Knowing Versus Doing: Part 1: Getting the Highest ROI on Your Human Capital

Note: This article was originally published by TCA Truckload Indexes and is part of a series discussing results from the recent Knowing-Doing Gap Survey.

In life, as well as in business, the key difference between success and failure (or stagnation) is execution. More specifically, simply doing what you already know you need to do always improves the probability of success.

In our personal lives, this can mean exercising regularly, eating less, and spending quality time with our families. It can be extremely difficult to harness the willpower and schedule time to do some or all of the above. Sure, family members can make the execution easier, but a key factor to success is that you are relying solely on your own willpower, schedule, and decision-making skills to bring it all together.

In business, you are afforded one key advantage over your personal life – a team, with (hopefully) the same mission, vision, and strategy. Family and friends can make it easier for you to get to the gym, block off quality time, and keep you honest with respect to your diet. However, in business, your team is being paid to ensure group success. The main difference between high performing trucking companies and the average motor carrier is simply translating what they already know they have to do into action. Conversely, the underperformers gravitate towards cooperative complacency. Early in our careers, via discussions with trucking company executives, we quickly identified that many of the questions asked of these companies were largely and unintentionally rhetorical.ad more