Episode 171: “I’m a Fleet Manager, Now What?” Bridging the Knowledge Gap in Modern Fleet Leadership

This is the Fleet Success Show dedicated to helping you and your fleet succeed using the experience of fleet professionals and Hall of Fame fleet legends. The show that explores how the pillars of stakeholder satisfaction, intentional culture, resource efficiency, and risk management all combine to lead your fleet to success. We're glad you're here. Now let's get into the show. Hey, welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show with your hosts, Josh Turley, Tony Yagovic, Hey, so we don't get you in studio very often. We've got Spirit Week coming up this week, so it's been awesome. We've had all of our consultants coming in from abroad. We had a meeting the other day where all of us, our FMA, our Fleet Success Ambassadors, everybody was in a room together. And I think there was probably 13 or 14 people in this meeting. And the question came up is like, man, could you imagine putting all these brains on a fleet? Just what would happen? Like, that fleet wouldn't know what hit it. It was really cool to be a part of that, but glad to have you in office today.

Well, thank you. It's great to be back. It's been a while since I've been in the Glendale office, so it's nice to be here. It's great seeing all the people I haven't seen in a while. And like you said, just having everybody in the same building together has been awesome.

So for our listeners who, you know, it's first time hearing about you, a quick, brief little introduction about, you know, who you are and what you've done in fleet.

Okay. Well, I've been in fleet for about 35 years. Fell into it. It was one of those other jobs, uh, duties as assigned. Uh, so I didn't grow up wanting to be a fleet manager. My first job was with the city of Kansas City, Kansas, and I was an engineering technician at the time, and we needed someone to come in and do fleet replacement planning. And so that was my first exposure to fleet management, and my roles and responsibilities just grew from there. So I did that for about 12 years with the city Um, and then moved over to do what I call the dark side, the consulting side. So I've been a full-time fleet management consulting, uh, consultant for, my gosh, the last 24, almost 25 years now. Um, during that time I've probably worked with 400 and 450 different clients across North America.

And that's pretty awesome. I think when we talk about the power of consulting, it's that, right? Just the exposure to a number of different ways. And you've seen a lot of ways that it goes wrong. In a lot of ways that it goes right, that, you know, somebody who's been a fleet manager for 20 years, the same 24 years that you've been in consulting, they've worked with one fleet, right? And so they only know one way to do it wrong and one way to do it right, you know. And so it's the breadth of experience you bring to somebody just as, you know, hey, I'm here to give you some advice and coach you on things that you could be doing better because I've seen it done 500 other places, right?

I like to tell people we're not any smarter than anybody else, but we have been exposed to so many different great fleet operations and great fleet people over the last, you know, 2 and a half decades that, you know, we take the best of what they're doing to the next client.

Yeah, and it's really nice to be able to share that, you know, kind of share it around, as you know, you're just getting exposed to— it's like cross-pollination. Yeah, but you're, you know, like, you are the bumblebee, you've got all the pollen, right? So, um, we wanted to talk about today was one of the things we're seeing a lot of with our clients, and I think this is pretty true for the industry. You hit on a little bit, which is like you kind of stumbled into fleet. Fleet was not your first career choice, and I would say that 99% of our listeners are in that same boat. Um, but what do you do? You know, you're brand new to this role and perhaps, you know, you came in from the shop floor. We're actually seeing less of that now. We're seeing a lot of people come in from finance or accounting, uh, even IT, which is kind of a weird pivot. Um, but they're coming in with, you know, maybe not some of the experience, or at least they've got half of the experience of working with a fleet. Uh, it's possible their boss has never worked with a fleet before. You know, maybe they're reporting to a director of public works who came up from utilities. Uh, so how are they, you know, how do they go in? Like, you know, you're new to fleet management, now what? Right.

