Leading the Averitt Way - Dwayne Gribble

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Leading the Averitt Way. I'm so glad that you're with me. I'm your host, Alice Crabtree. And today, have a very special guest with me, and I think you're gonna enjoy this time that we have with Dwayne Gribble. Dwayne, first off, thank you so much for joining us, I'm glad that you're here. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Dwayne, let's just talk a little bit about your Averitt career. Tell me a little bit about how long you've been here, maybe some of the roles that you've had at Averitt. My Averitt career began in March of nineteen ninety six. I was hired as a leader off the street. At that time, sorry, I can't recall the name, I started out as an inbound leader, served the inbound leader at the OSCA, which no longer exists. We were merged with Fulton. Went on to Fulton as an inbound leader, excuse me, as a dispatcher. And then I've been dispatcher over a few years and then we had a merger with Marietta. And then after that, I became an inbound leader again. And after a few years, we had a few couple of people retire. I moved back into City Dispatch. And about the last seven to ten years, I've been operation manager for them. Wonderful. Well, we're glad that you're in this role. It sounds to me like you've grown within the company. You know, at Averitt, have a saying, first off, we say we hire to retire. Exactly. And are you planning to retire with Averitt? Is that part of your goal? That's part of my goal, unless I win one of those lottoes. Well, tell me about, so moving into operations, operations manager for a large facility like Atlanta West, tell me what are some of your favorite things that you get to do in being that kind of leader, and maybe some of the areas where you maybe not be your most favorite? Well, as a dispatcher, sometimes I kinda, as an ex dispatcher, I seem to oversee that and tend to not sit back and relax and let the dispatchers do their work. I have to get a little bit better and lead instead of supervising or doing the job. So my service center director makes sure that I sit back and let those leaders do their job. But overall, I still go out on the dock and walk the dock with the inbound and with the relay and the distribution guys and kinda just, know, frightened eyes. Our service center we have a lot of guys that are twenty plus years. So some of these same guys I came up with, whether they were in leadership or they were back into dock workers or drivers, we have a strong relationship, so I make sure I'm seen. Yeah, you guys have a great relationship on the Atlanta West dock and in the office. I've been there many times, been able to have some great events there. And the atmosphere that you guys have set for everyone, it truly is a team atmosphere. Tell us about why it was important for you to be with a company who promoted from within. Why does that matter? Why should that matter to us? Tom Coffey is the gentleman that hired me back in nineteen ninety six. I also referee basketball. Okay. And at the time, Tom Coffey was a coach and a couple days before that I gave him a technical foul and kicked him out of the game. No. Low and behold I come in for interview and this guy's interviewing So that kinda set a goal that told me how Averitt was, he didn't hold any grounds against me, give him a tactical while, to this point, Tom Coffey is the one I hired, that's why I'm to this point. I love this story, seeing being able to talk with you and share your story, we get to hear that. Yeah, if you could give someone a technical and they hire you, yeah that says a lot about the That's a lot of character in the goal and the family ornament that we A lot of people talk about our image, the atmosphere, you don't, I can explain it to you, give it to you, but you don't understand it to you after the experience. Well, you've shared with me the progression of your career, and with our fellow leaders, talk to us a little bit about when you first started, what would you tell your younger self then? I wish I understood patience. Okay. Just being patient. Today's, the days, I guess, people come in thinking everything is supposed to happen right away. Twenty seven years it took me to get to this point, but I'm happy to this point. I had to be told to be patient, things were gonna I think it's just patience, perseverance. You always think something is green on the other side of the road, but it's not. So that was be the key to me. Sounds to me like you bloomed where you were planted. Exactly. Share some advice from your twenty seven years of experience with Averitt to a new associate who you know is interested in moving up in the company, who wants to grow, who wants to, you know, plant some seeds here and continue to grow in the company. What advice would you give them on growing into a leadership position? Again, I think it's patience. Those who you're mentor, pick a mentor, pick those who are around you, try to have a grasp of everything, get not be knowledgeable of everything that's going on. At the same time, again, be patient and just don't think, Hey, everything's gonna happen today, I'm gonna be promoted now. And always put your head, put your name in hat when you see something come up and you learn something new. I think that's about it. Absolutely, I think that's excellent advice. And for you leaders out there that have not been leaders very long, that's