For several years now I’ve been appointed to provide the wrap-up and summary at Richard Lande’s popular Transportation Innovation and Cost Savings Conference. I joke with the wily Richard that by giving me this task, he’s finally found a way to ensure the media shows up on time, pays attention and stays till the end. Truth is, challenging as it may be to summarize the thoughts of several industry experts on several different topics into one cohesive 15-minute summary, I actually enjoy the experience. I’ve found over the years that if you pay close enough attention there is usually a common thread to be found in the words of the industry experts.

Yet I must admit this year I found that task particularly difficult because I couldn’t take my mind away from the words of the first speaker: Peter Hall, vice president and chief economist with Export Development Canada. Over and over throughout the day my mind kept drifting back to Hall’s gloomy message: Our domestic economy, the US economy and the global economy are all moving slow enough right now that the probability of a double-dip recession is high. The likelihood of falling back into the financial abyss is getting close to 50%, according to Hall.

Can he be right, I kept thinking throughout the day. Can our industry have survived the deepest recession of the post war era, with many carriers practically hanging on by their fingernails, only to drop back into the black hole of economic despair after such a short period of economic recovery? I spoke to many of the conference participants during the breaks throughout the day; they all kept saying the same thing: we hope he’s wrong.

Problem was he sounded so convincing.

There are several reasons we may be headed for a double-dip recession, according to Hall. He believes the aggressive growth we saw during the end of last year and during the first quarter of this year had much to do with all the stimulus spending from governments around the world but is now petering out before real economic growth kicks in. He’s also concerned about several signs of weakness in the US, the world’s largest economy. He believes the US housing market still requires another year to recover and US consumers may need as long as that and perhaps a bit longer before they feel secure enough about their savings to get back to normal spending levels. He also sees trouble for the global economy with Japan and China headed for recession. And this time around, debt-loaded governments don’t have the maneuvering room to help sustain their economies like they did two years ago.

Yet as convincing as Hall is (and having heard him speak before and being a fan of his weekly column I have a great deal of respect for him), we should be cautious in accepting his reading of the situation as gospel. Leading transportation industry forecasters speaking at the recent Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference seemed just as certain that fears of a double-dip recession are overblown.

Despite startling new housing figures that showed sales of previously-owned US homes were down 27% in July and housing starts down 12% compared to June, Eric Starks, president of FTR Associates said there’s little reason to fear a double-dip recession and pegged the likelihood of such a scenario at just 10%. Starks, who keeps a Trucking Conditions Index, believes what we will get instead is several months of very slow growth that will make motor carriers feel like they’re treading water. The only way the US economy is falling back into recession, Starks believes, is if it gets hit by some external global issue.

Those sentiments were echoed by Donald Broughton, managing director and senior analyst with Avondale Partners and a frequent guest on TV news and business programs. Broughton blamed those very programs for creating unnecessary anxiety.

“People are way more worried than they should be,” he said. “(Freight) demand is going up. It’s going up across the board, in every single freight mode.” He urged attendees not to be discouraged by mainstream media reports or stock market selloffs.

“Markets are a reflection of us; we are full of greed and full of fear. It takes a long time to instill confidence in us and it takes no time at all to instill panic,” he said of the markets.

Sounds like sage advice to me….until I see the third quarter numbers anyway.

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I thought I would take a break from giving advice on specific roles in a company and look at the bigger picture this month. I have visited many companies over the past number of years and aside from the normal concerns about volume and rates, a common reoccurring issue surrounds HR (Human Resources) and the management of people. There have been a million books written on this subject by people who are much brighter than I but I thought I would add my two cents worth.

No matter how big or small the company or what sector of the economy the business operates within, there are basic business principles that apply to leadership roles and the trucking industry is no different. If you want your company to behave in a certain manner then doesn’t it make sense that you should conduct yourself in a manner that is conducive to achieving the required result?

Before I get too far I send my apologies to the many people I had report to me in my early years as a small business owner. I learned these rules as I got older and grew into a formal leadership role and I learned from my many mentors. So for those of you who might have worked for me in the past and didn’t witness the behaviour that I am suggesting should be displayed by successful managers, once again youthful vigour and absolute ignorance to how things should have been done is my only defence.

Every person who goes to work at every company deserves the right to be successful and enjoy their daily toil. People inherently want to be good and want to be successful in the job they have taken on and they want to be recognized for their effort. If you are a manager and don’t believe these two statements then you are in the wrong role.

