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The Hidden Misalignment Killing ERP Projects · Speaking of Supply Chain

0:00
Speaker 1: You will attend this meeting. You will have conversations with
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Speaker 1: the team, the trainers, the testers, the change management, and
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Speaker 1: the executive team, and we will go through everything to
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Speaker 1: make sure that everyone is in alignment. And that's the
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Speaker 1: key was making sure that everyone is in alignment. And
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Speaker 1: the CEO came and had a conversation with me. About
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Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later, he goes, holy cow, nobody's talked to
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Speaker 1: each other in months. Thank you said, this is what
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Speaker 1: we do, this is why you hired us. We're going
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Speaker 1: to make sure that this is back on track, and
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Speaker 1: we will have this project back on track and close
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Speaker 1: to their original timelines. But it's because now everyone is
0:39
Speaker 1: talking true communication and I love it when they do that.
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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where we
0:49
Speaker 2: explore trends, current events, and innovations impacting the logistics and
0:52
Speaker 2: supply chain industries. I'm your host, Ellen Wood. Behind every
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Speaker 2: chaotic disruption, delayed decision, or failed transformation in the supply chain,
1:01
Speaker 2: there's often a deeper issue. No one talks about strategic misalignment.
1:07
Speaker 2: Today we're pulling back the curtain on the hidden disconnects
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Speaker 2: between functions, systems, and goals that quietly erode agility, exploring
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Speaker 2: how supply chain leaders can reframe legacy thinking and technology
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Speaker 2: to build truly adaptable, future ready supply chains. Chris Carter,
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Speaker 2: four time best selling author and one of America's top
1:26
Speaker 2: ten industry influencers, is here with me today to unpack
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Speaker 2: the silos, challenge the norms, and chart a smarter path forward. Chris,
1:34
Speaker 2: welcome to Speaking of supply Chain.
1:36
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure.
1:39
Speaker 2: It's great to have you on the show. So before
1:42
Speaker 2: we get started with unpacking silos today, our ice breaker
1:46
Speaker 2: question is what is a weird food that you have
1:49
Speaker 2: tried and would you eat it again?
1:52
Speaker 1: So this one was easy for me. Of the questions
1:55
Speaker 1: you gave me, I'm like, this is it because I
1:57
Speaker 1: am a huge foody when I travel the globe. There's
2:01
Speaker 1: the one I gave you. But I also thought about
2:04
Speaker 1: it a little bit and I was like, oh my gosh.
2:06
Speaker 1: So the one I sent you was octopus. I love
2:08
Speaker 1: octopus no matter what form, where it is, and what
2:11
Speaker 1: it is. But when I really thought about it, I
2:14
Speaker 1: love the octopus, but I love street vendor food India, China, Brazil.
2:21
Speaker 1: I will eat my way through whatever city through Rome.
2:25
Speaker 1: Instead of going to the Marriotte Hotel or the Hilton
2:28
Speaker 1: or the Hut, I find myself street venders. And it's funny.
2:32
Speaker 1: I watch as I'm driving into where I need to
2:35
Speaker 1: be from the airports, and I look and I see,
2:38
Speaker 1: and then I started asking the cabby or the uber.
2:41
Speaker 1: It's all about the great street vendor food.
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Speaker 2: That is absolutely true. I've never been disappointed by street
2:48
Speaker 2: vending food. I would have to say mine is very similar.
2:51
Speaker 2: I was in Barcelona, right on the coast and we
2:55
Speaker 2: went to an amazing seafood restaurant and I had the
2:58
Speaker 2: squid ink payet and I remember sharing a photo of
3:03
Speaker 2: this with my you know, with my followers with my
3:05
Speaker 2: social media, and this was maybe four or five years ago,
3:09
Speaker 2: and everyone was just amazed that I would eat this
3:11
Speaker 2: cole black looking. You know, it looked absolutely charcoal. It was.
3:16
Speaker 2: It was black, but it was so delicious and it
3:20
Speaker 2: was so so good. I was so glad I got
3:22
Speaker 2: a chance to try it.
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Speaker 1: I love but Falonna It is such a great place
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Speaker 1: to eat, beautiful area, and especially if you're downtown where
3:31
Speaker 1: the soccer stadium is or the complexes. I like to
3:34
Speaker 1: call it that whole beautiful red brick wall in the
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Speaker 1: red There's actually a restaurant across the street and just
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Speaker 1: down one block that has similar food. Oh, the seafood
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Speaker 1: is to die for there. And that was just the
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Speaker 1: main thorough flare thorough fare.
