Latest / Speaking of Supply Chain / The Classroom Can’t Teach You What a Client Will
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Make connections and keep them for as long as you can.
- 0:02Speaker 1: College is great to learn the process of learning, when
- 0:05Speaker 1: to take notes, how to retain information. I think I
- 0:07Speaker 1: learned most of the skills I use on a daily
- 0:09Speaker 1: basis on the job itself. But one thing that I wish,
- 0:13Speaker 1: even like in my previous internships and previous work experiences
- 0:17Speaker 1: was I wish that I made more connections during my
- 0:20Speaker 1: time to different places and that I kept them for
- 0:23Speaker 1: longer because, you know, especially in consulting, it's the people business, right?
- 0:26Speaker 1: Who you know, What kind of relationships you have defines
- 0:29Speaker 1: a lot of what your success can be in your career.
- 0:34Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain. I'm your host,
- 0:37Speaker 2: Ellen Wood. Early in a career, there's a big difference
- 0:40Speaker 2: between learning how something is supposed to work and experiencing
- 0:43Speaker 2: what happens when theory meets the real world. Today, we're
- 0:47Speaker 2: talking with colleagues who joined Meebok early in their careers
- 0:49Speaker 2: about that transition, what they expected, what surprised them, how
- 0:54Speaker 2: they've learned, and how they're beginning to build their own expertise.
- 0:57Speaker 2: Joining me today for the discussion are Jack Froletic, Mark Rapp,
- 1:01Speaker 2: and Jennifer Gilman. Welcome, everyone, to the show.
- 1:04Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 1:06Speaker 1: Thank you. Happy to be here.
- 1:08Speaker 2: Jack, why don't you introduce yourself first?
- 1:10Speaker 1: Sure. I'm Jack Froletic. I went to the University of
- 1:13Speaker 1: Notre Dame, and I majored in business, so it was
- 1:17Speaker 1: like a management degree with a finance concentration. Interesting.
- 1:21Speaker 2: Mark, what about you?
- 1:22Speaker 4: My name is Mark Rapp. I graduated from Purdue University,
- 1:25Speaker 4: boiler up. and I studied industrial engineering there.
- 1:29Speaker 1: Wonderful.
- 1:29Speaker 2: And Jennifer?
- 1:31Speaker 3: I went to Indiana University, as you can see from
- 1:34Speaker 3: the background, and I studied supply chain management and business analytics.
- 1:41Speaker 2: Wonderful. So that's quite an array of different practices that
- 1:45Speaker 2: you guys have studied. Let's jump right in. Jack, starting
- 1:49Speaker 2: at the beginning, when you're finishing college, there are A
- 1:53Speaker 2: lot of possible directions that your career can take, especially
- 1:55Speaker 2: for you. You had a rather broad area of study.
- 1:58Speaker 2: So that really first decision of where you're going to
- 2:02Speaker 2: go with that can be huge. So when you were
- 2:05Speaker 2: thinking about what you wanted to do in your first
- 2:07Speaker 2: professional job, what were you looking for in the first place?
- 2:11Speaker 2: And what made Meebok, what got us on your radar
- 2:14Speaker 2: in the first place?
- 2:16Speaker 1: Sure. Well, I think for sure I was looking to
- 2:18Speaker 1: get into consulting. I liked the idea of working on
- 2:21Speaker 1: multiple different projects, uh, being in a very dynamic environment.
- 2:25Speaker 1: I think it's an environment where you learn a lot
- 2:27Speaker 1: very quickly as well. Uh, so most of my, yeah,
- 2:30Speaker 1: most of my interviews were, uh, consulting related. And I
- 2:33Speaker 1: think what stood out to me with Meebok was two things.
- 2:36Speaker 1: I think one was the work I could see myself
- 2:39Speaker 1: doing at the work, uh, Meebok does. And two was
- 2:42Speaker 1: the people and the culture. Uh, during the interview process,
- 2:44Speaker 1: we had a, uh, a case study that we did.