If you believe that your employees, drivers and Owner Operators give you a strategic advantage in your marketplace you already know what you’re about to read and I am sure I could learn many things from you. If you consider these same people to be a necessary evil, then you need to study this set of rules carefully. True sustainable success will only come when everyone in your company contributes to and enjoys in the results of a job well done and do not simply rely on the leadership of a single individual.

Rule # 1: I used to tell all the managers who worked for me that their job as a department head was to make their own jobs obsolete and only then would they be truly successful. Confused, so were they for awhile, but what I was getting at was that I thought it necessary for each of them to develop their individual staff and team to the point where they were truly self-sufficient and capable of performing the job at hand and meeting the goals and challenges posed to them on a daily basis.

Rule #2: Decide what success would look like for a given person in any given role in your department. Write it out in a role description; it’s hard to measure if a person is doing what you want when they have never been told or, better yet, shown on paper. This document should list their responsibilities, define the task required and their working relationship with their peers, and explain their decision making scope. Hire for that role, have the candidate read the description and provide input where they feel necessary and then have both parties sign it. You just created accountability!

Rule # 3: Develop SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) for all of the reoccurring procedures that happen throughout the day. This takes some work but it simplifies your life as a manager and relieves pressures on the people who work for you. The SOP should include the circumstance and justification for the SOP, provide steps to be taken in the process and any other necessary Information. Management drafts the procedure, employees add their input and the result becomes the rule for how things should be done in any given situation.

Rule #4 : Process, Process, Process. Managers who used to report to me would tire of me saying this but when things would go wrong, 95% of the time it would be because our process let us down, not our people. It is human nature to go looking for bad guys when the chicken feathers hit the fan, but what a grandiose waste of time this usually is. If you believe the ground rules for this article and that people inherently want to do well, then the investigation into the problem should start with the process or SOP that you have in place for the situation because usually it is here where you will find the root of the issue. If, after investigation, it is determined that the problem was caused by someone not following the process, then you have a performance issue with an individual that needs to be addressed.

Rule #5: Ensure that your people have all the tools they need to succeed including your support. Have you ever asked your people this simple statement “What can I do to help you be more successful today?” It’s your job as a manager to provide new technology, new training, or whatever it takes. Showing your people that you are pulling for their success is more important than you can imagine.

When I looked back on the years I was in business and the many successes and accolades that I was fortunate to have enjoyed, I most cherish the memories of the people I had the pleasure of working with and managing, specifically those whom I knew had talent that they themselves didn’t even recognize. To challenge those folks and watch them rise through the ranks still gives me Goosebumps as it should all true mangers.

Can you see how this applies to your company?
Safe trucking
Ray J. Haight

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It is no secret that Human Beings are CREATURES OF HABIT. It is not astounding news, it is not a new revelation, it is not earth shattering news. It is a plain simple fact. It is also true that as humans, we tend to do what we are shown and do what we are taught, and not really think outside the box.

Transportation, and Trucking in general everything moves so quickly that we have to BE QUICK on our feet, ready to adapt at a split second notice, and willing to learn new ideas. To that end, we have to not only train ourselves, but new employees, colleagues etc. Why bring this up now? Simple really, the latest recruits of College and University graduates, are upon us. They are FULL OF NEW IDEAS and SOME Old ideas. To most of them they are completly new ideas, with the hope of showing us what they can do.

Welcome them, and their ideas. Never discourage them, or their ideas, Like a lawyer "TAKE IT UNDER ADVISEMENT" Take time to digest the idea, see if it can be worked in, try it a little. Remember that their ideas, are fresh for the 2010's. Our ideas may be a little dated, we do not always have to do "THAT IS THE WAY WE ALWAYS DID IT, SO WE CONTINUE TO DO SO". a CHANGE IS AS GOOD AS A REST. Let's all try to change and adapt.

New office staff train them on the company itself and what we do. Train them from the gorund up. JUST like a house, without a strong foundation, they are setup for failure. This will never work. Once they are trained in one fucntion train them on the next, and the next and the next and so on. We all know, somewhere along the line, the ENTREPRENEUR, started the company, however even they, while they grow, are striving to get to the next level. To do so, they as we all do, need not only fresh ideas, but a FRESH WAY TO LOOK AT THINGS.

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I mentioned to editor Menzies that I'd do a survey of the 401 rest stops from Toronto to Montreal when I get a run that way, and he wondered, “Don't you have a job to do, and schedules to keep?” I replied, “There's not so many of them out there, James. Most of them are still closed. You have to almost drive to Kingston before you can get into one, and that place is a nightmare for trucks.”

