Pub. 1 2020 Issue 3

18 Kentucky Trucker Kentucky Trucking Association 5 Deadly Sins of Business By Dr. David Guess, Chairman of the Board, Kentucky Trucking Association T hroughout my academic and business career, there has always been one icon referenced to which so many business management prac- tices point — Peter Drucker. We lost Peter Drucker in November of 2005, but the legacy and managing princi- ples he leaves behind forever fashioned the way many of us developed our leadership style over the years. He was revered as the father of modern corporate management. With that in mind, I thought we’d take just a few min- utes and see where some of Drucker’s business applica- tions align with our management styles in the trucking business. Drucker had copious step-by-step processes, programs, and methods all designed to aid in our daily management walk. The key, however, wasn’t so much that if you follow 1, 2 and 3, you’ll be guaranteed 4, 5 and 6 will work out perfectly. Rather, so much of his teachings were merely suggestions. Admittedly, Druck- er’s “suggestions” were really basic rules of engagement for business strategists. Through all my research, there were always five princi- ples that seemed to stick with me more than any of the others. This was Drucker’s “5 Deadly Business Sins” published in a 1993 Wall Street Journal Article. Twen- ty-seven years later, in 2020, those same business sins continue to flourish in many companies. We only need to look back to the last 18 months, with more than 980 trucking companies closing their doors since January of 2019. Glance at each one of the five listed; I bet you can identify with at least two you’ve seen in action at your organization. Would I be correct in assuming your two are the same two I’ve witnessed — #4 and #5?