- 2:47Speaker 1: I think it was equivalent to kind of like a
- 2:49Speaker 1: network design project. And I really enjoyed that. So that
- 2:52Speaker 1: was helpful in helping me see that I would like
- 2:55Speaker 1: doing the work. And I also had a lot of
- 2:57Speaker 1: time to talk with different people during my interview. You know,
- 2:59Speaker 1: you have, we had a structured interview, I think with
- 3:01Speaker 1: like three different sections, but there were kind of like
- 3:03Speaker 1: these 20 minute breaks in the middle and you get
- 3:05Speaker 1: to go talk to different people of all the different
- 3:07Speaker 1: levels who are already in the company. And from those conversations,
- 3:12Speaker 1: I think I figured that the culture at Meapop was
- 3:14Speaker 1: one where I would fit very well. And that's kind
- 3:16Speaker 1: of what led me to join Miwok.
- 3:19Speaker 2: Interesting that the hoops we made you jump through were
- 3:22Speaker 2: what you liked most about the process. Right, exactly. And
- 3:27Speaker 2: of course, choosing the opportunity is one thing, but then
- 3:31Speaker 2: you actually have to do the work. So Mark, what
- 3:35Speaker 2: surprised you most about the difference between studying supply chain
- 3:39Speaker 2: or engineering or analytics and actually solving those problems for
- 3:43Speaker 2: actual clients?
- 3:44Speaker 4: When we at Purdue Industrial Engineering, they always preach the
- 3:48Speaker 4: concept of learning how to solve problems. And I think
- 3:51Speaker 4: that's a very beneficial throughout my degree. I think that's
- 3:55Speaker 4: something that I really learned. However, those problems are usually
- 3:58Speaker 4: pretty static in a pretty static environment. You have a
- 4:02Speaker 4: couple of months to take a course and then, you know,
- 4:05Speaker 4: those problems aren't going to change versus clients or the
- 4:08Speaker 4: real world experience, you know, hey, we need this tomorrow,
- 4:12Speaker 4: but the numbers are actually flipped. It's a completely different environment.
- 4:16Speaker 4: If a teacher or professor were to do that in
- 4:19Speaker 4: an assignment, I think the entire class would be writing
- 4:22Speaker 4: the dean or a counselor or something along those lines.
- 4:24Speaker 4: So that's something that I think so, Ellen.
- 4:28Speaker 2: I think there'd be a lot.
- 4:29Speaker 4: Of issues with that. So that's something I've definitely noticed
- 4:33Speaker 4: is kind of, it's an ever-changing environment here at Meebok,
- 4:36Speaker 4: but it keeps us on our toes.
- 4:37Speaker 1: It keeps it exciting.
- 4:39Speaker 4: Whereas if you had that in the classroom, there could
- 4:42Speaker 4: be a lot of emails being sent.
- 4:45Speaker 2: I think that might be going a little too far.
- 4:47Speaker 2: I think that we probably could bring some of that
- 4:50Speaker 2: into the classroom. But I mean, there is a point.
- 4:53Speaker 2: There are some things that the classroom just cannot prepare
- 4:55Speaker 2: you for about real life and these professional roles.
- 4:59Speaker 4: And I will say, Ellen, I'm very thankful. And I
- 5:02Speaker 4: think Purdue did a good job. It's just if you
- 5:04Speaker 4: put in all those different scenarios into one environment, it
- 5:07Speaker 4: causes way too much confusion. especially in a structured classroom.
- 5:11Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be difficult to teach in a large
- 5:14Speaker 2: group setting. I think the smaller groups that we have
- 5:18Speaker 2: for our individual classes every year here at Meebok, our
- 5:22Speaker 2: analyst classes, do kind of a really good job of
- 5:26Speaker 2: getting you onboarded and prepared for that transition because there's
- 5:31Speaker 2: an important shift of feeling like you're there to learn
- 5:35Speaker 2: at school, you're there to learn, versus the feeling of,
- 5:39Speaker 2: having to contribute to the operations of some of these
- 5:44Speaker 2: major companies that we work with. Jennifer, let's hear from you.
- 5:49Speaker 2: Was there a project or a moment early on in
- 5:53Speaker 2: your career when you realized, whoa, I have something to contribute,
- 5:57Speaker 2: I have something to say, rather than just I'm still
- 6:00Speaker 2: new and learning from everybody else around me?