still good advice. Be patient, you know, we talk about that in Averitt Way training, be patient, don't put a timetable, don't put a schedule on where you should be in five years or seven years, be patient. From the time that you've spent here already with your training, with your leadership training, Averitt Way and Leadership one hundred one, what are some of your takeaways that you feel, though you have the twenty seven years of experience, what did you take away so far in your experience that you're like, I'm gonna take that back and I'm gonna work with that? Even just yesterday, we took the tour. I probably took the tour in twenty plus years. Oh, yes. I learned a lot of different things about the call center, the fitness center, and different avenues, different things that we So I'm taking that, and today, I'm working with Laura, I learned a lot of different things about interviewing, discipline type things and the things I knew but I was guessing it was a lot back to my attention now. I think the training was very good. I think it's something we probably need to do more often. Again, it's probably been twenty five years plus for me to do it, and it was good. I was wondering at first why I had to be here. Now I found out today why I had to be here. Dwayne, share with us, why do you feel it would be important for a leader, regardless if they've been here nine months, or they've been in leadership for twenty seven years, why do you feel they need to come back to a training, Averitt Way, or the Leadership one on one training, to them be a good leader, the best leader they can? I think the way the time changed, the scope of people, employees, associates that we hire, everybody has a different way of how they live now in twenty twenty three, social media. That's one big thing I learned about social media what you can and what you shouldn't put on social media. Not that I'm a big advocate of social media. It's just that things change, laws change, not that the Averitt Way changed, but we changed and I guess we monitor things a different way. I think that's something over the twenty seven years that has changed and you need to move with those changes. I agree with that one hundred percent. Do you feel it's important as a leader that you continue to carry the torch for the Averitt culture? Do you feel like as a leader that we all need to have that torch to pass on to the next generation? How important do you feel that is for us as a company? The culture is very important. Again, like I was trying to say that earlier, I don't think I can interview you and tell you how the culture is and you've only been here a few years until you actually experience it. You won't understand it. I mean, I started out years ago with TNT Dugan, and I know what it is to be on the other side of the road, or the other side of the fence, and I just think it's one hundred percent important for those coming up to understand Averitt culture. And it's important for us as leaders to be able to coach that, to be able to lead that with them. If we don't know it, we can't lead it, right? Exactly, one hundred percent positive. That's very important. A leader with the years of experience that you have, What advice would you like to share to other leaders who are trying to identify associates who they see has the quality to potentially move into leadership? What advice would you tell them? How would you shape them? How would you plan to help this person grow? How would you tell those leaders, or what would you tell them? First of all, would tell them, find a candidate that you can model, that seems like they model themselves behind you. Lead them, grasp them, give them all the education that you can. Get them all facets of how and what it takes to run a service center, whether it's dispatching, it's inbound leading, whether it's a relay leader, whether it's admin, bill of ladings, whatever. And then just that upcoming associate into a leader. And I think a lot of people are, a lot of associates are afraid to become leaders because they just don't, they think it's just all about managing. It's all about supervising, but it's also about being approachable and being a personable person, you know, in teaching ready for culture. Yeah, I agree with that. I think sometimes we need to, as a leader myself, to be able to do that, need to find that person where you see that skill set, where you think in your mind, this person has what it takes. And then what we wanna do is we wanna, as you said, mold them, shape them, chisel away maybe some of the things that don't need to be there, but that's what coaching is all about, isn't it? It is, and at the same time you also gotta listen. Sometimes you gotta be a listener. You can't always just give advice, them give you advice, and sometimes I learn from them sometimes too, and it's just a way of life. I think if you listen, you listen, but you know, again, mold them and get them in the right direction. I love that. Well, I want to thank you so much for being with me today. Thank you for spending some time talking about leadership, talking about the importance of The Averitt Way and Leadership one hundred and one training, and also for giving some great advice to your younger self, and great advice for leaders who are coming up in the company, or those who want to be a leader. We appreciate you, we thank you so much. You have a great rest of the day. All right, thanks for having me.