Turn left with care.

Sometimes ideas sound so far fetched, so silly, you need to call MythBusters to validate and when it is validated, you still scratch your head in amazement. One such idea came from UPS and their ubiquitous brown trucks who figured out only turning one way, right, could save them time and money. To get a better grasp on the idea, I looked at a map of New York and did some trips around parts of the city I was acquainted with and came up with some revelations, three rights make a left and turning with the traffic is always the safest choice. So as ridiculous as it sounds, the UPS right turn strategy built out of their route optimisation algorithm, has made their software the envy of the logistics universe and provided them with benefits far beyond the initial scope.

On any given day, UPS delivers nearly 16 million parcels from their 93,637 vehicles, all looking to turn right, unless they are driving in Australia, where I wonder if they have the left turn strategy worked out? Aside from the staggering savings over the last decade, 50 million litres of petrol, carbon reduction, equivalent to taking 5,300 cars off the road for an entire year, UPS discovered the side effects of the right turn algorithm were even more important. They discovered drivers no longer crept out on crossings to monitor traffic, thus putting themselves at greater risk of sideswipe accidents because the reality is, many accidents start with a left hand turn. In fact, some states have special jury instructions for road accident cases, indicating the inherent problems of left hand turns against the traffic. So in a typical year of driving, saving over 28 million miles not driven, being back safely back in the depot and not turning against the traffic has resulted in a duty of care bonus for drivers and their employer. In fact the UPS accident rate has dropped by 30% in the past five years, to where the world’s largest package delivery company averages less than one accident for every million miles driven, leading to some drivers like Ralph Lendi driving seven million miles without incident.

Thinking out of the “block” has helped UPS revolutionise their business. Asking the hard questions about better processes and procedures will sometimes give you the old “we’ve always done it this way” reply but if you believe in your solution and there is merit from a revenue and more importantly employee benefit, don’t let the naysayers get you down. UPS took what they had, brown trucks delivering parcels all over the world and made it better, for the consumer, for the bottom line of UPS and for the drivers and delivery people. Their drive for efficiency, where no idea was discounted, turned into a bench mark solution and gives hope for anyone working on the hard questions.

To think outside the “box” is too often the throw away line given in meetings or think tanks where the boss is not about change but more the perception of doing something that might result in a change. So next time someone asks for the craziest solution in a meeting, tell them to turn right, it might get your idea up on that white board.

What if ?

Ted Turner tells the story about his Dad and how he wanted to own a big company, have a yacht and be a millionaire before his middle age. He accomplished the big company becoming a billboard magnate along the way joining the millionaire club and buying the yacht, then finding he had nothing more to accomplish because his goals had all been attained. He shortened what should have been a life of further achievements by suicide, having lost direction once his boxes had all been ticked. Without purpose of acquisition he didn't have a life definition. As far as he was concerned he was defined by the money and recognition and when he couldn’t go beyond that, life wasn’t worth living.

So it begs the question, what would you do if you didn't need money or attention? What would you do if you were the centre of attention and the house on the hill with the big cars and the yacht in the harbour was guaranteed? What would you stop doing and start doing if all of that were yours?

The majority of our lives so revolve around the accumulation of money, we rarely think beyond the next mortgage payment or credit card repayment to what else we could accomplish. Money like recognition has a way of defining us and our actions, to the extent we can't see any way to change direction. How often do you see the sportsperson doing one more round, one more year, tarnishing their reputations because they can't see themselves unrecognised once the cheering has stopped? How often do we see people continue to accumulate because they have not thought past goals they achieved long ago? Being defined by money or recognition leaves no room for any other actions beyond the original decision to make more of both.

Ted Turner decided long ago, not to be like his Dad. Sure he gained fame winning America’s Cup yacht races and owning the Atlanta Braves baseball team, making a fortune building the first 24/7 news channel CNN and parlaying that into a media empire including TNT, MGM and Time Warner, even helping develop Glasnost with his Goodwill Games, but he has long since moved beyond those early goals. Today Turner is making a difference beyond his achievements, donating a billion dollars to the UN, joining Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and other billionaires for the “Giving Pledge” to donate their wealth before they die, cultivating a herd of fifty thousand American bison to halt their extinction, helping cure children’s cancer with his blood foundation, fighting for nuclear disarmament and generally finding inventive ways to make a difference.

Not many people are in Ted’s position of power, recognition and monetary insouciance able to make such grand philanthropic gestures but then the thinking behind his gestures are the same as you and I helping out on a much smaller scale. Think as if you have enough money, enough recognition and then what difference can you make? What do you do well, what are your passions, how can you focus them on others? A good friend of mine, always testing herself physically via triathlons and extreme training sessions, has decided to run a 250 kilometre race across the Gobi desert to raise money for Riverkids charity to help abused children in Cambodia. Lisa is not independently wealthy, nor living with celebrity recognition but she has chosen to make a difference beyond those parameters and won’t let herself be defined by her job, her car, where she lives but rather her actions spurred by a question, what if?