Every organization, from the largest of carriers to the smallest of shops, have goals they seek to achieve. We all hear these goals expressed every day, in many cases associated with driver retention, safety, fuel efficiency, productivity, and the list goes on. In order to achieve these various goals, not only are financial commitments made, but also investments in time and valuable company resources. The question then becomes, why do so many organizations struggle at achieving their goals? If they do meet them, why in many cases is there a backslide over time? In this article, we look at a modern approach to addressing these challenges that so many organizations face today, one that creates a sustainable model focused on longevity, results, and building a positive culture.
Every organization has goals and KPIs they seek to achieve in order to grow their business, to become more profitable, or even possibly be the next top-rated fleet. It is at the next step however, of executing a plan to achieve these goals, where so many companies diverge in their approach. What we find is that all too often, goals are being pursued simply as metrics in spreadsheets, sometimes non-existent, or even worse as heavy-handed approaches. This is where we see companies fail, due to the lack of a true system to facilitate an operational plan to achieve their goals.
James Clear has a great quote in his New York Times bestselling Atomic Habits: “you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” Clear is a regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies, working with the NFL, NBA, MLB, and has taught more than 10,000 leaders, managers, coaches, and teachers how to improve. Clear goes on to say “the purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.” In the paragraphs that follow, we’ll share how LinkeDrive’s Driver Performance Management (DPM) solution provides the needed systems approach to facilitate endless refinement and continuous improvement to win the game.
LinkeDrive’s DPM solution is built on a highly extensible framework, leveraging its native and patented PedalCoach® dataset. The solution also takes feeds from other systems allowing it to be 100% SaaS, providing a truly holistic view of your business. The system is tuned to organizational goals and objectives, from the high-level weighting of our Fuel, Safety, Productivity, and Efficiency pillars, right down to the underlying metrics within these pillars. A core principle of this system is that it is built to evolve over time, to take additional or new feeds, and to change as a business’s objectives and goals change. We can’t stop here though, as simply understanding the business isn’t enough!
Most systems do stop here, however, and rely on case management approaches that add additional overhead for what is most likely an already taxed operational team.
What a case management approach also leads to is only engaging with lower-performing individuals, if your team has the time. What about the individuals in the middle or possibly at the top, that are looking to be challenged and have no idea what they should be focusing on next or how they could improve? Shouldn’t you be talking to them too? What about actually reaching out and complimenting them on a job well done, or recognizing a challenging week?
The question is, how does an operational team have time to even get to the point where they can focus beyond the lower-performing individuals they already don’t have time to talk with? The answer is smart automations leveraging advanced computer science principles, such as: machine learning, artificial intelligence, and natural language generation. These automations by default come standard in LinkeDrive’s DPM solution, engaging each and every driver in your fleet, on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in a positive way to shift the entire bell curve of driver performance. We should also mention that our patent-pending MyCoach™ coaching is custom to each and every driver, recognizing challenging weeks, trends, and then coaching them where they need it the most. You would be surprised at what drivers in the middle and at the top (that you are most-likely not reaching today) can do! See below for examples of our smart automations direct to each and every one of your drivers.
When reflecting back on our most recent blog series from LinkeDrive, themes of fairness and positive engagement are the central points of focus in those articles. We’ve been in the trenches from the inception of our company, working hands-on with operational teams, and most importantly, drivers, giving us a unique perspective of what works and what doesn’t. It is this perspective that has prompted us to apply leading edge-principles in behavioral psychology and economics to the fundamentals of our design, even down to colors we choose, and the look and feel of our reporting. This perspective has also led to our embracing of the Behavioural Insight Team’s (BIT) EAST framework, focusing on four simple principles to encourage and promote desired outcomes and behavior: make it Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely (EAST). BIT was originally founded within the UK Cabinet office in 2010 to provide leading-edge and Noble Prize-winning behavioral science practices within the British Government to promote desired behaviors around social policy. After spinning out of the UK Cabinet office in 2014, BIT has evolved into a worldwide social purposes organization, with seven offices across the globe, and work spanning thirty-one countries this past year alone.
In the next and final upcoming article in this series, we will look at what happens when we combine fairness and positive engagement with a true best-in-class system aligned with organizational goals and smart automations! We look forward to sharing more, be safe out there on the road, and always remember to #thankatrucker!