- 6:02Speaker 3: The interesting thing about working at Meebok is that Almost
- 6:06Speaker 3: every single project that you're on, there is something to
- 6:09Speaker 3: be learned and you always discover new things about yourself.
- 6:13Speaker 3: And obviously, there's a lot more responsibility that you need
- 6:16Speaker 3: to take within these projects because the project team is
- 6:18Speaker 3: very small. You're working with very large companies and you
- 6:21Speaker 3: have to take on a lot of responsibility. But I
- 6:25Speaker 3: think one of my first projects at Meebok was trying
- 6:27Speaker 3: to implement a yard management system. And prior to working here, obviously,
- 6:33Speaker 3: I've never... had any experience in that. So the challenge
- 6:37Speaker 3: here was we had to go on site to go
- 6:40Speaker 3: live the system. And it was only me and another manager.
- 6:44Speaker 3: It was this humongous site. We arrived at the site
- 6:46Speaker 3: at around 6 p.m. They were using an Excel-based system
- 6:49Speaker 3: and they were going to a full tablet-based system where
- 6:52Speaker 3: you could visualize the entire yard. And it was just
- 6:56Speaker 3: a full night of just me and a bunch of
- 6:59Speaker 3: people older than me who knows more than me. Maybe
- 7:02Speaker 3: not about the system, but just how the yard operates.
- 7:05Speaker 3: And I had to convince them that the new system
- 7:09Speaker 3: that we're giving them is going to be better than
- 7:11Speaker 3: their old system. It's going to make their jobs easier.
- 7:14Speaker 3: And on the spot, I realized that I had a
- 7:17Speaker 3: lot more capacity to adapt within these situations than I
- 7:19Speaker 3: realized before. So just so many projects and opportunities that
- 7:23Speaker 3: I've been given, and it's helped me grow a lot
- 7:26Speaker 3: throughout my career here.
- 7:28Speaker 2: Did that change your confidence going into that next project then?
- 7:31Speaker 3: Absolutely. Like it was I mean, just working with people
- 7:36Speaker 3: older than you, it gave me so much more insight into, well,
- 7:40Speaker 3: when I'm within a pressure cooker, I can actually react
- 7:44Speaker 3: well rather than, you know, wondering when this happens, what
- 7:48Speaker 3: am I actually going to do?
- 7:49Speaker 2: So I mean, everyone has those those situations where all
- 7:53Speaker 2: of a sudden, you know, you are under pressure to
- 7:55Speaker 2: to deliver in your role. But I think it's very
- 7:59Speaker 2: gratifying to have those quick wins and those opportunities to
- 8:04Speaker 2: prove yourself early. And early in career, you don't know
- 8:10Speaker 2: what you don't know. So, Mark, how have more experienced
- 8:16Speaker 2: colleagues helped you to develop that judgment of understanding what
- 8:21Speaker 2: you need to learn and not just the technical skills?
- 8:25Speaker 4: That's a good question, Ellen. And that's definitely something that's
- 8:28Speaker 4: been new ever since I've started with Meebok. And something
- 8:31Speaker 4: I've appreciated is that these colleagues that have been here
- 8:35Speaker 4: for a lot longer than I have, they've really let
- 8:38Speaker 4: me fail. They've let me go through the end-to-end way
- 8:42Speaker 4: of thinking about a problem, thinking about an issue, and
- 8:44Speaker 4: helping me kind of develop my own thoughts, own path
- 8:48Speaker 4: of thinking, and You know, sometimes I get a new solution,
- 8:51Speaker 4: sometimes where I'm going is a rabbit hole that I
- 8:55Speaker 4: need to be dug out of. But they're a helping
- 8:58Speaker 4: hand in those situations. But they also kind of let
- 9:03Speaker 4: me do my thing with with some guidance, obviously, as well.
- 9:07Speaker 4: So I really like the the aspect of kind of
- 9:10Speaker 4: letting me go, letting me letting me fly almost, I'd say,
- 9:13Speaker 4: trying to grow some wings out here.
- 9:15Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 9:15Speaker 2: And being challenged. I love the way you put that,
- 9:18Speaker 2: letting you fail, because that's I mean, that's how we
- 9:20Speaker 2: learn the best is is from our failures. And it's,
- 9:24Speaker 2: you know, just like with with kids, it's easier to
- 9:26Speaker 2: let them fail when the stakes are small so that
- 9:29Speaker 2: when the stakes are big, they know what they're what
- 9:32Speaker 2: they're in for. And it's it's not quite as scary.