And I think that's a great question, Josh. And we talk about this a lot because, you know, the first 15 years that I've been doing this, you know, the traditional career path was you're, you're a technician, you're on the shop floor turning wrenches, you do a good job there, you're rewarded by being, you know, promoted to lead technician, and you're doing that job, you do that job well, then a fleet supervisor position comes open, so you're promoted to the shop supervisor. and now you have a little bit more responsibility, but essentially you're still doing the same type of stuff. You know, you're, you're, you're dealing with vehicles, you're dealing with problems, you're making sure that vehicles get out the door. Um, and so that, that part of the career path has been the traditional approach. And then at some point you do a great job as a fleet supervisor, your fleet manager retires, you're the next one in line, so you get the first opportunity to go become a fleet manager. And again, you still have the technical expertise to do do the job. But what you now— you lack is all the management skills. You really lack the skills that are associated with running the fleet, the strategic vision behind the fleet. There's so many different things that you don't have that I think one of the things that we can bring to our clients is some direction of how to become a manager, not just a fleet manager, but a manager. And then— and you mentioned it now more and more— and in fact, I just did a project last year with a very large fleet, and their fleet manager had no experience in fleet. He worked for a large corporation in IT. Um, yeah, and so he was a great manager. They brought him into the, the city. He worked for a different department for a while and then said, you know what, our fleet manager retired. We really need someone who can manage this operation. So we want someone to manage the resources, the assets, the, the people. And so they moved him over because he was a great manager somewhere else. And he was, he was a great manager, but he lacked the technical expertise. So what we're seeing is, is there's really a knowledge gap Either pathway, those people still have a gap. And so what we're trying to do is advise fleet managers now, wherever the path they took to get there, is what they need to fill that gap and become better managers.

So as you think about it, because it, it almost seems like both of these candidates, the direction they took, the gap they have is the opposite of the other person, right? So like an IT guy coming in, the gap they have is like, I've never worked with vehicles. I don't know the difference. I remember Mark sharing a story that he was working with a fleet manager who had not been from fleet, didn't come up from the shop floor. And they kept telling him, you know, that, hey, yeah, that Camry, like, those air brakes on the Camry are going to be fixed soon. And the guy's like, okay, you know, like, but they keep asking me when it's going to be done. He's like, we're waiting on an airline, you know. And Mark's just sitting there like, these guys are totally fleecing this guy. Like, he has no idea that a Camry doesn't have air brakes. And so like, that lack of exposure from a maintenance side. But then, you know, as you mentioned, the management experience this guy had IT management experience. But so we have almost these two different gaps that we have to solve for. Um, let's talk about the, the first one, which is the more traditional path, right? Shop technician becomes a lead, becomes maybe a fleet supervisor, and then becomes like the fleet manager. When we look at the gap that they have in management, I think there's two that you called out, and I want to make sure that people understand the subtle difference here because there's the people management aspect And I don't know the level of training that they're getting. Likely it's little. That's one of our big fortes that we really preach is leadership. But then you also talked about like the management of the resources. So how are we— let's talk about those two things first. How do we solve for the leadership gap? And then how do we solve for the management gap?

Well, I think there's a couple of different ways. I think some of the most more obvious approaches, at least for people that are in the fleet industry and that have come from that direction, are things like the CA-FM program that's offered through NAFA. APWA has a public fleet supervisor program that, that has a certification to it. A lot of the different organizations out there do have either certification programs or training programs, and they're very specific to fleet. So I think that's important that people like that have that opportunity to expand their knowledge base from more than just the technical expertise on the shop floor. Now they're learning more about some of the higher level, um, type things in fleet management. So those, those courses offer a lot of good information for them.

Specifically, I'm thinking things that I've seen in those courses, right? How do you do VU and staffing analysis? This is stuff that I would never would have had to do as a, you know, as a fleet technician or as a lead. You know, I'm doing service writing and things like that. I understand scheduling technician hours, but how many techs do I actually need? Going through and doing that. I know CAFM talks a lot about, you know, replacement planning. That's a huge part of a fleet manager's job. And so when I think about the management of it, it's— it is those skills and like the pencil-paper type stuff where they've got to do the math and do the work and plan resource allocation. And so I think CAFM, CPFP, those are great resources for people that want to learn because it just covers the whole gamut. I mean, the asset information test alone, if you just want to do one certification, that's probably a great place to start is the asset management certification. Um, and then you have like the Fleet Information Management one from— as part of the CAFM, which would be good learning how to use your, your data. Um, I'm trying to think some of the others, like the fuel management would be new, you know, for a technician that's like, hey, I'm used to just this one aspect of my job. Um, the maintenance probably is the easiest one because you've done that all right.

Exactly.

Oh, you could probably walk right out, take the test, and walk back out. Um, but I'd say like those are probably the 3 that I would look at first, you know, is the asset management, maybe a little bit of the business. Um, that one has, you know, probably a little bit less on that side. Finance, actually, that's probably a great one, is the financial module in CA-FM.

