| How would like to be a great manager? I mean a | | | | In Akron, the home terminal, they never made |
| really great manager? Of course we all would but | | | | money, had high turnover and the place looked a |
| what does a great manager look like? It was years | | | | wreck. |
| ago when first stumbled over a really great manager | | | | Over the course of those two years it became |
| and boy I didn't want to admit he was great. Let me | | | | apparent that Spencer indeed was doing something |
| explain. | | | | right. Then one day I realized in the office that he |
| It was 1970 and I was driving truck for my Father's | | | | didn't even have an office. He had the same amount |
| company, a small trucker with a hundred trucks | | | | of drivers working there doing the same volume of |
| serving the building industry. There wasn't much | | | | work as Akron and had less than half the support |
| money in the business, the margins were razor thin | | | | staff. And get this... he didn't even have an office or |
| and hauling clay pipe, brick and steel coils wasn't too | | | | a desk. He just sat at the end of his dispatchers |
| glamorous. The company had three terminals at this | | | | desk and long before it was popular he managed by |
| point, one in Chicago, one north of Philadelphia in | | | | wandering around. He knew the business better than |
| Pottstown and the home terminal in Akron, Ohio. | | | | anyone that worked for him. |
| I just wanted to learn the business so I spent some | | | | Over the years I became friends with Spencer and a |
| time as a mechanic and was now on the road with | | | | finer man you wouldn't meet. I worked hard to |
| some long term drivers. All the drivers hated going to | | | | understand what his 'secret' was and you know |
| Pottstown because the Terminal Manager there, | | | | what, I figured it out. He didn't have a secret he just |
| Spencer, was as they termed, a real ball buster. Now | | | | did three simple things: |
| I had heard from my father that he was the | | | | 1. He knew the business better than anyone who |
| greatest guy to walk the earth. Umm? | | | | worked for him. More importantly they knew he |
| Over the next two years I went in and out of | | | | knew. |
| Pottstown and Spencer, which was his last name but | | | | 2. He truly managed the place as if every dollar he |
| the name everyone knew him by, was always there | | | | spent was his. |
| when we refueled. He'd come out, never in a | | | | 3. He cared. He cared about the business, the people |
| particularly good mood, and make really small talk | | | | in it and my father, the owner. |
| while he walked around the truck. If there was one | | | | Spencer became a dear friend and my ultimate |
| dent or scrape that wasn't there the last time you | | | | example of what a great manager really is. It is rare |
| were in, you heard about it. You could say, Spencer | | | | today to find someone who fits the bill of 'manager' |
| was engaged. | | | | like Ernest did. It took me a couple years to get over |
| When I started out I was talking trash about | | | | the fact that he didn't have an office, let alone a |
| Spencer just like the other drivers. My father would | | | | desk. He didn't have a lot of things but what he did |
| always respond, "Well, he always makes me money." | | | | have was the ability to deliver the mail, as my Dad |
| For my father, that was the overriding criteria. But as | | | | used to say. He didn't have a lot of things but he did |
| time went on I noticed something else. Spencer's | | | | just get it done and that makes him a great |
| drivers had been with the company for a long time. | | | | manager. |