- 9:35Speaker 2: That's that's really insightful from you.
- 9:38Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 9:38Speaker 4: And I really like what you said, knowing when to fail.
- 9:42Speaker 4: You know, maybe on a client call isn't necessarily the
- 9:44Speaker 4: best spot for that teaching moment, but maybe an internal meeting,
- 9:48Speaker 4: a workshop, working through data set problems. So that's something
- 9:53Speaker 4: that's been very beneficial early on in my career with Meebok.
- 9:56Speaker 4: And I'm very appreciative of it because, you know, you
- 9:59Speaker 4: only you only learn by failing.
- 10:01Speaker 2: So that's true. Well, I hope you can learn by
- 10:04Speaker 2: other ways, too. But yes, failure is is a very,
- 10:07Speaker 2: very strong teacher.
- 10:09Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
- 10:11Speaker 2: So Jack, you have had some exposure to some different projects,
- 10:15Speaker 2: different industries, different disciplines and colleagues, because you've been here
- 10:20Speaker 2: just a little bit longer than Jennifer and Mark. How
- 10:23Speaker 2: has that variety influenced the kind of consultant that you're becoming?
- 10:27Speaker 1: Well, I think for me, I've been very fortunate in
- 10:29Speaker 1: that regard because I'm in the innovation practice. And what
- 10:32Speaker 1: that means is most of our projects are either new
- 10:36Speaker 1: and innovative services within the industry or there are emerging practices.
- 10:39Speaker 1: which means that none of our projects look the same
- 10:42Speaker 1: and a lot of our projects we're doing for the
- 10:43Speaker 1: very first time. So even the projects where we're offered
- 10:47Speaker 1: the same service within innovation, it's always a different site.
- 10:51Speaker 1: There's always different considerations. There's always a different challenge that
- 10:55Speaker 1: we have to face every time. And I think what
- 10:57Speaker 1: that has helped me do is it's helped me be
- 10:59Speaker 1: very dynamic. It's helped me learn a lot of new
- 11:01Speaker 1: skills very quickly because you kind of have to in
- 11:05Speaker 1: order to adapt to those kind of emerging practices and
- 11:08Speaker 1: those projects. Uh, and it's been really interesting to see
- 11:10Speaker 1: kind of the future of think a lot of the
- 11:13Speaker 1: consulting services that are being offered. I think, I mean,
- 11:15Speaker 1: I think a lot of, I think all of our
- 11:16Speaker 1: work at Meebok in all the practices is innovative, but
- 11:19Speaker 1: in particularly any innovation practice, we're seeing a lot of the,
- 11:22Speaker 1: the new services, kind of what the future of the
- 11:24Speaker 1: services will be like. And I think that's been very
- 11:26Speaker 1: interesting to be a part of. Uh, I've also had
- 11:29Speaker 1: the opportunity to work with a lot of our colleagues
- 11:30Speaker 1: in Montreal, cause that's where a lot of that practice, uh,
- 11:33Speaker 1: sits and it's been interesting kind of learning about different cultures,
- 11:36Speaker 1: different ways of working. even being able to travel to
- 11:40Speaker 1: Montreal and see our office there and see a different
- 11:43Speaker 1: part of the world. And I think overall, from a
- 11:46Speaker 1: collaborative perspective, it makes it... It's taught me a lot
- 11:49Speaker 1: about being in collaborative environments with people that may work
- 11:51Speaker 1: differently than me or how to contribute kind of in
- 11:56Speaker 1: that environment of different viewpoints, for sure.
- 11:58Speaker 2: Well, and I know you mentioned Montreal and traveling and
- 12:01Speaker 2: working with different colleagues, but I remember your first... client
- 12:06Speaker 2: project travel. And that was an interesting story. It is
- 12:09Speaker 2: not at all usual. I mean, a lot of times
- 12:12Speaker 2: our client project travel is domestic. There's occasional cross-border, but
- 12:17Speaker 2: you went somewhere really interesting. Tell us about that.
