A Team on the Same Page, Regardless of Size, Can Conquer Mountains

Each morning, the CLR leadership and management teams login for the daily Zoom meeting. Our hub managers and team leadership use this time to address the status of active and upcoming vehicle deliveries, daily client reporting, updates to our Yard Management System and Operations protocol, among other details.

With seven major-metro Super Hubs delivering hundreds of vehicles a month, and a nationwide network of vehicle storage locations, meetings like these are critical to keeping our entire fleet logistics operation running smooth.

Several weeks ago, the CLR team got together in person for a weekend retreat in downtown Chicago. “We wanted our entire management and leadership teams to get together so we could meet each other and get to know our out-of-state managers. I also wanted to thank our team, in person, for the hard work they have given CLR over the past 12 months and where we want to see improvements,” explains CLR President Pat Shaw. “It is no accident that our small team is able to operate at a level that meets and often surpasses our largest competitors. The amount of effort we put into making sure we are taking the smartest and most efficient path with the highest results is how this work gets done on time and done correctly!”

To launch the retreat, Pat Shaw spoke to the team about her background as a transportation dispatcher in Southern California in the early 90’s and how her and late husband and co-founder of CLR, Chester LaPierre, never took for granted the opportunities the company was given. This still holds true today. She also gave the team congratulations for an outstanding 2021 and start to 2022. Never being one to settle and get comfortable, Pat reiterated that the team doesn’t stop here. “We are all growing together; and as a unit, a team…we can accomplish anything.”

Next, new Information Technology manager, Martin Stevens, shared his vision for the next wave of IT improvements across the company. He is driving an initiative to connect all remote locations with blazing fast data transfer and seamless client transparency and customization within our robust yard management system. “As we have seen with larger clients, our YMS has the capability of allowing our clients to login and download or view up-to-the minute status reports (among many other tasks),” explained Stevens. “We will roll this feature out to all clients by year’s end.”

Following Stevens, was CLR’s driver relations and dispatch teams with updates to driver hiring requirements, recent operations changes and also giving yard managers the autonomy to access both background and motor vehicle record checks with state and federal personnel, streamlining the hiring of local drivers at yard level.

CLR leadership also put attendees through some team building exercises during the two-day event. The first was an ice-breaker game where each team member had to say two truths and one “untruth” about themselves. The rest of the team had to guess which statement was the untruth. The exercise was successful in the team learning truths about their teammates that made for some lively conversation and laughter.

Another exercise involved each team member taking the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator survey on www.16personalities.com. With results in hand, we discussed key traits about their “type” descriptions. Focus was put on the strengths and weakness of each team member’s type and how having this knowledge could help them to nurture positive habits in areas where they excel and build better habits where they are weak.

We then separated the team into two groups, one group having the “J” Judging trait and the other the “P” Perceiving trait. Next, we handed each group a bag of plain M&Ms and asked them to collaborate in creating a 2D house, much like macaroni art in grade school. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the photos clearly show two designs and design processes going in very different directions…exactly what I expected to happen. If you want to learn more about the M&M House exercise, you can visit https://tinyurl.com/yc3ns3x7.

After two days of meetings, we left Chicago feeling very confident in our united effort to make the client experience our top goal. We committed to keeping communication a high priority. We all walked away with new and helpful information about our own personal development. We saw how the improvements we have made over the past few years have driven our rapid growth with major clients in the fleet industry.

We learned the importance of being a synchronized unit, all equally responsible for the important tasks we complete. Finally, we were all reminded of the statement our late co-founder would often share with us…“A team on the same page, regardless of size, can conquer mountains.”

CLR plans to hold more team retreats in the future. Stay tuned.