Absolutely. Especially if you're an internal service provider where you're providing, you know, your goods and operations and services to other internal customers or even external customers, you know, identifying the true cost of your organization. You know, as a fleet technician, you really don't care what your labor rate is. As a supervisor, you start thinking about it a little bit. But as a fleet manager, not only do you need to make sure that you have accurate chargeback rates, fully burdened labor rate, you need to understand how to calculate those. So you need to understand the principles of cost accounting. You need to understand the principles of activity-based costing. And so those are things that as a typical shop supervisor or technician, you're not even exposed to, really. And so those type of things, uh, you're going to have to learn. There's one of the things that we've been preaching forever in the fleet industry is that as a fleet manager, you're— you touch more business disciplines than just about any other manager in an organization. You have to, like you mentioned, you have to understand finance, you have to understand accounting, you have to understand activity-based costing. Then we get to the whole other side of it. You know, you have to start understanding how to manage people. You have to understand change management because, you know, fleets are evolving now quicker than they've ever evolved in my 25, 35 years in the industry. And so you have to understand how to manage that change. So there's so much to learn. And, and the problem with it is, you know, even 10 years ago you could kind of get by because you knew your stuff. But now with all the data-informed decision-making that is required, you know, you can't just say, hey, you know, I've been doing this for 25 years, so you trust me. Now you have demonstrate your, you know, your, your analytical, uh, finesse with numbers. You have to back up your recommendations and action items with, um, solid information.

That's a really solid point because you don't have to know how to speak other people's language, right? But now all of a sudden you're a fleet manager and you have to understand the love language of your finance team, of your IT team, of your city council. And guess what their love language is? It's numbers, it's data. So your superpower now becomes, how do I tell my story with data to back it up? I'm thinking back to when I first kind of stepped into my CEO role, even before then, because I was, I was going to school before this. But, um, I'm even wondering if just going and getting, you know, going to night classes and getting your associates in business, I'm like, the basics, you know, everything you just hit on. We, as part of my associates, we went through and did There was a legal and ethical class. There was two accounting classes, a finance class. There was, um, I want to say there's a general computer class or something like that, but there's just some like general business basics that I think were really critical. There's a lot of fluff, like you don't have to do all the electives, you could skip that, but I'm just like, here locally, going to Glendale Community College, um, would be an awesome resource, you know, and it's twice a night you do, or two nights a week. Do that for 2 years, you know, and, and where you end up at the end of 2 years— obviously it's a long time, so you got to have the patience for this. Or if you know you want to get into fleet management, that'd be a great way to start. Um, but I think back on those lessons, like, I still use some of those things that I learned, you know, getting my undergrad, you know.

Well, and think about the shop supervisor. When was the last time a shop supervisor either wrote a report or developed a PowerPoint presentation or even had to communicate with other people outside of the customers and the technicians? I mean, as a fleet manager, you're communicating with department heads and executive teams.

Oh, that's another— that was a total— yes, Communications 101, right?

Exactly.

Public speaking. That's a terrific— if you want to go just take a class, take a class on public speaking. Um, oh, I just did it. I'm actually really conscious of myself when I say the word "um," and I, I've actually been paying attention to this more and more often. But I remember when I was in— going through undergrad again, they would record us just like we do on this podcast, actually. And they would record us giving us presentation or giving a speech, and we'd have to back to it and we would realize, oh wow, I use a lot of filler words or I'm speaking really fast and I need to enunciate. Your ability to tell your story is, you know, most of what your power comes from isn't what you're telling. It's not the words you're using. It's not the PowerPoint deck. It's your ability to articulate the thought clearly, succinctly, so that people understand what you're saying.

You're right. I have an issue where I get so passionate and so excited talking about Fleet that I start talking very quick. Very fast. And so what I have to do is sit back and, and say, okay, the people that I'm talking to oftentimes are not the fleet professionals. It's people outside of fleet that I need to knock it down a notch, talk to them like they don't know anything about fleet because they don't know a lot about fleet, and really be— learn how to not only educate them but to communicate with them in a way that they're going to understand.

