Episode 100: Reflecting on 100 Episodes of Fleet Success

Welcome to the Fleet Success Show.

3, 2, 1.

We are a podcast dedicated to talking about the fundamentals, standards, and best practices that empower today's fleets to achieve fleet success. Let's get into the show.

All right.

Welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host Josh Turley, joined by my co-host Jeff Jenkins.

I can't believe today's the day.

Today's the day.

It's crazy.

It's 100 episodes.

What do they say, like most podcasts don't make it past 7 episodes?

I believe it, because like it's hard coming up with content sometimes.

Yeah, but we're hitting 100.

Yeah, like just dragging. I think sometimes just dragging ourselves across the finish line to hit 100. This might be the last podcast episode we ever do. I don't know. We'll see. We need emails, podcast@rtfleet.com. You guys want the show to continue, you got to save it.

Feedback, baby.

I'm just kidding. We're totally doing more episodes. So today is fun because we're actually live from the Fleet Success Summit show floor. The show is all ready to go. You know, we're kicking off tomorrow morning, but we're joined on the podcast today by our very own Mark Canton and Nathan Shafer. How are you guys?

Good. Thanks for having me.

Yeah.

Good.

Glad to be here.

They're both dragging because they, uh, they flew in from the East Coast and it's a 3-hour time difference right now, uh, which is obviously a ton of fun.

So, but they have their Starbucks, like they're going to play like champs, right?

Yeah.

They're, they're all ready to go. I don't know how they're going to sleep tonight. Nathan says he's going to sleep like a baby.

Yes, I am.

I don't know. You get that much caffeine in somebody and no, yep.

Can't do it.

Nope.

So today I wanted to talk about the concept of Fleet Success, right? This is 100 episodes in and what it's meant to, you know, like, I guess just looking back, what are some of the things, some of our favorite memories from podcast episodes or summit or the book, you know, and Mark and Nathan, maybe as like fleet managers, what, you know, the concepts that we talk about in Fleet Success what that means to you guys, right? Um, so Jeff, I mean, like, maybe we'll start with you looking back 100 episodes, some of your favorite memories over the last 100 episodes that we've done.

Yeah. First, I think I want to point out that like, we never know doing these if they make a difference, right? We can see how many downloads we get. So we know that some people listen, right? Some episodes are a lot more popular than others. But I always wonder, like, are people getting stuff out of this? Are they not getting stuff out of this? It's just one of those questions, right? I mean, we're not Joe Rogan, right?

And that guy, I mean, like, honestly, I don't know that anybody gets anything out of his episodes, but they're fun and entertaining, right? So you get something out of that. Yeah, sometimes educational. But yeah, hopefully, you know, because I've had that same thought as I'm sitting there, especially doing solo episodes where I'm just rambling by myself, right? I'm like, man, I hope this is like landing. And that this is making a difference somewhere, you know, that I'm not just wasting my time just putting my stuff out into the air and it's just, you know, chopping trees down in the forest, but it's not making a sound. Yeah. People keep downloading those, so I gotta assume that it's doing something somewhere.

Someone likes it.

Yeah, it's all Facundo.

Yeah, either that or it's my mom. She's downloading all these episodes and just going to different profiles.

My mom says I'm cool.

No, but to answer your question, so some of my favorites have actually been some of the the different guest episodes.

Yeah.

Right. So like when we had Sam Bradford on.

Yeah.

When we had Christine Rogers on, we had Dawn, we had Tim that were on, you know, it's nice having a different perspective, having another voice. But I also like a lot of the talking about intentional culture. And the reason I say that is because it's not an area that is highly trafficked and talked about. Not just, you know, in general, but in the fleet world especially.

Yeah.

Like, 20 years in trucking, you know, often we talked about intentional culture. Not once.

No.

Right? And I worked a lot of places with very high turnover, and the issue was always, "Oh, these people suck. They're not very good." But it's, what kind of environment are we creating for them? What kind of resources are we putting into developing them? And, you know, I think that that resonates with a lot of people because most don't get that type of attention, right? So putting a voice behind it and calling out, I think, you know, helps people realize, hey, you know, this is important. We need to put this into consideration where they haven't before.

Yeah, I have had people reach out that are not fleet people. They're like, well, I just listen to the culture stuff. I don't even listen to the other things. And I'm like, huh, well, okay, well, I guess, you know, like there's something universal in the application of it. Yeah, right, which kind of makes it nice. And, uh, you know, you could share it with other people that are outside the industry.

