I have had the opportunity lately to have a lot of discussions with other people that work in the Transportation / Distribution space. What has been really interesting for me has been the gaps in understanding each other's perspective or approaches. Often times people think that just because you work in the same or similar space, you will 'get it'. The unfortunate thing however is that we have created such a culture / society where we are afraid or discourage people to learn. If we are doing business, people don't want to ask questions because they fear that it might make them look less professional ... how can I sell you my service, if you know more or have more experience than me? I love having the opportunity to share my perspective and what I (big emphasis there) have learned. I don't come into those conversations thinking that my answer is the best, or that I am better than you because I somehow 'know' the answer. For most of what we

Have you every really thought about how, or why you ask questions? That might seem like a strange question in itself, but think about it. Do you ask your questions to truly learn and understand or are you asking questions to better or modify your response? It is incredible to me how quickly we jump to solutions. How we hear something, or we take someone's point of view and can very quickly fall into the trap of "thinking we understand". It's not easy to sit back, and try to stay curious. Especially if you are feeling frustrated, rushed, annoyed or some other distracting emotion. One of the best things anyone can do is to actually slow down. Ask yourself, is this a good time for me to engage in this exchange, do I need to work harder to compensate for my feelings, how can I detach from my own thoughts and simply listen to the other person. Next time you are having a conversation, see how hard it is for you to resist the urge to 'add' to the

I posted a video this morning on LinkedIn that was focused on credibility and how important that is for a leader. Credibility is that ability for others to trust and believe in you, and what you say you will do. How does that play with creating a culture? True culture is a tribe. It is a group of people that know each other, trust each other, work for each other ... they feel safe together. A lot of people seem to think that just by joining an organization, by putting a company logo on our shirt and caring you laptop from meeting to meeting that it creates a bond among the employees; maybe, but usually not. We are human, whether in our professional or personal lives, there are just certain things we need. People need to feel safe. We are social animals who learned and developed understanding that our ability to survive, to succeed dramatically increased when we work with others not only for own benefit, but for theirs as well. As we have become so competitive a

Adaptability is a big buzzword right now. Makes sense, the CoronaVirus has up-ended the status quo and everyone needs to be able to adjust to their new conditions. If everyone values the ability to pivot and adapt, why then are we seeing such inertia? The answer? Adaptability is more of a mindset and approach versus systems and tools. I was out running this morning. I have been back and forth with runs, cycling and rucking , overall I am pleased with some of my progress and less so with others. For this week I wanted to start a new program: 5km run on Monday, 10km ruck on Tuesday and a 20km cycle on Wednesday (rinse and repeat for R, F, Sa - day off Sunday). I knew the route I had been using for my runs up until this point was just shy of 4km, so to keep it one continuous flow, I changed the route to what was closer to a solid 5km loop. The run started fine (the first few minutes always make you think it will be easy all the way!). As you get out of that first phase a

Do you think that complicated and complex mean the same thing? It's probably a bit of an unfair question, considering the dictionary basically tells you they are! Complicated: Composed of elaborately interconnected parts; complex Complex: Characterized by a very complicated or involved arrangement of parts, units, etc. This idea however, that these two things mean the same, is one of the biggest challenges we face in the business world today. Why? Because it allows business leaders to use the wrong type of approach to 'solve' the type of problem identified (assuming of course that they have correctly identified the problem). Rick Nason, an associate professor of finance at Dalhousie University’s Rowe School of Business, explains the differences between these two types of problems clearly. Complicated problems may be hard to solve (or may even seem unsolvable at a particular point in time) however they are addressable with a systemic or process

   Ego is one of the hardest things to deal with as a new manager. You are in a new situation, you are most likely leading people for the first time, you are probably a bit younger ... and you just feel like you HAVE to prove yourself. This kinda makes sense right? You were obviously promoted because you knew your stuff and were really good at your old job, so now it MUST be your job to make sure everyone knows how good you are. WRONG! This is the number one mistake most new managers make. I totally get why, we have created this hierarchy in our corporate structures that makes people believe a good supervisor = a good manager = a good director = a good VP. This. Is. Completely. Untrue. The reality is that it takes different skills to be a good leader; and excellence at one level does not automatically mean excellence at the next. To be a good leader, you have to always be trying to check your ego. Yes you are smart, you probably have good ideas, you p

I wanted to share some thoughts today with respect to Experience and Relevance that was, in part, inspired by this quote from Leo Tolstoy “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” That resonated with me and I thought it would resonate with a lot of you as well right now. Pretty much everyone is talking about what changes the coronavirus will being to our societies and businesses. There’s a lot of discussion with respect to change and doing things differently; so that got me thinking about the ideas of experience and relevance. Humans make thousands of decisions every day; but, our brains don’t give each decision one of those decisions equal attention, our brains take all kinds of mental shortcuts. These shortcuts are known as “biases.” They’re not necessarily good nor bad; they just are. When I was younger and closer to the start of my career, I always struggled with having “experience” thrown at me as a way to just

This idea has been on my mind a lot recently. Why is it that people say they want team members who are creative, innovative, disruptive, will do things differently and then yet, never want to seriously look at bringing those candidates onto the team? Why do organizations continually seem to make the "safe" choice? Square pegs for square holes. Now more than ever, companies are looking for innovation from their employees. Three quarters of CEOs in a recent survey said that innovation was a critical top three priority why hiring; yet they also stated that they don't feel like they are getting it. Often, this is because they are hiring the wrong people! If the problem seems so simple to fix (just hire differently), why then do people don't do it? Recruiters & HR: What's in it for them? No honestly, what is in it for the HR partner / manager to speak to enough "outlier" candidates, to be able to understand them, to get where th