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Speaker 2: Whenever I'm there, I always go to La Bokria and
3:58
Speaker 2: I just go and buy little bits and things and
4:01
Speaker 2: I take it back to my hotel and just have
4:03
Speaker 2: girl dinner.
4:05
Speaker 1: I love that, just get little pieces, plus coffees and espressos,
4:09
Speaker 1: and I do that all around the globe. I'll go
4:12
Speaker 1: to little coffee shops. I just walk coffee shop, another espresso,
4:16
Speaker 1: coffee shop another. You can tell I have a lot
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Speaker 1: of espresso.
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Speaker 2: That sounds like me going to the top as bars
4:23
Speaker 2: and just having a little bite here and there. It's
4:24
Speaker 2: the best part of Barcelona, my absolute favorite. And I
4:29
Speaker 2: hope I get to go back sometime. But today we
4:32
Speaker 2: are talking about some of these disruptions and things that
4:36
Speaker 2: are going on in the supply chain and why we
4:38
Speaker 2: don't seem to be getting anywhere. Everyone's just pulling their
4:42
Speaker 2: hair out. It feels like the same problems over and
4:45
Speaker 2: over and over and over, and why are we hitting
4:48
Speaker 2: these on repeat. So what exactly do we mean by
4:52
Speaker 2: strategic misalignment in the context of whether it's production or distribution.
4:58
Speaker 2: Where are we seeing this have happening and what is
5:02
Speaker 2: it really?
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Speaker 1: Oh gosh, it's everywhere. It's every type of industry, it's
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Speaker 1: every type of industry focus or it doesn't matter if
5:12
Speaker 1: you're in an a warehouse distribution area, it doesn't matter
5:14
Speaker 1: if what the misalignment that is happening between what is
5:18
Speaker 1: going on at station A to station B to see
5:23
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I deal a lot with SAP and
5:26
Speaker 1: ERP customers, especially wrapping that around AI these days, and
5:30
Speaker 1: the misalignment it happens from individuals who are black belts
5:35
Speaker 1: to individuals who are day twenty six on a job.
5:40
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because it's as if we see things.
5:45
Speaker 1: If you're working in an environment and it's got in
5:48
Speaker 1: a misalignment, but you're used to it and you see
5:51
Speaker 1: what you see every day, it just becomes happenstance. Oh,
5:55
Speaker 1: it'll fix itself out. Oh we'll get that shipped out.
5:58
Speaker 1: Oh we'll take care of the well. Instead of taking
6:01
Speaker 1: care of it, they just let it go on and
6:03
Speaker 1: they just let it and then it becomes habit. And
6:06
Speaker 1: when things become habit, what's the old phrase, if you
6:08
Speaker 1: do things more than three times, all of a sudden,
6:10
Speaker 1: it becomes a pattern. When it becomes a pattern, and
6:12
Speaker 1: you start doing it for a while, what is it,
6:15
Speaker 1: two or three weeks? Then all the s and it
6:18
Speaker 1: all of a sudden starts becoming the norm. Well, it's
6:22
Speaker 1: the same thing with how everybody gets misaligned within these
6:25
Speaker 1: ecosystems when you're starting to do that. And that's why
6:30
Speaker 1: when we come in or I come in and others
6:32
Speaker 1: come in and we're like, why would you do that
6:36
Speaker 1: that way? And what are you doing? And why do
6:39
Speaker 1: you realize that you're wasting all this time and you're
6:42
Speaker 1: not aligned with this activity? Or what gets even worse?
6:46
Speaker 1: It's it's funny. I was just working with one of
6:48
Speaker 1: our clients and they had go to Singapore and I'd
6:51
Speaker 1: go to their case and this company, this this individual
6:55
Speaker 1: organization did it differently than this one than this one.
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Speaker 1: Nothing was consistent. Everything was misaligned, so they wouldn't even
7:03
Speaker 1: get the same data. They had to transition their data
7:06
Speaker 1: to be able to make everybody understand it. And so
7:08
Speaker 1: it was pretty sad. And why is it happening is
7:11
Speaker 1: because unfortunately, you get certain people that just don't care.