Absolutely.

But, but absolutely something that we just haven't talked about in fleet a whole lot.

No, I had someone reach out from a car hauler, and he had— he's— he wants to get like this, this huge culture shift in his current company, right? So he sent out this long email, and he sent it to me afterwards. They sent this long email, and it's like 7 to 8 paragraphs long, just, hey guys, this is where I see where we're at versus where we need to go, and here are some steps we need to take. And for 2 weeks, never a single reply from anybody. And he sent it to the whole executive team. Nobody said a word. So he sent me a message like, hey Jeff, I'm struggling here. This is why. And I said, well, send it to me and let me read it. He was trying to drown them with a fire hose, right? And I said, the problem is, is like you started too big, right? Right. You've got to start small. Like people can't change. You're basically saying, hey, we got to change these 8 things that are very critical. And this is how we're going to do it. And anybody that looks at that, it's like, yeah, no, hell no, I'm out.

Right?

You got to start with the one small thing. And, you know, the reason he sent it to me is because of this podcast, right? And what he's heard us talk about. So that, that actually made me feel kind of special that he thought to reach out to ask about something like that. But, you know, he just didn't know how to handle that situation.

Yeah.

And I had somebody reach out and tell it, you know, ask for like mentorship and things like that. It's been kind of a cool journey. For me, like actually mentoring somebody on an official capacity. I'm like, this is weird, you know, like I do it internally all the time, right? Like one-on-ones and coaching and things like that, but somebody totally in a, you know, a different industry, different company, and they're asking me for advice, which is just—

it's a little—

it's surreal, humbling to be sure, you know. And half the time I'm talking to him too, and I'm like, gosh, I hope this is useful, you know, and I hope this is like, you know, that I'm not just throwing up on you, right? And like just giving you all this stuff and you're just like, yeah, okay, you know, and taking it. I think he takes it and he uses it, but at times I, you know, I worry that I'm just— I'm rambling like I'm doing right now, right?

Like, yeah, we all do, the best of us.

So, well, if I could dovetail that a little bit, yeah, that's, you know, that's kind of the thing that, um, jumped out— jumps out for me when we talk about the 4 pillars as well, because, you know, I think a lot of folks, I think managers, like if you ask someone who was your favorite manager in your career or who was a great leader you worked with or worked for, you know, there's always that element of team building involved in it, right? There's that sense of they, you know, they made the work environment, they made you want to go to work kind of a thing. So it's there, there's some intuition about that, right? And it's the same thing, like, you know, you'll have that dinner conversation, you know, what was your favorite job you ever had? And it's, Oh, we had a great time, you know, whatever it was, cleaning golf clubs on a golf, you know, whatever it was because it was a team, right? And so I think people kind of know that and understand that. And certainly when I reflect on, you know, what I, you know, the portions of my career that I think were successful thus far in operations that, you know, I now looking back in hindsight realize I was doing intentional culture without formally doing it on, like I wasn't I didn't have a plan about it, right? I wasn't intentionally doing it. But I remember I had certain things I would say always and I would repeat, and these are our values and these are, you know, but it wasn't like I woke up one morning and said, I'm going to come up with this plan. What is the culture? What's going to define us? And I kind of got lucky. I fell into it a little bit, you know. And so what jumps out at me about, you know, the way sort of you guys have, you know, let's say, positioned it is it's much more tangible, right? It's like that thing that everybody knows is real intuitively, but here's how you can actually achieve it. Here's how you can do it and you can even measure it, right? And that all of a sudden sort of changes the dynamic of it, I think a little bit, because now it's attainable for anyone in any organization, no matter if it's the hugest company on the planet or a tiny small portion of a government, fleet, or like you said, another industry. And it's doable, right? You can break it into smaller chunks, right? Instead of feeling like the ant at the bottom of Mount Everest, right? Which was what your point was, right? So now you can break it into smaller chunks and you can do it and you can kind of have a formula to it, right? You can have steps to it. And that's something that, you know, we were talking before we started the podcast, you know, what jumps out to you you know, in your career as a fleet manager and whatnot. And, you know, that falls under the box of wish I knew then what I knew now kind of a thing, right? Because it's real now. Now, I, you know, I know what I've done in the past, but if I ever landed in operations again, like, I know exactly how I would tackle that and how I would handle that. And it just clicks. It makes sense. So, yeah, that's something that really stands out for me, you know?

