Good fleet managers don't just talk the talk

By: Anonymous Fleet Manager

This is more important now than ever! Don’t be one of those fleet practitioners who talk a big game and leaves everyone feeling deflated and with a bruised ego!

There are two types of fleet practitioners – the ones who walk the walk and the ones who tell you they can.

Don’t be one of the ones who loves to tell everyone about themselves: “I’m the best at this, the most experienced at that, and so on.”

Often their operations are not based on a best practice foundation and suffer from poor accountability and practices.

Having a strong verbal game is not all bad; just pick the correct forum.

In fact, having a strong verbal game can highlight the positive things that you are achieving and get upper management interested in your cause.

I suggest you need to find the correct balance within your verbal game. Highlight the positives in your operation – just be cautious that your ego doesn’t get out of hand and/or make sure you have good data to back it up!

Use humility and empathy amongst your peers – this will develop far more respect than getting on your soapbox. 

To stop our Anonymous Fleet Manager (AFM) blowing a gasket, we created Internal Combustion, a monthly column for fleet-related rants that lets him blow off some steam. Got a fleet gripe you'd like to get his opinion on? Email ken.goldberg@ipwea.org and he'll pass it on to AFM... when he's in a good enough mood, that is.