I've never been able to write a happy story about Ontario's 400 series rest stops. The remodeling process has been a debacle from the get go--and nothing's really changed. But I've sought to provide balanced journalism and printed meaningless interviews and platitudes from the government press people about how great these new service plazas are going to be, and that irks me. However, superb indoor washrooms are now open at a few locations and you can buy chocolate bars and bungie cord from a few CTC kiosks. That's progress I suppose.

So here's the skinny on my brief survey, starting by running Eastbound to Montreal:

Don't even think of going in the Newcastle (454 km) site because you can't. Concrete barriers in place and it's a field of rubble in there anyway.

Next one is (was) is the top of Wooler Hill, at the 519km marker, so-called Trenton East. Formerly a McDonald's/Shell on two levels that never worked that well. Now the skeleton of a new one is arising, praise allah, but don't come in here unless you're an LCV with an emergency (hey that rhymes). It's marked “LCV emergency parking only” and Oppie has been enforcing it at times.

So then we come to the Odessa Esso and Tim's (519), just this side of Kingston, maybe the last original Jetson Family model with the spaceship roof that used to be so popular on the turnpike (Newcastle and Woodstock were of this genus, I can't believe I'm getting nostalgic for that old-time 60s architecture that was sub-par to begin with--these weren't designed by Frank Lloyd Wright). But don't go in here, either. It's too easy to get blocked in. Very limited parking, a narrow passageway around the back, and the front gets filled up after 10 pm fast. I still see LCVs in here, on both ramps and in front of the pumps.

At the 679 we've got Mallorytown and it's shut right down and barricaded. No stopping, no nothing.

Morrisburg at the 758 has several acres of parking for trucks. The CTC kiosk and pumps are open here, but bathrooms are still in portables. This site gets top ranking for parking but I'm not sure if LCVs can come in here, it's twisty in the parking lot.

On the Quebec side, a beautiful new Tim's and fuel bar has just opened up on Highway 20, just across the border. This has been badly needed and a good place to stop before heading over the scales and into the heart of New France. Parking looks minimally adequate. Brand new facility I watched sprout over the winter, very welcome indeed.

Westbound running back to Toronto.

Just after you leave La Belle Province,. at the 826 we now have one of Ontario's first On Route facilities. No fast food but the bathrooms are open, as is the CTC gas bar and kiosk. All the trucks are staying out front and there's virtually no parking or room out the back. I suspect that there's no room out back because of piles of contaminated soil and french fries and oil drippings from when this was a Wendy's/Shell/KFC.

Next one is Morrisburg westbound at the 762 which is completely closed. It was on a curve and I don't think it will reopen there. No stopping or parking.

Mallorytown (679), west of Brockville, has got some ad hoc parking and washrooms in portables Some of the parking spots out front don't look too wide, and not much room in the lot, better keep moving.

And don't bother stopping at the Westbound Odessa (670)..it's barricaded and haunted, only cops are brave enough to go in there.

But Wooler Hill westbound at the 520 is open (hooray). Trucks are still using the shoulders of both ramps, because construction has got most of the parking spaces fenced off. CTC pumps, snacks and indoor washrooms. Never liked the water in this place. The coffee invariably gave me cramps. No food yet, pity, only in Ontario.

The 445 is one of the first of the old-school sites and has stayed open throughout. Tims and Wendys. This comes just before you hit the scales at Bowmanville. Parking is not adequate though--not over night. And even after it was reconfigured years ago, I recall having to run over a curb to get around a 53 in an angle spot around the back. It was poorly designed and sits beside a lagoon so I don't think there's any more room to expand. Trucks on the ramps and along the shoulders in the early AM.

So enjoy your Ontario On Route rest stops. I haven't been the other way to Windsor in a long time, but it doesn't sound any better. Most drivers have learned to do without them and take their brakes off-highway--I'm one of those.

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In our business, the thing we try to avoid like the plague is letting a project slip to the bottom and stay there too long. It doesn’t happen very often as most projects have a deadline and deadlines are what keeps our world moving.

The bulk of our work stems from a pending need like; we are totally out of brochures, we need material for an ad placement today, we have a customer event next week and so on. Not so different from our transportation clients’ customers, an immediate need creates action. When there are no deadlines on the client side or ours, we usually try and make one up. Nothing keeps a project on track like a timeline that all parties have committed to.