Yeah. Like you talk about making it, it takes it from being vague and ambiguous, right? Like if you go and ask 100 people on the street, you know, what does culture mean in an organization? You're gonna get 100 different answers, right? But this makes it something that is definable, that is measurable, that I can tell, like, do I have this in place or not? Am I seeing these kind of turnover results or no? Uh, do I have, you know, employee NPS scores? And am I surveying my people? Am I doing one-on-ones, right? Like, gives you a tangible list of things that go and check and make sure you're doing right and doing well. Uh, so yeah, I like that you talked about that, that it, it made something concrete that we probably just kind of knew in the back of our minds that, yeah, we could do better. We don't really know what to do better, but we could do better, right?

So, you know, you read a lot of leadership books and it talks about team building and, you know, uh, aspects that kind of dance around the concept of culture, right? Uh, in a lot of ways. And, and yeah, you— what you've done is you've kind of, like I said, you've made it into a formula almost where, here, here's the guide, here's how to go do it, and here's how to measure whether or not you did it right, which as we'll talk more about probably during this show. And if not, you guys have talked to me enough to know, if you can't measure it, you know, you got to keep score to win.

So.

That's right. But it definitely is, I don't think we could take credit for it, right? Like we've synthesized, like you said, we've read a lot of books. Right. Yeah. I had somebody tell me that, I'm going to say that tomorrow morning too, is, you know, I've read a lot of books and some people say that, well, everything you know came out of a book. But at the same time, like I feel like we stood on the shoulders of giants and we pulled together this information. That other people weren't pulling together in the industry, right? And then we said, okay, I get that we have technician shortage, and I get that we have supply chain issues, and I get this is how it all gets colored by, right, culture. It all comes together that way.

So when a lot of people don't have the time to read those books, right, so us summarizing or talking about the key principles that are being picked out, it helps them, right? Right. Because a lot of people, they don't like to read, they don't want to read, they don't have time to sit down and do it. So, you know, if we can talk about it, even though it may not be our words and it's beneficial, hell, I don't care where it comes from.

Yeah.

Well, but also, you know, it's like you can go to industry conferences, right? And we go to them, we talk at them, we hear other folks speak, and, you know, you'll hear things like document your policies and procedures and make sure you have a great training program and a good— and that's all fine and dandy, and it's true. It's absolutely true. And yet that, you know, you can only go so far in that kind of a thing, right? It's very up here. It's very vague. Well, how the heck do we do that, right? Well, here's some ideas on how to retain mechanics, you know, and everyone just falls back on, well, I can't pay them enough. Well, you know, obviously you got to be competitive. That's always going to be a factor, but there's a whole heck of a lot more you can do, you know.

It doesn't cost any money, right? Right. You don't have to go get budget approval for, right?

Right.

Exactly.

Some like bare, you know, fundamentals, right?

Right.

And so folks can go out and do that now, and it's, it's extremely relevant. To exactly what we're facing now today, right? It's always going to be relevant. It's always been relevant, but boy, it's never been more relevant than it is right now from a job market perspective.

Yeah.

So I think for me, you know, what Mark's saying is true. You hear this stuff over and over and over again as you attend leadership trainings and read books and all that stuff. But, you know, for me, you guys put it in a way to apply it, like what Mark's saying. You know, when I came into leadership, it was, you know, I had really good people that I looked up to that were leaders and I had really bad ones, you know, that were leaders. And it was—

and you knew they weren't doing something right.

Yeah. It's like, I didn't like that guy, so I'm not going to do that. So, you know, through my fleet career up until the last maybe, you know, 7 or 8 years, it was read books, listen to what people are telling you, you know. And then I started kind of, okay, I liked how this guy was doing things and I liked how this guy was doing things. And I started to pull that together. And then, you know, Connect a few years ago, you guys started kind of pushing the culture stuff. And, you know, I was— I've been listening to the podcast since it started. So, you know, that's the pillars, I think, is a great way to apply that stuff and give, you know, the people in fleet a way to look at the different areas for sure.

