TIME WAS, AND NOT SO LONG AGO, THAT ORGANIzational leaders began to recognize that a significant part of
their role involved coaching. The exemplars were often taken
from collegiate and professional sports, and several revered
practitioners from the fields of play were truly frightening: My
way or the highway. There are three ways to do this: my way,
my way, or my way. Winning is the only thing!
Gradually, a recognition grew that one coaching style might
not be enough, that changing circumstances demanded changing—and different—leadership and coaching styles. More on
this later. For the moment, those who aspire to be supply chain
achievers need to face front and concentrate
on the road ahead, instead of driving blind
while yearning for the receding image of life
in the rear-view mirror.
Over the past half century, working relationships among peers and with colleagues
have transformed mightily. The old order
of Jump/How High command leadership
has sunk beneath the waves of change. And
techniques of public discipline, criticism
(even of the so-called “constructive” type),
humiliation, and solitary confinement to
menial tasks have disappeared, except in
outposts of limited vision.
For a brief time, notably in the Great Recession but also in
periods in which talent was plentiful, managers could get away
with consciously not developing the talent, with avoiding the
awkward, challenging, and vital task of coaching associates for
elevated performance. Those days are gone, and in any event,
they were only a temporary respite from the responsibilities of
contemporary leadership.
Yet many supply chain organizations fell victim to such
short-sighted thinking. Our world is, perhaps, over-focused
on commoditized pricing whether buying or selling supply
chain and logistics services. We live and metaphorically die
based on the pennies differential that wins or loses a deal.
Costs must be cut, prices must be slashed, staff can’t be
paid much, and we can’t afford the time and cost to develop
employees’ skills and abilities.
THE NEW WORK WORLD ORDER
We have resided in another universe, one built on collabora-
BY ART VAN BODEGRAVEN basictraining
Put me in, coach; I’m ready!
tion, trust, team performance, and investment in
talent and its tools and techniques, for the better
part of a half century. The changes demanded by
enlightened leadership and management cannot
be brushed aside to permit a return to work
models that prevailed in the age of sweatshops,
mills, and indentured servitude.
We, irrespective of formal organizational
structures, work in teams these days, an effective technique likely to last a long, long time—
What we may not be as
comfortable and fluent in are
the leadership responsibilities
that go along with creating
effective teams that ultimately
produce the goods. And a big
part of those involve unboss-like behaviors: recognizing,
praising, helping, explaining,
and, yes, coaching.
For those who think that all this is soft-headed
nonsense, that people should show up, figure
things out, do the job, keep their heads down,
and silently soldier on, here’s a tip. Get out of
the way! Move over to the slow lane, because
the new leaders, their teams, and their organizations are taking over the fast lane to supply
chain success.
LEADERSHIP: TOO MANY BOOKS AND
NOT ENOUGH LESSONS
The never-ending stream of leadership books
ghost-written for notable personages are often
interesting, and sometimes touch on the coaching aspect of the role. From them, we summarize what we think to be essential characteristics
of leaders that we should emulate. Cool! But
those notions are dangerously fixed, like imag-