- 12:20Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, my first client project was in South Africa.
- 12:25Speaker 1: So about a 20-hour flight, 20 hours of flying away.
- 12:29Speaker 1: We were there for two weeks doing site visits and
- 12:32Speaker 1: getting ready, kind of setting the base for that project. Um,
- 12:37Speaker 1: had to learn a lot about the metric system coming
- 12:39Speaker 1: from America. Cause you know, we, it's not something that,
- 12:42Speaker 1: that we're really taught, uh, super intuitively. Yeah.
- 12:46Speaker 2: And as someone who, who wanted consulting from the beginning,
- 12:49Speaker 2: not necessarily supply chain, but consulting that had to have
- 12:52Speaker 2: been a fantastic win for you. Like just, I made it.
- 12:56Speaker 1: It was a great experience. Uh, and I mentioned like
- 12:59Speaker 1: working with people who have kind of different viewpoints and
- 13:02Speaker 1: different ways of working. Uh, that was definitely a huge
- 13:06Speaker 1: part of that project because there were certain elements of
- 13:08Speaker 1: their operation that, uh, were specific to South Africa that
- 13:12Speaker 1: we had to take into account. Uh, part of that,
- 13:15Speaker 1: part of the downsides as well is that you, you're
- 13:16Speaker 1: working on a different time zone. So it may be
- 13:18Speaker 1: some early mornings and some late nights, uh, but all
- 13:22Speaker 1: part of the process. Yep.
- 13:23Speaker 2: There's growing pains.
- 13:24Speaker 1: There's growing pains.
- 13:25Speaker 3: Exactly.
- 13:26Speaker 1: Um, but yeah, it was a, it was an unforgettable
- 13:29Speaker 1: experience for sure. Uh, and again, it taught me a
- 13:31Speaker 1: lot about working with people. in different viewpoints and being
- 13:35Speaker 1: able to adapt solutions, particularly tailored to the client, because
- 13:38Speaker 1: there was a lot of specific criteria that we had
- 13:40Speaker 1: to prepare for that for sure.
- 13:43Speaker 2: Interesting, which brings us naturally to what comes next. And
- 13:47Speaker 2: that is that early career development for you guys isn't
- 13:52Speaker 2: only about how far you've already come and all the
- 13:54Speaker 2: great things you've gotten to do, but recognizing how much
- 13:58Speaker 2: there is still to learn. So Jennifer, when you think
- 14:03Speaker 2: about where you're going to be in two to three years.
- 14:06Speaker 2: What do you want to be able to do that
- 14:08Speaker 2: you're still learning that you haven't figured out yet? And
- 14:12Speaker 2: what is it that you think about the work that
- 14:14Speaker 2: you're doing that's going to help you get there?
- 14:17Speaker 3: Well, my personal goal for the next two, three years
- 14:20Speaker 3: would be to start being able to lead teams. And
- 14:23Speaker 3: I think the good thing about Meebok is that the
- 14:27Speaker 3: overall structure of the organization is very flat. So you're
- 14:31Speaker 3: also doing project work. So you're always on different teams.
- 14:34Speaker 3: You're always getting to know new managers, directors, sometimes even
- 14:37Speaker 3: work with the CEO. So there's so many opportunities for
- 14:40Speaker 3: me to just observe what the directors are doing, what
- 14:44Speaker 3: the CEO is doing, what my managers are doing, how
- 14:46Speaker 3: the PMs are leading different projects, depending on the client.
- 14:50Speaker 3: So these are just little things that I want to
- 14:53Speaker 3: continue picking up throughout the way as I do more
- 14:56Speaker 3: projects and start being able to put together my own
- 14:59Speaker 3: idea of what I would want my team to look like.
- 15:02Speaker 3: And I think the other thing here is I've also
- 15:05Speaker 3: always been very interested in what different people are good at.
- 15:10Speaker 3: I think there is inherently some people are good at
- 15:13Speaker 3: some things, maybe they could improve in other areas. But
- 15:16Speaker 3: I think when building a team, I would want to
- 15:19Speaker 3: continue learning about my colleagues and knowing what they're good at.
