DC Velocity - June 2014

Art van Bodegraven may be reached at (614) 893-9414 or avan@columbus.rr.com.

You can read his blog at http://blogs.dcvelocity.com/the_art_of_art/. Kenneth B. Ackerman, president of The Ackerman Company, can be reached at (614) 488-3165 or ken@warehousing-forum.com.

42 DC VELOCITY JUNE 2014 www.dcvelocity.com

Fun to work with? Maybe for capable people who shared his visions and passion. A cheerleader? Are you serious? Fierce, unyielding, and unbending? Oh, yeah, for sure.

Did he make mistakes? Did Apple ever stumble? Of course; all that is well documented. But ferocity unleashed the passion and vision, the competence and capability, that propelled the enterprise to heights undreamed of in the world outside the Apple orbit.

IS FEROCITY A FORM OF MENTAL ILLNESS?

Could it be that this prized attribute is simply passion with a vengeance, rah-rah run amok? Is it possible that the merely competent use fierceness as a way to compensate, to do more than they might based on routine execution alone?

We think not. Vengeance means taking one’s eye off the ball to pursue a secondary, perhaps unrelated, purpose. Doing the same thing over and over in the hope that it will be better, or will work, or will break through if we simply rinse and repeat, only more vigorously. The focused individual, both passionate and disciplined, will not take eyes off the prize. The competent and disciplined is not so much motivated to get better as to get good, on a consistent basis.

By the way, people with the fierce gene are not twisted or anti-social. They can be funny, be delightful to be with,

b as ict ra i n i n g

shift gears, and lead lives that are full in all the right human dimensions. It’s just that, when it comes to career or other competitive arenas, they can focus and fire the afterburners to elevate where their other attributes can take them.

WHERE DO WE FIND FEROCITY?

All over, whether in business, politics, the arts, religion, and so on. And throughout the universe of supply chain management. Think of the people you know in the field who are fierce as well as capable and passionate. Examples might include academics, consultants, corporate executives, material handling specialists, association managers—anyone who is a differentiated leader putting competitive distance between him or her self and others.

The fierce ones are everywhere, but there aren’t actually very many of them. Those with both passion and competence are also found throughout the supply chain, but they are, frankly, outnumbered by the one-dimensional players who have only one card to play.