To be the best...

What are the top 3 traits or skills every transportation manager must have to excel?

Can you suggest any tips or insights to develop your transportation manager expertise?

Brenda:

If I had to limit myself to just three things to focus on, here's what I would attempt to do:

Stay on top of industry trends - know what's happening in your industry; know what "best-in-class" companies do; benchmark if possible; know what your competitors are doing.

Challenge the status quo; challenge yourself (and others) to continuously strive for excellence. Hold yourself accountable for creating value. Scorecard your performance at the end of each week - how did you improve service / reduce cost / improve processes, etc. Remember, accumulated incremental changes can become transformational.

Develop as many relationships as you can - internal / external and cross-functional. Avoid becoming siloed and making siloed decisions. Understand the upstream and downstream impact of the decisions that you make. Strive to build and maintain high-functioning, healthy working relationships.

Thank you for the memo I printed it out and will keep it. I do have a long long way to go in pursuing this career.It's nice to know ahead of time.