Management education views from the seaside
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ALTHOUGH the main spotlight in road transport training inevitably plays on the Road Transport Industry Training Board, some most encouraging examples of technical college participation are to be found.
I have recently visited courses arranged by Portsmouth Technical College and the South Dorset Technical College. Both courses were drawn up with the full collaboration of sections of the industry. I was most impressed by the keenness of the students, the quality of the lecturing staff and by the practical content of the -courses.
Formidable content The Royal Beach Hotel, at Southsea, was he venue for a week's course in financial Ind general management for the Institute of lie Furniture Warehousing and Removing industry. For many years this section of 3ur industry has taken professional Klucation and training seriously—perlaps more seriously than other sectionsuid under Hugh Wilson's energetic guidance the Institute's activities in this ield have been stepped up. Courses are not :onfined to the senior management of the ndustry. The long-standing "February 3chool" for junior management and office itaff is now a residential course. The ;ubjects covered this year in London—in pod time for the Institute's April aminations—included
Viewing and Estimating Planning and organizing a removal Costing, including standing and running charges and labour costs.
Principles and costing of warehousing Contract and legal problems
Licensing and legislation Packing, shipping and documentation of Overseas removals Implications of the Industrial Training Act Insurance needs of removal contractors
The Portsmouth course was designed for inancial directors, proprietors—or their ions—removal managers or management minces. Its content was formidable. As the ist of subjects dealt with shows the course was the reverse of a rest-cure. Every member had to work hard, and this is as it ihould be.
Financial and general management course The economic background to industry Structure of business organization Human relations in industry Financial aspects of business Financial control Taxation Introduction to operations research Problems affecting the industry Project and syndicate work
A course of this kind could not, of course. be provided cheaply in any circumstances. It was recognind by the RTITB and the Institute expected that, subject to the usual rules, employers would be able to claim from the Board £75 (i.e. £15 per day) for each participant plus appropriate travelling and subsistence expenses. It was purposely arranged during February when the industry is normally quiet. Although most of the course members came from the southern part of the country, one or two came from as far north as Newcastle. It will certainly be appreciated by hotels and other centres providing accommodation for residential courses if these are put on by transport organizations and technical colleges during the off-season. Most British seaside resorts are somewhat deadly places in the winter but all the transport residential courses I have heard of recently have required so much sustained hard work from students that recreation—in the holiday sense—is not the object of the exercise. When brains become a little weary after a long stint of lectures, or a case study, a few minutes' turn along a windy seafront can soon blow the cobwebs away!
Light touch I arrived at the Portsmouth course to find Mr. C. A. Quantrill, a senior management lecturer of the local College, discoursing on "Project evaluation with discounted cash flow". Mr. Quanta has an easy, informal style of lecturing and on the fourth day of the course he was obviously on the best of terms with the students. The mutual leg pulling indulged in by class and lecturer lightened the "heavy" material without in any way detracting from the serious level of class discussion.
I was surprised to note the attentive interest of the students in the subject matter. Discounted cash flow ideas stem from the 1890s and for a decade or more have been practised in the larger firms and in nationalized industry but one would not expect them to be of burning interest to relatively small companies. In fact, as Mr. Quantrill demonstrated without difficulty, DCF techniques are highly relevant to any business. The justification for a particular investment —premises, vehicles, equipment or whatever —at a given time can only be rationally determined by an assessment of the rate of return of the investment. No one would sensibly make any investment involving a business risk if a greater—or equal—return could be made from a safe investment in, say, National Savings.
Delegating After Mr. Quanta's lecture on the use of DCF methods no Institute member on the Portsmouth course will ever again assume that a return of £1,250 from an investment of £1,000 over a five-year period represents a profit of 25 per cent.
I was interested to participate in a case study on the theme of delegated authority. The class split up into four small groups and each wrestled with the posed problem of a highly effective, "go-getter" subordinate who threatened to steal all the thunder from his superior. The situation—by no means uncommon in industry or in transport— had been allowed to get out of hand and the object of the case study was to determine a sensible response by senior management.
Case studies are increasingly popular in management education and before long it is likely that all road transport managers will have participated in a number of them. It would be helpful if there were more case studies specifically related to road transport operational and management problems though, in fact, a discerning transport manager would have no difficulty in relating a management problem from another industry to his own business experience. There is a school of thought that argues— with much plausibility—that there is nothing unique about transport management per se. A good, trained manager would probably cope as well in road transport as in any other field. But that, I fully recognize, is at least a matter for controversy in our own industry!