Back to the topic at hand. When something has slipped through the cracks and is nestled comfortably at the bottom of the pile, everyday it stays in that position it grows like a nightmarish monster on steroids. Everyday it’s avoided it becomes an even bigger project to take on. Some tried and true remedies follow:

5 tips to stay on top

1. There is a reason why it slipped to the bottom. Figure it out. What is your associated fear with this project? You could be suffering from a case of BPP “Bottom of the Pile Paralysis”. :)
2. Create a hard deadline. Make an appointment to meet and present the project in question. Most times that will get you off the fence and get things rolling
3. Break the project down into smaller sections. If it’s a day’s work, book off an hour to make progress. Once you make progress of any kind the monster will shrink to a manageable size.
4. Approach it with confidence. You’ve done it before. Recall those victories and use that to start the ball rolling.
5. If all else fails declare defeat and delegate it in its entirety to someone else. You can’t afford to have baggage that negatively impacts your performance and service standards. Better this than further BPP behaviour.

Lee’s quote for the day

“It’s not that I work well under pressure...it’s more like I need pressure to work well!” :)

Lee Palmer is the President and Creative Director at Palmer Marketing, a company that specializes in creative marketing and advertising solutions for the transportation industry.

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"Next week is our launch week for a new year. There will a BBQ, fun and some pretty average preaching. So please invite your friends."

That was the ending appeal to our church service this past Sunday morning. No disrespect to the pastor who delivered it, he's a great guy and I didn't disagree with the true intent in which it was given (making sure people feel comfortable to hear an important message).

None the less I found myself strongly reacting to the word AVERAGE. It hit me like a boxer's blow to the gut.

Personally, I've come to dislike the word AVERAGE. So let me rant..

AVERAGE??? I refuse to settle for AVERAGE. I can't get excited about AVERAGE. I don't eat AVERAGE. I don't dream about AVERAGE. I've never chased AVERAGE. If I all i can look forward to is AVERAGE then I might as well just stop trying, stop dreaming, stop chasing, right now."
In the domain of leadership, both corporate & personal, aiming for average is a death sentence even if the accountant doesn't officially close your books and take down the neon OPEN sign on your business door.

A leader once said the formula to motivation is simply the existence of inspiring goals and having some tools to help us reach them. If our goals are simply average (while that sounds good on some days), how much motivation can there be? What is there to look forward to?

As humans we are motivated by achievement which can only come with challenge and growth. Our growth is fueled and enhanced by the sting of our failures along that way.

Despite the recent recession, the fact remains Canada's economy is heading for a severe labor shortage and "Please invite your friends" is going to become the Human Resource call of many companies. The question is will they come and want to stay? Will your organization or your team be an attractive place to work?!

If your leadership style settles for AVERAGE, don't count on it.

p.s.

If you are tired of average and want something better for your team & your life: Register for one of the upcoming 1st Time Managers Leadership Two Day Boot Camps.

Calgary's Workshop is just around the corner: September 14 & 15 at the Glenmore Inn and Convention Centre.

Click here to download the Fax Registration Form - or -
Register by Phone at (403) 874-1044.

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Continuing on with Ray’s Rules, I thought I would comment on recruiters; the group of folks who are in charge of bringing new drivers and owner operators into trucking companies. It seems funny how just a few short years ago, you couldn’t help but bump into any number of recruitment and retention consultants. Many of those consultants have since become experts at something else. Times have changed and many ex R and R experts have found a new demon that needs taming; that being CSA 2010 (Comprehensive Safety Analysis).

I have never bought into the fact that a driver shortage exists in this industry. In the past, trucks have been short drivers because trucking companies bought too many trucks, but this was not actually a driver shortage. A true driver shortage would mean that tangible goods cannot get to market because there isn’t a driver available to drive the truck to bring them there. Lately, I have heard many intelligent people whom I respect, and who know this industry well, speak about a truly severe shortage of drivers being right around the corner. I must admit that this line of thinking is not without merit and the stars might be aligning themselves for such an event. Star one, otherwise known as CSA 2010, will thin some drivers and carriers from the industry as it is designed to do. Star two, FMCSA mandated minimum entry level driver training should be out this year or early next year and should shut down or severely cripple many of the sub-standard training schools on both sides of the border. Combine these items with star three, any sizable uptick in this economy, and the culmination will mean that there simply won’t be enough drivers out there to fill the seats that need to be filled.

At that time, an effective recruiting department will be worth its weight in gold. Effective recruiting is summarized as the execution of a strategic plan, as developed by the leadership of a given company. Target numbers should be discussed and agreed to by all involved parties and a budget to accomplish the goal must be developed and adhered to, Now, I just capsulated a mountain of work into one sentence, so consider this an overview of the execution of the recruiting process. Recruiting is a difficult function within a company; it can sometimes feel like you’re pushing a rock up a hill. Getting it going can be tough and then when you get it going you need to keep up your momentum because your progress can stop as quickly as it started.
So, without further adieu, here are Ray’s Rules for Recruiters:

Rule 1, Hire what you want and need to be successful, but do not settle. I shudder when I hear people say that drivers and owner operators are not what they used to be. This is an excuse for inefficient effort in my opinion. Remain determined to find drivers who meet your standards and stay your course!