Yeah, and to slow it down. It's crazy when you get really self-aware of your speaking styles. Like, oh yeah, that's right, I need to slow down, enunciate. We tell my kids this all the time. You're mumbling, right? And you're talking too fast. Say that again but slower, right? Big mouth. You know, that's another thing we use all the time. So the management piece, you know, go through— CAFM is a terrific resource. And the nice thing about that is you don't have to wait 2 years to get that. Uh, it is very tailored for fleet, which is really nice, is you don't have to go through, you know, 2 years of associate's where you're learning things about like world religions and chemistry. It's very relevant to your actual job. CPFP, if you're in public fleet, um, we talk about just, you know, obviously you can go just do like a one-off course at the community college. On the leadership side, you know, so now we talk about the other side of the house, which is not the pencil and the math and the analytics and being able, you know, the business management because we often say is that you manage resources and you lead people, right? But the people leadership aspect is one that I've seen a lot of fleets neglect because they don't realize how important it is, or they're neglected themselves. I'm not going to— I'm going to rephrase that. Maybe they don't neglect it, but they are neglected. Um, and so the leadership piece of it, you've got a brand new person who's like, I'm the boss now, uh, you know, and how do they handle that new power, that new responsibility? Where— what are the resources they could use to develop their ability to execute through people.

Well, I think, you know, Josh, RTA and you've actually developed the concept of intentional culture. This is, this is a concept that is so unique and so new to most fleet professionals that the first time you talk about it, you see people sit up in their chairs. You know, it's something that, oh wait, we've never thought of that. We've never realized the importance of— it's not just treating people right, it's, it's the way you do it, the intentional part of culture. And it's so important to do and understand why and the value of doing that.

I'd say half the people sit up in their chairs. There's the other half who are still not quite there yet, and they kind of roll their eyes, right? They sit back, they're like, oh my gosh, you know, this would never work in my fleet. Um, and I would just tell you is try it, right? You know, one of my favorite things to say to people is there's no excuse. If you're a new leader and you've never been trained on how to be a leader, you're the only thing holding you back. Because there are so many resources, there's so many books, there's so many YouTube videos, there's so many online webinars that you could sign up for for free. Uh, you could invest in your own education and be like, you know what, I really want to go to this leadership conference, it's local, cost me $500, and you never know, like, it might change your life. Uh, I know I had that with me as, you know, I was part of Dave Ramsey's thing. I went out there to EntreLeadership, and that was not a cheap conference, so don't start there, but there was probably $5 grand, and I came back from that completely changed. I think about like, that was a, you know, when I talk about the trajectory of RTA, That was a pivotal moment in our history and our trajectory because that's where I got introduced to Patrick Lencioni. Let's try to say that name 5 times fast. Um, and from there, it's just like this whole movement started because of that one conference that I went to. So that $5,000, you know, generated millions of dollars in revenue because of that one decision I made to invest in myself. And so as you, as a leader, I often will challenge you is there's no excuse there's plenty of resources that are free, cheap. You know, get yourself an Audible subscription, right? $240 and you get, I think, 12 or 24 credits a year. That's a lot of books.

Because no one goes to school for fleet management, chances are you were never formally trained on how to successfully lead a fleet. That's where the Fleet Success Playbook comes in. The Fleet Success Playbook is your guide to building a safe, reliable, and efficient fleet. That provides exceptional service. Learn all about the 4 pillars of fleet success: stakeholder satisfaction, intentional culture, resource efficiency, and risk management. Get nearly 100 years of combined advice on common challenges, practical solutions, actionable tips, and real examples from fleet industry experts who have been there and done that. Visit www.fleet- meetsuccessplaybook.com to request your free copy today.

Well, look behind you, Josh. I mean, you have a bookcase full of great leadership books. Those are not expensive. It doesn't take a lot of effort to get a book and read it, you know, on your lunch hour when you're sitting on the picnic table, you know, eating lunch. So there are so many resources out there that people just need to put forth a little effort. And I think the other thing that is important to understand is the fleet community is very, very, very good about sharing information. And if you are not taking advantage of, you know, obviously the big national conferences and trade shows are awesome places to go and learn about new things in the industry and trends in the industry and getting specific educational sessions on staffing or cost chargeback systems. But, but really, it's a great way to network. And what I always tell people, if you're not taking advantage of your regional NAFA, uh, or regional APWA, or your regional, um, FleetCon programs, you're missing out because there's a great wealth of information. And then reach out to your peers. You know, they've gone through the same struggles that you've been through, and no one within the fleet community I've ever met is, is hesitant about sharing their information and their, their experiences.