7:17
Speaker 1: And I've been in the supply chain in ERP for
7:20
Speaker 1: my entire career since the nineteen eighties. Yes I'm that old.
7:23
Speaker 1: I know. I did pull out all my hair. And
7:27
Speaker 1: you looked at these companies and you just you looked
7:30
Speaker 1: at them, and as a younger person, I'm trying to
7:33
Speaker 1: be that person that's trying to help them. And then
7:35
Speaker 1: you've got mid management and executives that are like, oh no, no,
7:38
Speaker 1: it's working just fine for us. Okay, well it could
7:41
Speaker 1: be working a lot better. Then all of a sudden,
7:43
Speaker 1: I started getting into management and other activities and I
7:46
Speaker 1: tried to make changes, and then you get the people
7:48
Speaker 1: down below like no, no, no, we've got this, we
7:50
Speaker 1: take care of this, we'll do this. We know that
7:52
Speaker 1: it's time consuming and these activities, but it's fine. And
7:56
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you get union shops, and
7:58
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you get individuals. It just
8:02
Speaker 1: goes across the board, and unfortunately, unless there's going to
8:05
Speaker 1: be a major change dynamic within that organization, the misalignment's
8:10
Speaker 1: going to happen continue to happen unless they can really
8:12
Speaker 1: make that change or willing to make change.
8:15
Speaker 2: You would think that post COVID, after having lived through this,
8:19
Speaker 2: we would understand that it shouldn't take such a large
8:22
Speaker 2: scale disruption in order to question the status quo. But
8:26
Speaker 2: I hear you saying that people are just adverse to change.
8:30
Speaker 2: They don't want to do something differently than the way
8:33
Speaker 2: they've got in their own minds. And you know, every
8:36
Speaker 2: single one of us knows that there are other great
8:38
Speaker 2: minds out there, there are other great ideas, there are
8:40
Speaker 2: other ways of doing things. And when agility is one
8:43
Speaker 2: of the buzzwords in our industry right now, why are
8:47
Speaker 2: people so reticent to admit that there could be a
8:50
Speaker 2: better way to do something?
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Speaker 1: So I'm going to answer that one, and I hope
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Speaker 1: I do not offend anybody that LISTENEDTS. So I step
9:00
Speaker 1: back and I look at this from again an ERP
9:03
Speaker 1: software mechanism in our ecosystem. Right now, we are the
9:10
Speaker 1: oldest consulting group be it SAP, ERPs and stuff like,
9:15
Speaker 1: the oldest group on the consultative map. So when you
9:20
Speaker 1: look at us, there is over sixty percent of the
9:24
Speaker 1: individuals are forty plus years of age. And when you
9:28
Speaker 1: look at fifty plus, it's an even worse scenario, and
9:33
Speaker 1: they're so grained in. We have problems with companies that
9:37
Speaker 1: we work with because there's an age activity. And I'm
9:41
Speaker 1: not going to say agism is good batter otherwise, but
9:44
Speaker 1: when you're trying to make the changes to more of
9:47
Speaker 1: an agile state and you're trying to use cloud and
9:51
Speaker 1: you're trying to move to the next level of an
9:53
Speaker 1: SAP or an oracle cloud, we get a lot of
9:57
Speaker 1: times the feedback is my staff just does want to
10:00
Speaker 1: do that. We're gonna have to make wholesale changes. We're
10:03
Speaker 1: gonna have to move these people here, We're gonna have
10:05
Speaker 1: to bring in people that do it. I had one woman,
10:09
Speaker 1: and I kid you not Ellen. She's maybe fifty two,
10:12
Speaker 1: so she was younger than me, and she spotted off,
10:15
Speaker 1: I'm in my fifties. I'm not changing anything. You either
10:18
Speaker 1: have to fire me or I was like, ma'am, I'm
10:21
Speaker 1: not doing anything. This is your company. We just need
10:23
Speaker 1: to know how your process works. You're trying to get
10:27
Speaker 1: rid of me and I refuse to make these And
10:30
Speaker 1: what they did is they ended up buying her and
10:32
Speaker 1: about fifty other people out of their contract. Or their
10:36
Speaker 1: early retirement activities because they refused to learn the new
10:41
Speaker 1: concepts and then learn the new activities with the new
10:45
Speaker 1: SAP system and the new cloud and the new agilities,
10:49
Speaker 1: and so they ended up going out and hiring these
10:51
Speaker 1: individuals cousted them a lot to do it, but they
10:55
Speaker 1: just were not willing to make those initiatives to make
10:58
Speaker 1: a little bit of change and to help the company
11:01
Speaker 1: change to better itself, and so it really had to
11:04
Speaker 1: go through that process. So unfortunately a little bit of
11:08
Speaker 1: age in there as well.