Rule 2, Under-promise and over-deliver. Do not misrepresent or stretch the truth to attract applicants to your company. Doing so is the quickest way to increase turnover and create ill will in your driving force. Let people see that you were everything you told them you would be (and more) if you want people to stay with your company.

Rule 3, Create a ‘points’ system as a front-line screening tool. There’s no sense dragging the hiring process out if you’re not right for each other. In my previous life, an applicant had to have at least five points to be considered a legitimate candidate. For example, they received two points for each year of safe North American, cross-border, van driving experience. They would also get points for safe driving awards or defensive driving courses that they had taken. A candidate would lose points for traffic tickets and would be eliminated from consideration with two speeding tickets or a DUI in the past three years. You get the idea…once the points are developed they cannot be circumvented at anytime without the Safety Manager’s complete support.

Rule 4, Develop a list of expectations for your drivers. Each dispatch board should develop their own list of expectations for their drivers. The expectations should list all of the requirements needed for success for both parties including but not limited to time off notice, check-in requirements, specifics on freight, etc. These expectations are shown to the candidate who must then agree to them in order to continue on in the hiring process. The candidate should then also do the same thing; have them state their expectations of your company. If the candidate needs every other weekend off and you can’t accommodate that schedule then there is no sense in continuing the process. The expectation sheet becomes the platform for your relationship moving forward.

Rule 5, your existing drivers can be your best recruiters. Again, in my past life, we recruited over 50% of our new hires from leads produced by our existing driving force. We compensated them for their effort and gave appropriate recognition through our company newsletter and at company functions. It works, try it! Rewards came in the form of cash, and free entrance to company functions such as Christmas parties and golf tournaments for the leading driver-recruiters.

Rule 6, Know the curriculum that new hires are being trained under. I believe in the PTDI (Professional Truck Drivers Institute) standards for training (check them out at www.ptdi.org ) and you should research and decide what standards you require new hires to adhere to. Hiring from a sub-standard school isn’t helping anyone, least alone your company. I would also strongly advise that your company and the training school use the Tractor Trailer Commercial Driver Apprenticeship Program as a guideline for an appropriate finishing program for new folks starting in the industry.

Rule 7, don’t get hung up on the cost per new hire, I used to get this question all the time, were hiring people, the right people that is, not making widgets, the idea is to fill the funnel with potential candidates and that will cost money, for advertising field trips etc, If you want to get what you’re looking for. The cost of hire is a number that does not apply, this being said measuring the effectiveness of paying for an ad in a trade magazine and measuring results is a different thing along with staying within a given departmental budget.

I hope some of this helps those of you who are having a difficult time filling seats these days. Feel free to drop me a line if you need more information on this subject.
Safe trucking!
Ray J. Haight

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Working in marketing has allowed me an opportunity to meet many successful business leaders. Our process of discovery before rolling out a marketing program has given me an even greater opportunity to have in depth discussions with these visionary entrepreneurs.

Your chance for greatness can be realized if you adopt their common entrepreneurial traits. They’re excited about what they do, they know their business inside out and they are without exception… workaholics. Life balance may have escaped them but business needs leaders and the ones I’ve met seem comfortable with their calling. Maybe like sharks that need to keep swimming to stay alive, true entrepreneurs need to keep building their business for the same reason.

Assuming the best and being prepared for the worst are characteristics that put these individuals on a pedestal far above us common folk. I used to be in awe of their bigger than life personas. Over time, that awe has transformed to respect and the realization that the people running 2 million, 20 million or 200 million dollar companies have many similar characteristics.

Off comes the cloak of mystery. The truth is these entrepreneurs have learned and applied these simple lessons and you can take these 5 undisputable facts to the bank too:

1. Multiply your efforts through others.
2. Attract and keep great people.
3. Focus on your unique ability and delegate what you dislike or are not particularly good at to capable individuals on your team.
4. Make the bold move and seize the moment when it presents itself.
5. Let success build your confidence and increased confidence build your success.

Lee’s Quote For The Day:

“If you find something you love, that there is a market for, become really good at it, hang in there long enough, and add a little WYAO… success will be yours.” :)

Lee Palmer is the President and Creative Director at Palmer Marketing, a company that specializes in creative marketing and advertising solutions for the transportation industry.

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