No, because they've all been there, right? They were all there, and they all knew that like my mentors were the people who helped me get to where I am, and I now get to return the favor. So they love seeing new faces, new blood coming in that's like, hey, I'm all doe-eyed and I don't know what to do next. And I will say that's the one thing I love about this industry is just how willing everybody is to help one another anytime they have a problem. Oh yeah, well, let me show you how I did this and why I did this decision this way. And you're not going to agree with them every time. You don't have to. But the— what you try to take something from each one of those conversations, right? Some little learning, some tip, because there's some mistake they made that you can learn from and not repeat. And any, anytime you cannot repeat a mistake is a lesson, it's like a free lesson. I call that bonus lessons. So yeah, so definitely invest in yourself, invest in your network. You know, Tony, you mentioned some great ones like the local networking groups. Um, if they're not as active as you want them to be, then start it up. You know, I guarantee you there's people around you that want to meet. Go out for coffee, do something. Um, but there's a lot of associations that you could be a part of, and they all have their local representation. Start there. If you can't make it to the big ones, start with the little ones. Exactly. Call up the neighboring fleet. You know, you're, uh, if you're at a private fleet, look around and just see who else has a fleet. And I want to go find that person. Maybe they're on LinkedIn. That's a great networking resource. If you're in public fleets, just look at your neighboring cities and find out who their fleet manager is and just call them up. They'll be more than happy to talk to you. Trust me, they're talking to vendors all day. They don't want to talk to them, they want to talk to you. So don't be shy, you know, just reach out and put your name out there, you know.

And there's so many other resources that you can, you can go to, you know. We talk about, for the non-fleet professional, um, you know, understanding the language. You talk, you, you know, you shared that story about Mark where, you know, the technicians kind of pull one over on you on occasion. And, you know, usually it's not malicious, it's just because we can, you know. Um, but it's, uh, there's a great opportunity to learn the language of the industry through. And it's not hard. I mean, take the VMRS test, you know, you learn about the VMRS codes and learn how they're used, learn what they mean, learn why you want to use them. Because then when you start wanting to run reports and look at performance, you can actually use the VMRS code. So there are easy ways to learn the language of the industry. There's easy ways to learn more of the technical part of a fleet, you know, even for the non-fleet professionals.

Yeah. And I would say don't be afraid to ask. You know, if you don't know what something is, show it. You know, you can't— one of the things I really worry about when fleet managers come in and they just try to run the fleet with a spreadsheet, and I mean that two ways. The one way I mean it right now, though, is when they just try to come in and make the numbers all work, but you don't actually get out on the floor and see the work happening. You have to— you know, we call it management by walking around for a reason, is you have to walk around and you have to feel the floor. You have to see what's going on. And I would love just, if I'm brand new, maybe I'm an IT guy coming into fleet, I would love just shadowing a technician. Show me what you're doing. Like, I am like, teach me a little bit here. I don't want you to teach me how to turn wrenches and all that stuff. I'm not trying to take your job, but, um, just inform me, help me know what I'm looking at. Why are you doing that? And it's going to be really annoying, but I will tell you the investment that they make in you is going to help you become a better leader for them. And hopefully they'll see that and make that connection, right?

One of the things that we always do on a general fleet assessment is we'll go in and we talk to the technicians, we talk to the lead techs, we talk to the supervisors, that we talk to the parts crew. And the one of the first questions we ask is, how often is the fleet manager on the floor? How often do you see the guy that's running this place or the lady that's running this place? You know, and it's like, oh, you know, well, once a month. It's like, how often is that person on the shop floor walking the shop floor? Are you having daily meetings at the beginning of the shift? Those type of things. So that's something that we feel is very important, then, that communication. And then we do a lot of facility assessments as well when it comes to shop maintenance facilities, and we look for primary adjacencies. So the primary adjacency means how closely located is that space for the fleet manager's office to the shop floor and the people that, that he's in or she's in charge of, of managing. And if they're in the ivory tower down, you know, 3 miles away at City Hall, you're not gonna be totally disconnected, right?

Yeah.

And you really want that fleet manager to have a view of the shop. I mean, that's what we call a primary adjacency, is we want that shop, uh, or the fleet manager's office adjacent to the shop where, you know, look out the window and see what's going on. And not, not to play Big Brother, but just to understand what's going on.

