Recently, my dad, a retired business owner, sent me a video he saw on Facebook, as he often does – this one caught my attention. It talked about a leader who every morning would ask his team “How did you find the blueberries?!”
The idea behind this question came from hunter/gatherer times when a community member would head out to find food and return with fruit, in this context, blueberries. Rather than looking at what they did wrong, and the challenges they faced when finding the blueberries (I, personally imagine a huge tiger!), the rest of the community would ask “how did you find them?!”. Rather, in the mindset the leader was displaying “what did you do right?”, that led you to those juicy blueberries.
The idea was to not only identify how your team was able to find success, but also to show the rest of the team what success looks like in your organization. Once everyone understood HOW they found the blueberries, they were able to repeat the behavior to find more success in gathering.
I thought it was a very interesting concept and in our own morning meeting it got us thinking about how we do what we do to find success in our areas of expertise; air charter travel and logistics.
In our day-to-day operations, there are so many moving parts. Any change in plans requires not a slow and steady, but instant shift. Weather, mechanical issues or personnel challenges are things that can arise that disrupt Plan A. And of course, moving onto Plan B (or C, D or E for that matter) causes a ripple effect of adjustment.
As they say, the one constant is change.
So how do we manage all of this change successfully?
How do we ensure that these transitions in plans are seamless?
How do we find OUR blueberries?
During our meeting, the one piece that was highlighted as the juiciest blueberry was ‘communication’. Communication is the absolute constant. Whether internally between our own team, with any one of our vendors and of course, with our clients.
When we look at the communication with our team at Knight, we make strong communication a non-negotiable priority. Even something as simple as making sure that the appropriate team member is always CC’d on an email, to ensure (in our hybrid work environment), that someone else is always informed as to what is going on.
Our internal processes are always open to discussion; what is working? What isn’t working? Are they clear to ourselves, our clients and vendors?
And most importantly always asking the question “Does everyone know what they are supposed to be doing right now?”
Beyond the business discussions, we also keep an open dialogue as to how we are all doing on a personal level. At any given moment, one of us can say “I’m a bit off today, I may need an extra set of eyes or some additional support”. This helps us understand where someone else who has a bit more energy can assist, so that our service standard remains strong, while supporting our team internally.
Regardless of the size of your team, strong communication ensures everyone knows what we’re working towards, how we plan on getting there and their role in that upward movement.
Additionally, keeping a close relationship with our longstanding vendors has always been highly valued at Knight. Understanding where their strengths lie, where their challenges are and how we can best help them provide the greatest service possible. When we have full scope of who they are as an organization, we are best able to pair them with the right clients.
We would much rather hear our clients openly say “No, we can’t do that right now” than “Yes, we can”, when they’re not able to provide proper service.
“No” is still an answer we can work with. Our vendors have always given us the benefit of their honesty, which has helped us provide extraordinary service to our clients for over a decade.
When it comes to communicating with our clients, we believe that transparency is key. If our vendors have given us a “No”, we don’t turn that into a “Yes” to the client. It becomes a conversation about how we can still get them what they need, with the limitations presented to us.
Over the last year, post-covid, this transparency has helped us manage expectations. We are still in an environment that is still recovering from the challenges covid presented. There are crew and ground support shortages that have presented new challenges. If we weren’t honest and transparent with our clients, we would have inevitably disappointed them.
Understanding their needs, their priorities and getting a good grip on not only their big picture, but the details that help get them there.
Full communication really helps ensure that everyone is still able to get what they need, but on a timeline they are prepared to work with.
Finally, across all groups; our internal teams, clients and vendors, it’s important to understand who those people are outside of their tasks. Have honest conversations, develop important working relationships and take the time to understand what the individual’s challenges and goals are.
There are a multitude of ways that we find our blueberries, but strong communication with all our partners ensures we are able to provide the best air charter and logistics services to our clients.
If you need help with any air charter needs or logistics services, give us a call! We are more than happy to have a conversation and understand how we can create a solution for you!
