driver on
the phone and get him rolling. He is a good driver, he will make it on time. I
will talk to him later about picking up his phone when I call him. I finally
got him on the phone and he just woke up and it’s 08.20. He said he can start
driving right away; he should be able to make delivery. It’s only thirty
minutes away. It’s 09.05 and he is late; they told him he will not be offloaded
until 14.00. What was he thinking? Now I have to try to work with both him and
customer service to make sure his week is not messed up. I better get ready to
go butter-up customer service for a good load to save his week.
Customer
Service: It’s 08.05
and I don’t have enough loads for the trucks that are in my area today but now
I must work with my customer about a load that is late for delivery. They don’t
offload trucks that are late until the afternoon. Hopefully I can pull some
strings and get this truck offloaded. Probably not. I already had to do this a
few days ago for a different truck. They are not going to help me again. I will
just wait and see if he makes it on time before I send anything out. Well, it’s
08.55 and he is still 10 minutes out. I will email the customer and see
if they can help me. They can’t help me out and will get him in at 14.00. I
don’t understand why these Fleet Managers can’t just make sure the drivers are
there on time. It’s not that hard. Now not only is my customer upset at me, but
I have everyone breathing down my neck for his next load so we can make sure he
still has a good week. If the driver would just be on time, none of this would
happen.
Professional
Driver (23.30 the
night before): I just got a call from my wife about my son getting caught
sneaking out the house. I spoke with him for an hour about why he was sneaking
out and what his punishment will be. I am really concerned about him and I cannot
get to sleep. It’s 03.00 and I still cannot go to sleep. I need to get some
sleep so I can make delivery on time tomorrow and get my next load on. 07.00 my
alarm goes off and I hit the snooze button. 08.20…OH NO! That was not the
snooze button that was the off button. I have 10 missed calls from my Fleet
Manager. I am going to be late. I just need to throw on clothes and go. It’s 08.40
and traffic is moving slow; no one will let me move over. I am going to be
late. I just got to the receiver; it’s 09.05 and they are not going to offload
me until 14.00. The lady at the window told me they had an 11.00 open, but we
didn’t let them know we would be late until 08.55 and somebody took that
appointment at 08.50. I have my Fleet Manager on the phone telling me I need to
be on time and asking why I couldn’t just make it there on time. Well, why is
my Fleet Manager not doing anything for me? Why can’t customer service just
work with one of our “best” customers to keep me moving?
Understanding
Each Other
In the
situation described above, everyone is only looking at it from their own perspective.
No one is trying to understand what the other positions are dealing with
because of the late delivery. They are upset now because they will have to work
through a difficult situation. There are times where being upset with people
that you work with is warranted, but it is very important to be careful that
the first reaction that you have is not anger; try to understand what may have
happened and if there was anything that could have been done to prevent the
given situation from happening.
When
something like a late delivery happens there will be a number of things that
you now have to deal with, but that is your part of the equation to deal with.
The best thing one can do is try to help others to ensure the situation is
dealt with from a place of understanding. If a customer service representative
has no idea what the driver was going through and puts pressure on the Fleet
Manager, who in turn puts pressure on the driver, it could cause that driver to
feel underappreciated and decide to leave. That lack of understanding now not
only caused a late delivery, but now the loss of a driver.
WHAT CAN
WE DO ABOUT IT? HOW DO WE BRIDGE THE “UNDERSTANDING GAP”?
One of the crucial elements of forming cohesive operations
is for everyone to truly understand what the other parties are doing; not
surface level understanding, but real understanding.
Drivers should understand a Fleet Manager’s
responsibilities, which will help them do a better job and make their own day,
and single truck operation, flow more smoothly. For example, checking in with
their Fleet Manager when they arrive at a receiver will allow that manager to
be able to contact customer service, letting them know that everything is
running smoothly with that driver and pre-plans are on pace for pick-up.
Customer service representatives understanding that having the correct address,
pick-up numbers, and commodities on a load sent to a driver ensures that they can
check-in on time with no issues and be loaded quickly. Understanding that if
those things are not done correctly and there are delays, it can cost the
driver. Fleet Managers understanding exactly how drivers make money, whether it
is percentage or mileage, and doing everything they can to help that driver
maximize his earning, will lead to less turnover on his fleet and in the end
make him more efficient at being a Fleet Manager.
This is what I mean by perspective. We all need to really
slow down and listen to the people we are working with. If you do not
understand their job how do you do your own job in a way that will make others
more successful and in turn, make yourself more successful? Looking outside of your own four walls
allows you to see the bigger picture of what is taking place. When everyone
in an organization knows what the left and right hands are doing, they are able
to work in cohesion and push in one direction for the best possible results.
There are several possible ways to go about increasing the awareness
of what challenges others are facing in the company.
1.
Job Shadows
a.
Have the people in your organization spend time
with people who are in other roles. The object is always time. How much time in
the long run will you create for your people when they are working as one team
instead of separate departments who have their own way of doing things.
b.
Have debrief sessions after these job shadows.
Listen to the people about the ideas they came up with after sitting with the
other departments for a day or two.
2.
Weekly Departmental Meetings
a.
In these meeting your leadership team needs to
bring updates on improvement, issues, or initiatives within their own
department. Not numbers and statistics, but rather how they are doing
things, what issues have crept up, specific occurrences that have negatively or
positively affected their own operations, etc. Making sure there is real
communication on a weekly basis allows departments to understand each other
before any real issues occur. Don’t go through the motions. Really talk as a
team and understand. This is not the time to throw others under the bus, but to
build understanding and find common ground.
3.
Driver Engagement
a.
These should not be surface level chats, but
rather real talks. Asking what problems drivers are seeing, what things are
going really well. Engage them and let them shine a light on things as well.
They are the boots on the ground and the ones doing the work. At the end of the
day, the company needs to do everything they can to support these individuals.
We all need to make sure that we are taking steps to support
those around us. Understanding will lead to better relationships and will help
drastically improve the operations of a company. Making sure we really know
what others are doing will help improve overall performance. It is really easy
to pay lip service to the idea of perspective and understanding; it’s harder to
take the time and truly understand the other side when things get tough.
I want to end this blog with a post I saw on LinkedIn by Joel Buffington
My wife and I went
for a bike ride this past weekend, however my in-laws had my bike so I had to ride
my son’s. It’s a bit smaller with a few
less gears so I found myself peddling faster and working harder than normal
just to keep up with my wife, who made the ride look effortless....
I had a flashback to
recent rides with my teenage son, him on his smaller bike with less gears and
trail tires and me on my bike with more gears and road tires. When he
inevitably lagged behind, I’d slow down and frequently I’d find myself giving
him old-school dad feedback, “try harder, work harder, it’s not that difficult
to keep up, we had Square tires when I was a kid, blah blah blah.”
Fast forward to
Tuesday morning, I’m in a management meeting, and the topic of giving/receiving
feedback comes up. We talked about
delivery, intentions, trust, timing, etc.
Rather than jump to critiques and doling out our ‘wisdom’, sometimes we
need to ride the smaller bike and understand why it’s hard to keep up:-)