I was delighted to listen to Mr. A. W. Willsmore, a marketing consultant, talk about the marketing of transport, especially relating to a furniture remover's business. Mr. Willsmore pretended to no knowledge of the industry, though, as a former execu five of a furniture manufacturing group, he was apprised of some relevant information. I liked his story of the instructions given to drivers and porters when lifting lightly built wardrobes: "You must pretend they are heavy enough to warrant two men to carry them". (It appeared that some prewar wardrobes were light enough to be carried without difficulty by one man using one arm!) Mr. Willsmore's most amusing .presentation illustrated the possible application of accepted marketing principles to the removal and warehousing business. About 13 out of 15 accepted canons of marketing could be applied in road transport, in Mr. Willsmore's view. That some of his ideas had never occurred to course members was very obvious. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence that effective marketing may provide road transport operators with an acceptable lever to jack up inadequate rate structures. For example, if in half a lifetime the highly sophisticated pet food industry has evolved from—in Mr. Willsmore's words, "Horsemeat hanging on hooks in butchers' shops", then it behoves the road transport industry to think deeply about techniques for inspiring a higher value in customers' minds than the cost of providing the service. If this involves such things as providing blue nylon furniture covers during a removal—to convince Mrs. Jones that she is getting a thoughtful, professional service—well and good. It is all part of the image-building that a marketing-minded transport management will accept.
Breakthrough There can be few full-time transport lecturers with more practical experience of road transport than Mr. Albert Briscoe, of the South Dorset Technical College. Mr. Briscoe pioneered with road transport educational courses at Luton Technical College some years ago and since he has been at Weymouth he has tried hard to arouse enthusiasm for courses geared to the current needs of the industry.
The day I spent recently with a dozen members of the Road Haulage Association drawn from a 50-mile radius of Weymouth convinced me that the South Dorset College has made an effective breakthrough. Its Transport Manager's Course which runs for six days in two three-day residential sessions could not pretend to answer all the "unknowns" in the Transport Act but it was sound in the principles it taught and shrewd in its speculation as to the likely qualifications and the necessary standard of knowledge of transport managers in the new order.
The South Dorset syllabus included a whole morning devoted to a lecture/discussion on the 1968 Transport Act as it applies to goods vehicles. There was a two-hour session devoted to the Construction and Use Regulations and the Road Safety Act of 1967, and another long period devoted to the Operator's Licence. A tape recording of a simulated Traffic Can't reminded any present with no recent personal experience, of the kind of atmosphere of such courts. Similar simulated proceedings will provide a valuable introduction to the problems of operators' licensing and the still more contentious quantity licensing—if the Minister is ever disposed to introduce it. Perhaps the RTITB will consider the making of a film to illustrate the kind of things facing the industry? Expensive film equipment is available at the Board's headquarters and I would think it salutary to simulate the kind of objections—from local authorities, police chiefs or trade unions—that we shall all have to get used to before long.
No current course or conference involving road transport people is without its session devoted to the anticipated requirements of the transport manager's licence. Some argue that until the requirements are known it is a waste of time to run lectures or discussions on this matter. I do not think the difficulty of selecting the right subject matter should deter course organizers from discussing the problem in general terms. It would be very easy to devise a syllabus which would cover much more than the likely minimal standard of knowledge deemed necessary for the statutory qualification by the Transport Manager's Licence Committee. Most of the people prepared to spend time and money learning to be a qualified transport manager will be aiming much higher than the minimal qualification. It is high time that at least four grades of qualification—say for fleets of up to 10, from 10-50, from 50-200 and over 200 vehicles were available. The Ministry of Transport must be awaiting the TML committees agreed recommendations with some impatience; meanwhile, I do not see the sense of carping at educational bodies that take the task of professionalising road transport seriously.
One of the most valuable features of the South Dorset course was its concentration on the practical side and the evident desire of the organizers to develop custom-built courses for particular grades of staff to the requirements of the industry. Mr. Briscoe included a number of lectures that would be helpful to road hauliers running their own business. There was a session devoted to the control of traffic office staff, part of which was devoted to organization and methods in the traffic office. The control of operating staff provided the subject matter for two lectures, both drawing freely on his own personal experience as a road transport executive.
The introduction of controls in many areas of a transport business to ensure compliance with Transport Act legislation provided scope for lengthy discussions. Ways of changing the attitudes of driving staff to promote the introduction of productivity schemes enabled course members to exchange ideas; some had made more progress in this direction than others.
Perhaps enough has been said to convince readers of the value of residential courses—at the seaside or elsewhere. There is much benefit to all transport managers in getting away from their routine chores. It helps if staff are available who can cope with the day-to-day crises afflicting so many transport offices, for it is not conducive to concentration in the middle of an educational course if there are regular phone calls seeking advice when Joe Bloggs has tipped his load of canned goods or whatever in the ditch!