Well, and how to balance them, right? You know, because like we lean heavily into culture because it's the one thing that people don't talk enough about, but It's not in a vacuum, you know, that you like, you still have to worry about, you know, resource efficiency, risk management, and ultimately stakeholder satisfaction, right? And like, they all blend together and you've got to focus on all four of them simultaneously. Sometimes you got to focus on one area more than the other because you got your ducks in a row in the other areas, right? And culture, honestly, is probably the one that we are struggling the most in as an industry, which is why we probably put so much emphasis on it. But we don't want to devalue the others at the same time. I've enjoyed watching Steve as he's been on this next project that he's on right now as an interim fleet manager. He sends us these weekly reports that he's doing, but he's implementing a lot of the stuff that we talked about on the podcast and as we wrote the book together, things that he's been doing his whole career, but now he's taken it to a whole nother level with these guys. Communicating about the wins and here's the status and like just over-communicating clarity. And it's pretty, pretty fun to watch him, you know, implement some of the things that we talked about and like, hey, I'm going to go put my fleet manager hat back on and do those things. You know, this guy's a Hall of Famer and yet he's still learning and still growing and still changing. Like, that's, that's been a fun lesson to learn from, from somebody who's, you know, like, and I honestly, I must have him on the podcast. In person.

Yeah, because like he's a character.

Yeah, well, and for me, like, if I were to think back— I'm gonna switch gears a little bit— to some of my favorite memories on the show, uh, it was the three of us sitting in a room, like those early episodes, like episodes, you know, 20-ish. I think we like, we hit our stride and we really like found a groove, uh, and just the way we riffed off each other, like that was a lot of fun to be in the room, uh, you know, just bouncing between, you know, just incredible subject matter expertise. And Steve especially, that guy's got no shortage of stories for any situation that you can come up with. Yeah. You know, and hopefully it's about the topic you're talking about at that moment. He's just, he's an absolute character and we love him. Hopefully we'll get him back on the podcast here. But, you know, just so everybody knows, he is pretty busy wearing the interim fleet manager hat again. But it's been fun watching him implement some of these pillars. That's part of that.

So got to tip your cap, right? From driver to mechanic to vice president of fleet for Coca-Cola and Republic and, yeah, right, states of Utah, Georgia, right? I mean, the guy's literally seen every aspect of fleet.

Yeah, well, in a lot of those episodes, you know, since I was listening that early as a fleet manager, that stuff helps. And, and it was landing and sticking. Yeah, for me, you know, so I'm sure other people were getting stuff out of it too. So, um, yeah, I thought they were great and they're still great. I still listen to them.

One more piece though on the intentional culture, if I could, is that, you know, the fact of the matter is, as fleet managers and as fleet professionals, we spend all of our time and all of our day and all of our energy thinking about stuff, right? It's assets. It's, it's essentially a form of asset management. And obviously people and human resources always involved, and you always get the cliché, well, I'll Number one resource is our human resource and so forth. And on the one hand, it's true, but you hear it so much, it does sort of become cliché. And so again, this approach kind of turns that into something real. How do we treat people as if they really truly are a resource? How do we make that actually the case again in a tangible way? Right. So we'll talk about resource efficiency. Well, you can't have resource efficiency when it comes to your human resource if you don't have an intentional culture. There is not— there is no one without the other, at least an optimized efficiency, right? So, you know, that's another interesting aspect to me, you know, as they come together.

So, yeah, it all layers for sure.

It's a good point. So it's funny that you're talking about that, Mark, and what comes to my mind— so there's a trucking company, right, that one of their trailers they have on it says our most valuable resources 53 feet this way with an arrow pointing towards the driver, right? So saying, hey, this is our most valuable resource, right? But if you go and you look at some of the reviews from drivers about that company, right, they're not, they're not the greatest, right? Right now, this is— now I'm not trying to disparage, right? This is many, many years ago that I looked and I saw reviews because one day I was driving down, I'm like, huh, that's like cool advertisement. Yeah, but I wonder what they actually say, the people that work there, have worked there, right? And there's good and bad, but it's one thing to advertise, it's another thing to act, right? It's, hey, what are words over actions?

Yep, exactly. And again, I think, you know, see, part of, part of the, what, you know, what you guys have in the book and what you've talked about on, on here is there's a there's an accountability aspect, right, that you hold yourself to, right? Again, you got to keep score to win.

Yeah.

So in measuring it, right, you can measure the success of your efforts and the things that you've implemented, right? And so in doing that, you're forced to see— you're forced to look in the mirror. You're forced to see, am I doing this? Am I accomplishing the goal? Are the other— are the things I'm putting in place doing what I'm hoping them to do? Right. And that's, you know, so I hear your trucking company story and it's like, clearly they're not looking in the mirror. It's purely a marketing campaign or, you know, you know, it's— they're putting lipstick on a pig, so to speak. Right.