- 15:23Speaker 3: So when I am able to start leading my team,
- 15:28Speaker 3: I know exactly how we can make the team efficient,
- 15:31Speaker 3: run seamlessly throughout the entire project, and just complete the
- 15:35Speaker 3: project overall just in a very good tackling, good deliverables,
- 15:42Speaker 3: like everything, yeah.
- 15:43Speaker 2: Yeah, so you don't want just management. You want perfection
- 15:46Speaker 2: at it. That is a tall order, but I'm sure
- 15:51Speaker 2: that you will make some excellent strides toward achieving that.
- 15:54Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 15:56Speaker 2: So I want to finish with a question that we
- 16:00Speaker 2: are also asking some of our colleagues who are more senior.
- 16:04Speaker 2: And each of you, you know, chime in with an answer.
- 16:08Speaker 2: What do you know about building a career now? that
- 16:12Speaker 2: you wish you had known when you first started out,
- 16:15Speaker 2: when you were looking through that, you know, book of
- 16:18Speaker 2: coursework at your college and trying to figure out what
- 16:20Speaker 2: am I going to major in? What am I going
- 16:22Speaker 2: to do with my life? What do you know about
- 16:25Speaker 2: it now that you wish you had known then?
- 16:28Speaker 1: The biggest thing for me is make connections and keep
- 16:31Speaker 1: them for as long as you can. I think in
- 16:33Speaker 1: terms of learning, I mean, college was great to learn
- 16:36Speaker 1: the process of learning, which is, you know, when to
- 16:38Speaker 1: take notes, how to retain information. I think I learned
- 16:41Speaker 1: most of skills I use on a daily basis in
- 16:44Speaker 1: on the job itself. But one thing that I wish,
- 16:48Speaker 1: even like in my previous internships and previous work experiences
- 16:52Speaker 1: was I wish that I made more connections during my
- 16:55Speaker 1: times in different places, and that I kept them for longer, because,
- 16:58Speaker 1: you know, especially in consulting, it's all it's the people business, right?
- 17:01Speaker 1: You know, who you know, you know, who you know,
- 17:03Speaker 1: exactly who you know, and what what kind of relationships
- 17:07Speaker 1: you have defines a lot of what your success can
- 17:09Speaker 1: be in your career. So Something I've worked on, even internally,
- 17:12Speaker 1: trying to build as many relationships as possible. And it's
- 17:15Speaker 1: something that I think is super important from a career
- 17:17Speaker 1: building perspective. Yeah.
- 17:19Speaker 2: And that is an old sage business adage of it's
- 17:23Speaker 2: not what you know, it's who you know.
- 17:25Speaker 3: Exactly.
- 17:26Speaker 2: And especially in a consulting situation like ours, that's what
- 17:31Speaker 2: leads you toward getting new projects or finding new ideas
- 17:35Speaker 2: or recruiting that next coworker that you're going to have
- 17:39Speaker 2: on your project team. So Jennifer, how about you? What
- 17:43Speaker 2: do you wish you had known when you were just
- 17:46Speaker 2: a freshman at IU?
- 17:48Speaker 3: Well, I would say to continue to stay curious and
- 17:52Speaker 3: have fun during the process. So I think, well, throughout
- 17:57Speaker 3: my freshman years or just going through college, there's just
- 18:00Speaker 3: so many information to be learned. And I think especially
- 18:04Speaker 3: when you're young, it's very important that you Go through
- 18:07Speaker 3: all the different possibilities that you could potentially be doing
- 18:10Speaker 3: because you don't want to get to, you know, 45
- 18:13Speaker 3: and decide maybe I want to go a different path
- 18:16Speaker 3: and I wish I would have done something else before.
- 18:19Speaker 3: And the part with staying curious is just to keep
- 18:23Speaker 3: your mind open to the different possibilities that you could
- 18:26Speaker 3: be picking up, especially working in Meebok too. You get, again,
- 18:31Speaker 3: you get to pick different projects that you want to
- 18:34Speaker 3: be working on. You could be in the process of
- 18:36Speaker 3: an IT team. It could be an innovation. You could
- 18:38Speaker 3: be within our supply chain modeling team. There's so many
- 18:42Speaker 3: different possibilities that you could be doing. So it's definitely
- 18:46Speaker 3: just to keep an open mind, stay curious. If you
- 18:49Speaker 3: have a question, go try to ask the 10 whys
- 18:52Speaker 3: to figure out exactly what you want to know. And ultimately,
- 18:58Speaker 3: hopefully you start having a better picture of what you
- 19:02Speaker 3: want to do in the future and what you want
- 19:05Speaker 3: to continue to learn and develop.