Yeah, I would— we kind of joke in an office setting, you know, it's really awesome when you walk in, you see all the leaders and the CEO, like, they're in cubes. Um, you know, like they're out on the floor, they're paying attention, they're listening, but they're not trying to— like, they're not hall monitoring. I think there's a big difference when we talk about leadership, right? Is, is your coach not a hall monitor? Um, but if you're out there and you're on the field like a coach would be, and you're listening and you're watching the plays being run, and like I said, if you just don't understand something that's happening, this guy's like, hey, this airline's still not working, can you show me? Like, I actually have never seen an airline in a camp, right? Can you show me that? Watch their eyes like, uh, Sure, uh, you know, and then they like dangle the break. This is the airline, you know, you know, if they want to keep it going, I guess. But the idea would be go out there and just look, right? Show me, right?

And think of how much more approachable your leaders are when they're outside of their office, you know. And you mentioned it, Josh, and really you're talking about RTA when you talk about the executive team in cubicles on the floor. I mean, I, you know, I've been here all week and I've walked by the executive team members 100 times this week. And, you know, it's, it's very easy just to stop and say, hey, I've got to have a quick question, or just to touch base with them. Now, if you're sitting in an office, the door's shut, I'll probably just gonna walk on by. But when you're, when you're out in the open, I, I don't feel bad about asking questions, especially when you're cutting the tri-tip barbecue this morning.

I'm gonna stop and ask you a question and get a little sample, right? Like, can I, can I borrow that? Right. Well, and I think too, we strategically put our executive team right in the center of the building. So they are really in the middle of it all. And now we do something different. So we don't do the adjacency thing because we have a concept about team number one and we brought them together to be adjacent to team number one. So they aren't treating their respective silos as team number one, which, you know, so that's intentional. But it does force us to like, hey, we're in the middle of it all the time and we constantly— we're here in the sales team, we're hearing the CS team, we're hearing the engineers, and we can see when things are like, well, what's going on over here, right? We've got dashboards up everywhere. And so we, we're not looking at it from behind a computer screen, we're looking at it from the floor. And I think fleet managers, you know, we need to make sure we're having that skill set too. And if you're coming from IT or finance, it's very different, uh, you know, because it has this living, breathing, mechanical, hands-on element that you have to really understand.

Absolutely, without a doubt.

What are other resources? Let's say you're coming from IT or finance, fleet's brand new to you. CAFM is probably a really easy way to start. So that's definitely on both sides, I think it's good. Some other things that would help a non-fleet fleet person become fleetified?

You know, one of the things that I like to look for, non-traditional resources to learn, because like NFPA, National Fire Protection Agency.

Yeah.

You know, they're responsible for cogeneration and building codes and fire codes and all that. But they have some certifications for electric vehicles. They have certifications out there for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And they're not that, you know, 6-month, uh, $5,000 training courses. They're, you know, $50, $150, and, you know, it might be 16, 24 hours worth of training that you go through, and you can be certified in, in specific focused areas. And so those are great resources. So you don't have to limit it to just, you know, the fleet industry resources. Yeah.

And I'd say that's especially with EV coming on Interestingly enough, the NFPA has had a lot of really good stuff to share and be a part of that discussion. Just from a safety standpoint, you know, there's OSHA regulations that come into that too. So your ability to kind of look outside the industry is really helpful.

Well, and, you know, we mentioned the NFPA, and one of the things that I found very interesting is because of them, you know, OEMs are required now to develop first responder response packages or sheets, essentially. To identify the best way to put out, for instance, an electric vehicle fire. And so that information is awesome. I mean, that is very specific and it tells you what to do, what to expect, and how to address these issues. And no, as a fleet manager, you're not going to be putting out an electric vehicle fire, but you need to understand, you know, what could happen.

Yeah. If I have one last plug for a non-fleet person or even a new fleet manager, you came up from the shop, Uh, obviously you're listening to the podcast, so that's a great first step. Welcome to the show, right? Uh, the last one would be the Fleet Success Playbook.

Absolutely.