Well, they are. So like when I started in trucking and dispatch, it was a— it was just a dispatch churning, just process. Like no one lasted more than a year, year and a half. And if they did, you're wondering what's wrong with them. Now, I lasted like 10 years, so something's wrong with me, obviously, too. But, you know, I'm not all there. But, um, I like pain and punishment, right? But the— they actually said, hey, we're just going to get a couple good years out of you, right?

And then that—

and then that— and after that, we don't care, we're just going to milk you clean, right? Right, right.

And—

but that was the attitude. That was like the intentional attitude of the company, right? And when I look back at it, that's how I broke into actually professionalism. And in any industry is like, dude, people are just like, just like, get as much as you can out of them and they don't matter.

Yeah, that's how much places are like.

But how wrong is that train of thought? But because it's not just what they said, it's all these people now, right? They have to break out of that mindset and that funk, right? And it took me years. Like, I remember, like, I'm, I'm like 12 years into like into transportation and trucking before I start to take a look back and go like Yeah, there's something wrong with this overall picture. Like, I hate myself and everybody hates me, right? And they all hate themselves and they hate their job. Like, what the hell's wrong, right? Not even realizing it's like, yeah, guess what? It's me. It's the way you were taught how to manage people, right? I mean, I'm a 21-year-old managing 60 drivers, and it's just like, you just, just milk them clean. Just get as much as you can out of them, right? It's all about making money and productivity.

Right. Well, and Mark, you said something like when we, you know, first brought you on, right? It was like you had something going on at home and so, you know, there was another circumstance, uh, and it was like, you know, you were, you're just overly concerned about your hit on productivity, right? Like, just don't worry about it, right? And I remember your response to me was like, this is strange, like I'm not used to this.

Yes.

And, and not feeling like a cow, right? Right.

It's the first time I've not been treated like a cow in a very long time.

And You know, how many times do we treat our employees like just cows on the production line, right? Like, gotta get your dairy out, and, yep, uh, you know, if it's, uh, it's not working, it's not working, right? Yeah, switch them out. Um, but I think it's, it's refreshing to hear that. But also, you know, like, we've got a long way to come as an industry to make sure that we're not treating our people like cattle on the line.

Can I tell that's a little more about that story?

Sure.

So I was, uh, starting at RTA And before I started, I had a vacation planned. And so of course, Josh was, you know, good enough to say, yeah, do your vacation. So I had worked the week, went on vacation, I think like a week and a half, 2 weeks, and came back. So it's my first real week back. And while I was on vacation, I got COVID. So I go to my first meeting and, you know, I work remote so I could attend whatever meetings. And I tell Josh I have COVID. Within 15 minutes, I've been uninvited to every other meeting I have for the rest of the week. And I literally choked up. I mean, I literally choked up. I remember feeling like, holy crap, I'm a human being again, you know? Like, this is— I just thought that was so odd. I was willing to work. I mean, it would be one thing if I was whining and complaining, oh, I'm dying, you know? And then, you know, you then do the guilt trip thing and your boss feels obligated to tell you not to come. You know, I was willing to work. I was at the meetings. I was happy to be there. He could just see—

And you were remote.

You weren't contagious.

Yeah, I wasn't contagious. Yeah, exactly. No, it wasn't for anybody but for me. It was for my sake. And you said, no, no, no. And then you said, don't go to any more meetings. And I think I said, well, I'm going to go to this one. And so you just uninvited me to everything for the rest of the week. So it was quite the experience. And like what you said, Jeff, my whole life, in every organization I've ever worked for, but also— and by the way, some of those organizations, you know, I won't mention any names, have mission statements and vision statements of, you know, and let's say histories from organizations that you would think would be of the highest level of caliber from a values perspective. But also, you know, as a consultant, one of the things I love about consulting and still do, is that you get to, you know, you get to interact with so many different kinds of organizations from every industry, from every segment, from all over, in my case, and all over North America, you know, and so you learn a lot quick, you know, it's like a crash course and this is a constant theme. Everybody feels this way pretty much everywhere. And so it's fascinating. And so my experience is, boy, you give folks a little bit more to work for than just the paycheck and you will get back so much more than you put into that, right? Like it pays for itself several fold, you know? And yeah, so, you know, it's on the one hand, it's like so obvious, it's a no-brainer. And yet why don't people do it? And I think part of it is there's this vicious cycle aspect of it, right? There are some jobs or whatever, maybe it's just because at that company the culture has been bad so long that you have this high turnover rate, right? I experienced that well at a place I stopped. So because of that high turnover rate, in my case, leadership just expected it, right?

