Every organisation wants great people. Great people, it could be said, make for great businesses.

And so, from leadership, through management and right to the coal face, progressive companies make investments in their people both to get the best from them and the best for them.

For some years I’ve been an admirer of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) which is able demonstrate that investment in leadership development can deliver better bottom-line performance, enhanced attraction and retention of talent, improved strategy execution and more success navigating change.

Based on research, developmental learning should be an ongoing experience and not a single event, says CCL. This approach is amplified through a combination of job experiences and challenges, supplemented with formal training and information passed on from others.

CCL has therefore a developed a three-step leadership development process consisting of Assessment, Challenge and Support. Self-assessment and thinking about goals is the starting point, says CCL.

Data, in the form of high-quality research helps define their customers’ challenges and serves as the basis for building effective solutions.

Accordingly, CCL asks participants to select a Key Leadership Challenge before joining a development experience.

The challenge should be a project that aligns with the organization’s strategy, to provide a focal point for learning. Finally, support in the form of accountability partners both in the learning environment and in the workplace helps ensure that the development lessons learned can be directly linked to the client company’s strategic and day-to-day work.

It’s the sort of approach which we at Trackunit believe could be implemented at a wider level in construction industry rental to help bring greater understanding of matters relating to machine safety.

We also believe it could help bring improvements in efficiency, profitability and quality of service. So Trackunit has launched a major piece of global research called Safe Fleet.

Safe Fleet aims to benchmark pervasive industry pain points such as the personal protection of workers and the safe operation of equipment, training and enablement, appropriate payment, detecting misuse or damage, timely servicing, theft prevention, returns processes and resale value.

It could be that by now you’ve received an email or other communication from Trackunit inviting you to participate in the Safe Fleet campaign. If you have, the ten minutes you spend answering a few questions about your fleet safety and adding some demographic information would return a valuable reward to you and your company.

As a thank-you for contributing to the research effort, Trackunit will provide a personalized Executive Summary of the survey findings, together with a Benchmark report indicating where your company’s safety activities are on par with industry scores, together with the areas where there’s scope for improvement.

CCL President and CEO John R. Ryan has often said, “Leadership is like a muscle. The more intelligently you train, the stronger you get.” The Safe Fleet research will provide you with intelligence to help you assess the areas where strengthening exercises will produce the best results fastest to improve the overall health of your rental business.