Commentary: Innovation Comes from the Top – and yet it Doesn’t
Deborah Lockridge
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Deborah Lockridge
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As part of an audience exercise at HDT’s inaugural Heavy Duty Trucking Exchange event last month, table groups brainstormed reasons that people don’t think, why they don’t innovate. A common theme was that people are not expected to, not challenged to — and when they do come up with an idea, they aren’t listened to. So why bother?
“You can’t transform an organization until you transform its thinking,” said keynote speaker Tim Richardson. His message was that leaders need to teach people how to think, give them some freedom to do so, and thank them when they do. If someone comes up with an idea and it’s ignored, dismissed, or laughed at, what’s going to happen the next time they have an idea — maybe one that might have been a game-changer? Doubtful they’re going to try again.
Also at HDTX, as part of the Truck Fleet Innovator panel discussion, Randy Obermeyer, terminal manager for Batesville Logistics, talked about how he not only uses Lean processes and tools to make his shop more efficient, but he also teaches his technicians how to use those tools to come up with waste-cutting ideas of their own.
At U.S. Xpress, they’re recruiting for management talent outside of the industry and putting them through a two-year program to learn the ropes (read more about the Xpress Elite program on page 88.) But not only are the future managers learning about how the various departments of the truckload carrier work, they also are bringing in best practices and ideas from other industries that can be applied in trucking. And U.S. Xpress is listening.
Yet one of the most overlooked sources for good ideas may be drivers.
At HDTX, Jeff Sass, Navistar’s senior vice president of North America truck sales and marketing, shared some stories about how the …Read the rest of this story