Right.

So it was just, this is how this position is. It's, it's high turnover. If we, like you said, if we can get a couple, if we can get 3 years out of you, what a win that, that, that was, right? And so you, you start to prepare for that. And you don't want to put any time or effort into it. And I think what they're missing is something Josh and I have talked about a little bit is, you know what, even if the nature of the position is a 2, 3-year turnover position, it's still worth the intentional culture. It's still worth all the effort because you will get more out of folks while they're there. But on top of that, you will create the greatest word-of-mouth marketing you could possibly create because these folks will go on and be ambassadors for your organization and say, you know what, you know, the nature of that position was it was time for me to grow in my career and whatever else and move on. But I would do it over again and I would tell anybody who was at that stage in the career, that's the place where you need to be because you can grow, you can grow in your career, you can develop and you can have a good quality of life, etc., etc. All of the things that pretty much everybody wants from work. So to me, there's an intrinsic value that goes, you know, that's really tough to measure on top of what you can measure. You can measure the results of achieving this intentional culture, but once achieved, what is all the value that comes out of that, right? You know, again, you can measure some productivity, you can, but I think it's even bigger than that, right?

There's definitely some elements that you can't measure, right? Like your mood, right? And when you go home, how do you feel about coming into work the next day, right? When on Sunday evening and it's time to go to work on Monday, are you excited to get to go to work with the people you're working with, or you dread it, right? Right. And the rewards of an intentional culture really come like that Sunday evening feeling. Um, you know, it's like you get rid of the Monday blues and like it just you enjoy the people you work with, you enjoy the work you're doing, and you're in the right place. Yeah, you know, I like— you talked about 3 years. I mean, we have a 3-year plan for people. It's like, I do want you to leave in 3 years, but I want you to leave in 3 years because you've grown out of the position you're in and I don't have a spot for you, right? Um, because that's honestly like— that means that while you've been growing, you know, like you've been outproducing what somebody else in your position would be doing, you know, and like you're marketable and you're ready to go you know, take it to the world. And we prepared you for that, but, you know, we were reaping the benefit along the way. And then, you know, like, we leave and it's such a mutual amount of respect that we have for one another that, you know, like, hey, you've earned this and, you know, you're gonna go out and do great things and we're happy for you instead of it being an acrimonious, you know, because people leave organizations all the time and it turns acrimonious, it turns acidic. And people don't like it and they're like, oh, well, that guy is disloyal and he left. Right, you know, how dare he leave. But it's just not— I don't know, that, you know, it's just not something we do here.

Yeah.

So, um, the first job I ever quit—

that's on that note, because Jeff's got a million stories too, right? The first job I quit, I— the guy I quit to was my VP. We were tight. Like, he used to come in and visit me in California, right? We just— we were tight. We talked all the time. I told him I was leaving. I haven't spoke to him since. Yeah, not, not for lack of trying. Like, I've reached out to him several times, I've tried to talk to him several times, just wants nothing to do with me because I quit a job where he was my boss and he was pissed about it.

Well, I've got people who have quit that, that I haven't talked to, right? And some of that was like, hey, I inspired them to leave and, and they're, you know, they're holding grudge on that one, right? But yeah, definitely like that's an area that we could do better on here. Look, it was just like encouraging our alumni and things like that, but I'm curious how many of those, you know, that quit— that, you know, what's the word, like rage quit? They quit and lit the place on fire on their way out, right? We've had a couple of those.

Yeah, but if they look back on it, they're probably better off and they realize that. Oh, for sure. But the pride's in the way, right? If they've rage quit, they're just like, yeah, screw those guys, I don't give a— you know what I'm saying?

Or they go post Glassdoor reviews and tell you to run. Right.

Run, run, run. Yeah.

That's a whole nother story.

Sounds like another podcast episode. Podcast episode 102. So how do I know your culture is really working?

Yeah.

Negative Glassdoor reviews.

