LEADERSHIP Conversations with the Captains of Industry
Staying Close to the Work
Soon after Dave Bozeman joined C.H. Robinson as CEO in 2023, he launched a company-wide challenge called What’s Impeding Your Speed? “I asked everyone, ‘What is keeping you from doing your job or going faster in your work?’” he says. Bozeman expected to send about 345 handwritten notes thanking the global 3PL’s employees for their responses. “But I received 3,400 ideas from more than 2,400 employees,” he says. “That told me we have a speak-up culture, full of people who want to win. It was all very rich data.” Gaining insights from rank-and-file employees is a signature strategy for Bozeman, who has also held executive positions at Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar, Amazon, and Ford Motor. He recently talked with us about his leadership philosophy and recent efforts to foster continuous improvement at Robinson. IL : What was one event early in your career that helped to shape you as a leader? When I came to Harley-Davidson in 1992 as an entry-level manufacturing engineer, I badly wanted to carry a two-way radio on the job. Only supervisors carried radios, but I wanted it so much, my superintendent finally handed me one. That obliged me not only to do engineering work, but also to spend time on the floor with the people who worked on the flywheel truing line. I took a pounding from those people, because they saw me as management. But at the end of several weeks, a few of them said, “We like the way you listen to us and respect us.” This taught me always to get close to the work and respect the people who do it. When the time came to introduce new processes on the floor, people were cooperative. I’ve carried that lesson throughout my career. IL: What did you learn from serving as vice president of Amazon Transportation Services during the pandemic? It was a crazy time for ecommerce. We worked long hours and handled surging volumes with reduced capacity, since everyone had to be six feet apart. I learned never to underestimate the power of innovation and people. We had to innovate quickly and remember that it’s okay to fail. I tell my teams now, you fail, get up, learn fast, and keep moving. When I look back on that time, I wonder how we made it through. But we became stronger, and we made some important discoveries.
Dave Bozeman CEO, C.H. Robinson
As a leader in today’s trying business environment, Dave Bozeman embraces lean principles, gains insights from his people, and gets close to the work so he can make decisions based on actual data and firsthand experience.
by Merrill Douglas
10 Inbound Logistics • February 2024
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