Start with that. That's a great read, you know, and I say that as a biased author of that, you know, co-author of that book with Steve. But, you know, go start there. That's a great resource. We try to condense all of our knowledge into that book. It gives you a great foundation. And Mark and I are talking about, all right, what do we need to do for volume 2? So But start with Volume 1. You know, there's a lot of great tidbits in there and plays. So I think that's the big piece, is like actual tactical plays that you can go execute instead of just theory, right? Because it's stuff we've done and we've executed, and we, we tell you like, hey, this is how to do it wrong, here's how to do it right. But that's a great resource for brand new fleet managers.

It is. And you know, I mentioned the, the bookshelf behind you and all the leadership books. There's not a ton of fleet books out there.

That's why you wrote it, right?

Exactly. So there's— I mean, I could probably count them on one hand, the number of, of good fleet textbooks, resource books that are out there.

Yeah, I think Joel Levitt has a nice one, Fleet Maintenance Basics for Fleet Maintenance or something like that. I don't even know if you can buy it anymore or if you just go to his website or something. But yeah, there's not a lot. Even our— I'll say some of the other ones that we've seen from other people in the industry, I won't name any names, um, that, you know, but they end up becoming more of like pamphlets. And so they're very light, superficial. You can tell they were written by a marketing person and not by a fleet professional. Um, there might be good interviews and good little stories, but it's like a magazine and not a book.

Well, and when you read it, you, you really understand what they're trying to do is sell their own services or their own products. Yeah.

And we tried to avoid that completely in our playbook. You know, something that Steve and I, as we talked through, was like, nope, this is just going to be— this would be our gift to ourselves 20 years ago, you know, or in Steve's case, 40 years ago when he first started. You know, it was— it would be really nice to have something like this when in the beginning of our career and our journey. So, all right, well, any last tidbits as you think about those new up-and-comers? You know, we've got— we talk about the brain drain a lot in fleet, and one of the ways to try to combat that is recognizing these— this new generation of fleet managers coming into the industry.

Well, you know, I think succession planning is huge. You know, if you do identify a lead tech, a fleet supervisor, get them in, in leadership training, get them in management training early. Let them start learning before they become that fleet manager. In the same way, if you know you're going to have a vacancy in management and you know there's no one in the shop that wants the position or is ready for the position, start looking at people who might have that technical expertise or something that, that would be a good fit.

I will echo that as a, you know, I'm a third generation family business owner. We sucked at the succession planning, right? Like, I'll call that succession planning, not succession planning. And it was, you know, it was rocky. And it would have been a lot smoother if we'd been proactive about it and thinking about, okay, what are the things I need to learn so that I'm ready for the moment when it comes, instead of, you know, grinding my teeth on all of our poor people throughout, you know, those, those early years of the Josh CEO era. And your managers deserve the same thing. You know, you don't want to throw somebody in there that's totally green when you had an opportunity to coach them. I'm going to leave with this lesson because I think this is a perfect, you know, just cherry on top. We talk about the 5 levels of leadership, and the last level of leadership is, you know, it's your legacy, right? It's your replication. How well do you do replicating yourself as a leader? And that is your legacy. So for your ability to reproduce yourself, to coach that next generation, really cements your legacy as a fleet leader and as a fleet manager. And so you might be a great fleet manager, but unless you've trained up your successor, you haven't done it yet. Like, that's the one last— that's like the last part of your job. And even if you train up that guy and he leaves, then you train up the next one. You know, that becomes your legacy. Football, we talk about a coaching tree, um, and all the people that used to work for like Gus Malzahn when he was at Auburn, and all the people that worked for him, and, uh, Nick Saban and his coaching tree. And it's fascinating to see that. But we— why do we do that? Is because that's the true mark of a really great leader, is how many leaders did they produce. So that'd be my last challenge for any of you who are not new to fleet management, uh, prepare that next generation so we don't have, you know, some of the challenges that they're going to go through.

I agree 100%. All right.

Well, that's going to do it for us today. Thanks, Tony, for being in the office and in studio with us. We love having you here. And for all of our listeners, you guys have any questions, shoot them over to us, podcast@rtafleet.com. We'd love to hear from you. Go check out the Fleet Success Playbook. You can grab your copy, fleetsuccessplaybook.com. Just fill out the form and we'll ship one out to you right away, free of charge. It's way worth the paper it's printed on. But yeah, we'd love to hear from you and hope to see you in the next episode. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on LinkedIn, or leave a review. Want to learn more about our fleet management software Fleet 360? Check us out at rtafleet.com. If you want to learn more about having your fleet evaluated by our consulting team, go to fleetconsulting.com.