Well, I haven't read any, anything update, but in the 2000-teens, I want to say about '15 or '16, there was some, some stats out there. This is when the Indeed and the LinkedIn were kind of really growing and making a push to go beyond. And there was quite a bit of data out there. And the suggestion was that the number one reason people leave is not for more money, although that's the perception. That's actually number two. And the number one is because they don't like their boss.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They don't quit jobs. They quit their boss.

Right.

It's a very common, common happening.

Yeah.

And I think that's one of the things that we really try to boil down is a lot of the fleet managers, you know, like Nathan, when you went to fleet, Had you been a manager of people before you became a fleet manager?

So I got introduced to leadership in the military, so at 18. Okay.

So in the military, at least, like, they teach you that from day one is like, you know, here you're going to be a squad leader and then you're going to be a platoon leader and then, right? Like you move and it's just constant.

You're always, you're always in charge of something or somebody.

Yeah.

But you know how to actually apply it and see how you're doing. They don't really show you that.

No, no, it's just command.

This is how you do it. It's very right, wrong, indifferent, whatever.

Um, but like even your people, you know, as you think about some of your shop managers and, and the skill set they had coming into the role, you know, like were they prepared to take over your position? Did they get, you know, that kind of mentorship and leadership training?

Yeah, no, I would say no. Um, I mean, I think they got some of the same leadership training that was offered to me by the organizations.

Yeah.

But there wasn't really like a plan or a succession plan, right, that we talk about. You always want to try to set that up, right? Train up and train down so that if you do leave, somebody can take your spot. But sometimes you got to have the right people.

Yeah.

And sometimes while they're the right person to sit on that seat in the bus, they're not the right person to stand up and move to the, you know, across the aisle into the other seat or into the driver's seat. So, you know, that was a big part of Fleet. And I think Fleet lacks that, is that succession plan, you know, especially when you start seeing retirements more and more now.

Yeah.

And you see the younger guys coming in. I don't think they've been really, you know, given that training on how to step into that, that role. So it's— I think it still lacks.

Yeah. We've got a guy in the office who's, who's on our executive team and one of his big mantras, right, is he's always looking for his next replacement.

Right?

Like, always looking for it and grooming it and, you know, trying to find somebody to just take over his job. A part of that might be self-serving, is he just doesn't want to work, right?

He said it.

One of our best managers, right? And so he— but he's always looking for that, he's always grooming that, and always like, okay, how can I delegate more and give more responsibility away? And, and I had somebody tell me that once, right? Like, being a CEO is an exercise in letting go of control. And I think that's really true for any leadership position, right, is it's an exercise in letting go of control and letting other people run with something, own something, take it across the finish line, and really train your people, train your replacement, and get yourself out of a job, right? Like, find somebody to do your job better than you can and get yourself out of the weeds, get yourself out of, you know, the day-to-day, and then ultimately get yourself out of everything, right? So that when you are ready to leave, it's easy and you're not thinking like, oh shoot, like I don't have, I don't have a bench. I don't have anybody who's going to step in and take over for me when I'm ready to move on and I'm going to get stuck here, right? Or I'm going to leave and the organization's not going to be in a better place than when I got here, right? Right. Like, because it's going to get burnt down. Somebody's not going to take care of it. So I think that's one element of, of both culture, risk management, um, you know, stakeholder satisfaction that You know, Paul Lorie has been talking about brain drain for years, and that's, you know, a major element of that.

Yeah, folks weren't listening. It's interesting because, um, you know, there were several studies, um, that suggested— and the one I'm thinking of, I'm trying to remember the name of the firm, so forgive me, one, it's a two-name firm, second name is Wyman, W-Y-M-M-A-N-N, I think. And they did a study in 2018 that suggested that by 2023, the demand for, you know, heavy and diesel mechanics and auto mechanics in general would outpace the supply of them because based on the pace of folks entering the industry. And then COVID happened. And so we're pretty sure, you know, we, we outbeat that, you know, we beat that. And so, you know, see how that impacts things. You know, there are certainly several parts of this country where qualified diesel or heavy mechanics are hard to come by, making 6 figures before overtime, right? You know, that sort of a thing. So it's interesting how that, you know, that plays out. But, you know, you said something a second ago about the bench, and, you know, a lesson I learned the hard way, I think, is— and you have to be somewhat of a selfless person to think that way. I think at least there's got to be a little bit of you, because Who benefits from you thinking that way is the organization you're going to leave, right? Or you're going to be letting go of, right? And so, you know, one of the mistakes I made earlier in my career quite unintentionally is I did a really good job of developing a bench and then I hung around too long and the bench left before I did. And so by the time I was ready to leave, the bench was, you know, there was some bench there, but it wasn't quite ready. And so, you know, take with that what you will, but there, you know, I think my superiors failed to recognize that they needed to be tapping me on the tush to say, "Get out. Now's the time to get out." And I also think for the sake of that organization, in hindsight, I should have probably have left a little sooner, you know, so that they didn't lose that, that talent to really, frankly, some of our competitors, right? Yeah, because they were there, they were ready, they were capable of it. And I was, uh, you know, I wasn't, I guess, for whatever reason, ready to leave. So that's a— that's another thought, you know, people—