- 19:07Speaker 1: Excellent.
- 19:08Speaker 2: I love that. I love that because I'm always curious.
- 19:10Speaker 2: I'm always learning something. I live by the motto that
- 19:14Speaker 2: you need to learn something new every day. So I
- 19:17Speaker 2: love that perspective. Mark, what about you? What do you
- 19:21Speaker 2: wish you had known when you started out?
- 19:24Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd say really understanding the aspect that there's never
- 19:29Speaker 4: a closed door. You know, sometimes that door can always
- 19:32Speaker 4: be slightly open. For example, I was looking at joining
- 19:37Speaker 4: a consulting club in college, had to pick another club
- 19:40Speaker 4: commitment over that. And with consulting internships, you know, if
- 19:44Speaker 4: you don't get the big one or what exactly you're
- 19:46Speaker 4: looking for, for reference, I decided to go and do
- 19:50Speaker 4: automotive throughout my college internships. And so I was kind
- 19:54Speaker 4: of thinking, you know, once I did that, I was like, oh,
- 19:57Speaker 4: I'm going to be doing automotive for the rest of
- 19:58Speaker 4: my life. I'm never going to do consulting again. You know,
- 20:01Speaker 4: I've got the next 40 years of my life planned out.
- 20:04Speaker 4: And that's just not the case at all. You know,
- 20:06Speaker 4: we live or we work in an environment where, you know,
- 20:10Speaker 4: you get experience with different industries. And that's really what
- 20:14Speaker 4: I enjoy about consulting with getting that expertise, working on
- 20:17Speaker 4: different projects. But, you know, that that door was slightly
- 20:20Speaker 4: open and I opened it back up and I went
- 20:22Speaker 4: through it. So I'm thankful for that. And in kind
- 20:26Speaker 4: of that way of thinking of, hey, you know, never,
- 20:28Speaker 4: never count yourself out of a possibility because once you
- 20:32Speaker 4: count yourself out, I mean, that's it's over at that point.
- 20:35Speaker 4: So always, always keep an open mind.
- 20:38Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all psychological. Don't psych yourself out. Even if
- 20:42Speaker 2: it wasn't your thing initially, you may find that it
- 20:45Speaker 2: is in the right positioning, in the right situation, that
- 20:49Speaker 2: that's exactly what you want to do. And I'm glad
- 20:51Speaker 2: that you found that here. What's interesting in all of
- 20:55Speaker 2: those answers is that starting a career isn't about having
- 20:59Speaker 2: everything figured out. It isn't about knowing exactly what you
- 21:02Speaker 2: want to do and exactly where you want to go
- 21:05Speaker 2: and making the goal and getting there. It's about trying things,
- 21:10Speaker 2: finding an environment where you can contribute, where you can
- 21:14Speaker 2: learn from other people that have that deeper experience. And
- 21:18Speaker 2: over time, through trial and error, develop the judgment to
- 21:22Speaker 2: solve these increasingly complex problems. And you've got your whole
- 21:27Speaker 2: career in front of you to figure out where you
- 21:29Speaker 2: want to take that next. Thank you each for sharing
- 21:32Speaker 2: what that process has looked like for you. Thanks to
- 21:35Speaker 2: our podcast sponsor. Meebok is a global supply chain consulting
- 21:39Speaker 2: and engineering firm focused exclusively on helping organizations improve performance
- 21:43Speaker 2: across the end-to-end supply chain. From strategy and planning through
- 21:47Speaker 2: engineering and implementation, we help clients turn complex decisions into
- 21:51Speaker 2: operational results that hold up in the real world. Thanks
- 21:55Speaker 2: again for joining us, and we'll see you next time
- 21:57Speaker 2: on Speaking of Supply Chain.
- 22:03Speaker 5: You've been listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a Meebok podcast.
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- 22:15Speaker 5: chain information. Thanks for listening. Until next time.