AS WE CONTINUE TO WORK IN A SHAPE-SHIFTING UNIverse, we need some guideposts, some mileage markers that give
us a sense of where we are and how far we have yet to go. This
may be as good a time as any to put some success and failure factors on the table to help supply chain management professionals
grow to become all they can be.
What follows is my current take on the Ten Commandments
for success in supply chain management, in business, and in
life. There are many, probably more than 10, but the core issues
seemed to sort themselves well into a set of 10 Thou Shalts and
Thou Shalt Nots. Please note that the items below are not carved
in stone, either one- or two-sided, and that they are backed up
on a flash drive.
1. Thou shalt not slander every idea that did
not occur to you first. C’mon, man, are you really the smartest little boy (or girl) in the room,
always? How many of your very fine ideas have
been rejected because you abused, insulted, or
demeaned all of those whom you would eventually need to get behind necessary change?
2. Thou shalt not dwell in the past. Get over
it! Sears is terminally ill, and K-Mart is already
dead. Omnichannel fulfillment is not the same
as shipping orders from mailed-in forms at the
turn of the 20th century. Visibility through
information technology is not simply an updated version of
walking the warehouse floor until the object of a customer’s
desire is spotted by the naked eye. And stop railing against
the habits and passions of the current generation of working
associates.
3. Thou shalt not live entirely in the future. Yes, I know that
there is always a better way to do what we’re doing. Yes, I know
that what we have has solved only portions of the greater challenge. I also know that it is somewhere between imbecilic and
hopelessly naïve to throw out the investment in what we have
before we have leveraged all that it can contribute—even if we
can somehow roughly envision what might be better, if only we
could define it and force the entire business community to adopt
it overnight.
4. Thou shalt not focus on functions and outcomes. There is
more to work life than meeting today’s objectives in a world we
suppose has been defined for all time as what it is now. While we
are busy satisfying customers, we must also consider what’s next.
BY ART VAN BODEGRAVEN AND
KENNETH B. ACKERMAN basictraining
News from Mount Sinai
Not necessarily what is the ultimate unified field
theory of everything supply chain, but what next
year—and the year after—is likely to bring. And
what we must do to be ready if the changes we
can reasonably anticipate actually materialize.
5. Thou shalt not impose your style and preferences on everyone. Doing the right things
in the right way requires teams of energized,
motivated, and educated people. Leaders take
many forms and pursue objectives in different
ways—and are motivated by different factors.
A tough lesson is that what drives you as a leader, how you work, how you
communicate, how you reach
goals may or may not yield the
results you desperately need.
You can’t pep talk the organization’s way to success; you
can’t intimidate that outcome,
either. You can’t take care of
the people and expect results
simply because they have been
comforted; worst of all, no
system of measures and milestones contains any guarantee
that the real result will resemble the plan—in outcome, in timing, or in costs.
You, as a leader, must know what all the
management styles are, when to use them, and
with whom to use which ones. Further, you’ve
got to know your people so well that you recognize where they fall in the task/relationship
spectrum—and use the appropriate style with
each of them.
6. Thou shalt carefully assess everything different. Not that we need to accept every notion that
comes floating through the open window or hail
each new concept as the panacea that will fix all
that is wrong or overcome all the limitations and
barriers of the past. But we do have a responsibility, for self-preservation if nothing else, to
carefully consider those ideas that actually have
merit, legs, and a promise of sustainability and
scalability.