and even recognizing too, like, their career aspirations and whether or not you were holding them back, right? Or, you know, like, if you had 3 people all jonesing for the same position, obviously that won't work. But if you knew that somebody was, you know, they'd really like to be in your position in 2 years and You're like, okay, we can make that work. And here you are, and the clock has now started, and you're at 2 years and 6 months, right? Like, you know that their expiration date's quickly approaching or it's passed, right? And like, their best-by date's about to go.

Yeah.

So you gotta move on it or you're gonna lose them to something else, right? And it's, uh, it's really good to have that kind of communication and planning ahead of time, right? So that you can think about that stuff and think, is it time for me to go? And when is it? How do I know?

I think one of the challenges, I'm listening to you speak, Nate, and, you know, one of the challenges specific, I think, to the fleet and probably every industry will feel this way somewhat about themselves, but there is a nicheness to what we do, right? In other words, the specific set of expertise for a fleet manager, or at least maybe the combination of expertise for a fleet manager, you know, on top of the, the in general lack of resources. And I understand there's great certification programs out there, but it's not like, you know, uh, marketing, you know, marketing management or financial management where there's literally thousands of, uh, you know, degree programs, MBA programs, and, you know, that kind of thing to help you learn that. That doesn't really exist in our world. And so you're trying to find someone who has the skills and the prerequisite skills and the prerequisite experience and know-how But then to Josh's point, you're also trying to groom them and teach them how to be a leader. Right. And there just aren't the programs for that. I don't think there's a tremendous gap in our industry in the space.

Right.

And so you're kind of doing that on the fly or as you go or experientially.

So, yeah. And I think that goes back to some of what Josh was saying, too, about supporting your people with what their goals are, even if it's not in the fleet industry. Because you flush that out early, right? And talking to some of the guys in our fleet shop, it was like, well, I kind of want to be a truck driver or whatever, you know? And it's like, okay, well, how can we support you in doing that? And when I would do that with some of these people, they were just like completely dumbfounded that I would help them do something outside of in the shop.

Right.

And it's like, well, you're not— if your heart's not here, you're not any good to me.

No.

You know what I mean? So I'd rather support you, do what you want to do so I can bring somebody in and support them that wants to be here. And that's, that's hard for some people to do because it's resources. They don't want to give up the resources.

Well, I think that's going to do it for our episode today. This has been awesome. It's 100 episodes in.

Wait, we still got 3 more pillars to talk about.

One double O, right? Well, at some point we got to go to bed tonight.

It's a big day tomorrow.

This has been probably one of our longest episodes too. That we've done a long time, but conversation's been great. And so, you know, thank you guys for coming on, being, you know, guest speakers with us today. Looking forward to the next 2 days. Going to be awesome here at Summit. I can already tell, you know, like just, you know, we got a lot more people coming this year, second year in. The response has been overwhelming. It's been great. You know, so I'm looking forward to this. This is going to be, you know, like we talk about getting the resources in. We've got people come in that have— it's going to be the first time seeing some of this stuff. And we've been doing this at, you know, like at Connect, we, you know, started off with some of the Lencioni material and Jocko and Leif doing some extreme ownership. And now I'd like to see this really kind of get implemented and come full circle. This is, you know, this is what it's all about right here. We don't make any money on this show. It's just like a service project for the fleet industry, I feel like. But, you know, it's definitely a passion project. So we're excited to keep carrying the message forward. But thank you guys for being on, and until next time.

See ya.

Thanks for having me.

Yep, thanks.

Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Fleet Success Show. If you like the show, we'd appreciate your 5-star review. Be sure to subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts and come hang out with us on social media at Fleet Success. See you next time.