Information is gold, and it's better to share

In many of the conversations about the move to electric vehicles, the subjects of collaboration and cooperation come up. Those entities working to speed the adoption of electric vehicles say it will take a joint effort between fleets, utilities, charger manufacturers, government agencies, and more.

I suspect they are correct in their assessment. But the reality is collaboration should be a core value of everyone involved in the trucking industry, and it should also be critical to how we operate inside our own businesses. In the past, people treated information like gold and worked to gather the most information so they would be the richest.

See also: Collaboration needed to overcome biggest challenge to trucking industry

Some problems we face are best solved by pooling resources from across the industry. And I think the trucking industry has a history of working together to solve really tough problems.

I also feel that for individual organizations to operate at peak efficiency, every department needs to share the information it has. What one department or person has learned can very likely be leveraged by another department or person within the organization for the greater good of the whole.

See also: The importance of data sharing

Managers need to send a clear message that data and information are not something that needs to be protected from other people within the organization; instead, it needs to be shared. Frankly, it is a waste of resources for two different departments to spend the time and money to gather the same data when they simply could have shared what each of them knows.

Having access to a wide variety of information and knowledge is more likely to result in innovative solutions that could lead to a competitive advantage.

See also: Navigating the future will require collaboration

If you do not already have cross-functional teams working on some of your toughest problems, I encourage you to consider setting up and implementing mechanisms that foster the free exchange of information across your organization.

When we were children, we were taught to share. Now is a good time to put that practice into action.

Jane Clark is vice president of member services for NationaLease. In this position, she is focused on managing the member services operation as well as working to strengthen member relationships, reduce member costs, and improve collaboration within the NationaLease supporting groups. Prior to joining NationaLease, Clark served as area vice president for Randstad, one of the nation’s largest recruitment agencies, and before that, she served in management posts with QPS Cos., Pro Staff, and Manpower Inc.