11:11
Speaker 2: When those silos are so persistent, especially in modern organizations
11:16
Speaker 2: that want to have some of these changes, that want
11:19
Speaker 2: to keep up with the technology that is evolving, you know,
11:23
Speaker 2: how does that attitude really undermine that resilience, that cross
11:28
Speaker 2: functional resilience that we have to have. We've established, you know,
11:31
Speaker 2: you have to have the different departments talking to each
11:34
Speaker 2: other or else the whole thing falls apart. You can
11:37
Speaker 2: have the greatest idea in one section of the company,
11:40
Speaker 2: but if the other areas of the company are not aligned,
11:43
Speaker 2: it's not going to go through. So we know we
11:45
Speaker 2: need to have this type of cross functional communication going on,
11:51
Speaker 2: and that's what makes these supply chains more resilient. But
11:56
Speaker 2: we're just absolutely not allowing ourselves to do it.
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Speaker 1: Unfortunately, companies are not allowing themselves to do it. You
12:04
Speaker 1: are correct, and I go back to maybe about fifteen
12:08
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. Remember when we had all of the
12:10
Speaker 1: technology silos. You took care of operating systems, you took
12:14
Speaker 1: care of the databases, you took care of the application. Well,
12:17
Speaker 1: companies took that a little bit further and they said, well,
12:20
Speaker 1: my warehouse management team doesn't even talk to my distribution
12:23
Speaker 1: team properly. They feel that they're supposed to be doing this,
12:26
Speaker 1: and no, you're supposed to be doing that. And then
12:29
Speaker 1: it's the in the data come in and I'm like, guys,
12:35
Speaker 1: why are you fighting each other. You're the same company.
12:39
Speaker 1: If you want to have your little offendom and you
12:41
Speaker 1: want to keep everything great, but guess what, you work
12:46
Speaker 1: for the company, and the company needs you, guys and gals,
12:51
Speaker 1: to work together and to understand. And if it's got
12:53
Speaker 1: to come down from the top, it's going to come
12:55
Speaker 1: down for the top. It's it's interesting. I just got
12:58
Speaker 1: to sit for three and a half hours on an
13:00
Speaker 1: airplane with the founder of a place called quick Trip,
13:05
Speaker 1: and in Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois. It's this great little gas
13:10
Speaker 1: station concept with Chicken Annle and I was asking him.
13:13
Speaker 1: I was just pepperin him questions. I had no idea
13:15
Speaker 1: who he was at person, and he was talking about
13:18
Speaker 1: his supply chain because he was doing X, Y and Z.
13:21
Speaker 1: He brought it all in house, and they're all on
13:24
Speaker 1: the same page. We're going to make our glazers orur donuts.
13:26
Speaker 1: We're gonna do this with bananas. We're gonna do this
13:28
Speaker 1: with our customers. We're gonna do this with our partner.
13:31
Speaker 1: Everybody's in alignment and they're all working towards one goal,
13:35
Speaker 1: and it's for the company's benefit to help the customer.
13:40
Speaker 1: And unfortunately people look at their little area of their world.
13:45
Speaker 1: This is my warehouse management, this is my application, this
13:48
Speaker 1: is I've modified this. I'm going to make sure that
13:51
Speaker 1: nobody touches this, including those darn people in distribution or
13:55
Speaker 1: those people and finance that are trying to tell me
13:58
Speaker 1: I need to give back percent credits and I need
14:01
Speaker 1: to do this, and lo and behold, it gets involved
14:05
Speaker 1: with them from a supply chain and tries to help them. Hey,
14:09
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to charge you on that okay, but
14:11
Speaker 1: you do see ebbs and flows with that, and I
14:15
Speaker 1: see ebbs and flows with companies of that all the time.
14:17
Speaker 1: Al Sen, somebody will leave and you'll get somebody else
14:19
Speaker 1: and be like, can we make changes? Are we allowed
14:21
Speaker 1: to help? And they may go off and they may
14:24
Speaker 1: be brave, may have that big sword and they're gonna
14:29
Speaker 1: start chopping and they're gonna start doing. You wish you
14:32
Speaker 1: didn't have to do that, but unfortunately sometimes you have to,
14:36
Speaker 1: especially when you're working in a supply chain activities and
14:38
Speaker 1: you need to manage people, processes and activities to go forward.
14:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't imagine that the people are that opposed
14:50
Speaker 2: to change just on the circuit, Like in general, it
14:54
Speaker 2: must be. There's got to be some fear behind this.
14:57
Speaker 2: There's got to be some concern about the job mark,
15:00
Speaker 2: it about you know, AI taking over people's jobs. I mean,
15:03
Speaker 2: all of these things are causing people a lot of fear.
15:07
Speaker 2: But the bottom line is a rising tide raises all ships.
15:11
Speaker 2: So you know that effort that they put into it,
15:14
Speaker 2: if each little person puts in each of their effort,
15:16
Speaker 2: you know the company is going to do better overall.
15:19
Speaker 2: And you know, I hope that companies are recognizing that
15:22
Speaker 2: there is that level of actual fear for their own
15:26
Speaker 2: livelihoods that is keeping people from you know, really jumping
15:32
Speaker 2: into some of these larger scale changes or being open
15:36
Speaker 2: to just a completely different viewpoint. And I think that's
15:40
Speaker 2: one of the great things that you and I have
15:43
Speaker 2: from the consultancy angle is you know, we're not the
15:47
Speaker 2: ones ingrained in these habits, in these you know, ways
15:51
Speaker 2: of working that are that are just so siloed and
15:56
Speaker 2: with blinders on that we're able to look at it
15:59
Speaker 2: and see, oh, well, you could do it this way
16:01
Speaker 2: or you could do it that way, and we have
16:02
Speaker 2: no stake in the game. You know, it's not going
16:04
Speaker 2: to affect us one way or the other. And if
16:07
Speaker 2: they continue to do poorly, it's still not going to
16:09
Speaker 2: affect us. We have the benefit of being able to
16:13
Speaker 2: look at it from an outside view and just give advice.
16:18
Speaker 1: Yes, but I say yes to that. But yet, when
16:22
Speaker 1: I leave an organization and I know they're not going
16:25
Speaker 1: to make the change, or they've got individuals in their
16:28
Speaker 1: organization that I know are going to disrupt where they
16:33
Speaker 1: want to go and how they want to do, I
16:36
Speaker 1: walk away very sad because I look at that and
16:40
Speaker 1: just think, God, you could be so much, you could grow,
16:43
Speaker 1: you could do, but you're just not willing to take
16:48
Speaker 1: that individual and say, look, you've been here thirty years,
16:51
Speaker 1: we get it, we're proud of you, but we're going
16:53
Speaker 1: to put you over here you're getting close to retirement
16:56
Speaker 1: or whatever the activity there and help and benefit the organization.
17:02
Speaker 1: And unfortunately I walk away sometimes just shaking my head,
17:05
Speaker 1: thanking God. That company is never going to get to
17:08
Speaker 1: the point where he the ownership group or whoever wants
17:12
Speaker 1: to because of their being disrupted on the bottom or
17:15
Speaker 1: in the middle.
17:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, because of that opportunity cost that's lost. Yes, So
17:20
Speaker 2: when it is further down the chain, when it is
17:22
Speaker 2: you know, the everyday people in the everyday positions, that's
17:26
Speaker 2: one thing, you know, we have, we have naysayers all
17:30
Speaker 2: the time. There's never going to please everybody all of
17:32
Speaker 2: the time. But when it's when it's at the higher circles,
17:36
Speaker 2: when it's at those upper levels of management, how how
17:40
Speaker 2: much of that inefficiency can be tracked back to a misalignment?
17:46
Speaker 2: You know, when we're when we're talking about some of
17:48
Speaker 2: these larger scale disruptions, some of these larger scale problems,
17:52
Speaker 2: you know, are these are these habits? Are these mental models?
17:55
Speaker 1: Is it?
17:56
Speaker 2: Is it risk aversion? But is it? Is it at
17:58
Speaker 2: the top where these larger strategic decisions are being made
18:03
Speaker 2: or is it more operational?
18:05
Speaker 1: Well, actually, I'm going to give an example of what
18:08
Speaker 1: is perfect with this question. About two weeks ago, I
18:13
Speaker 1: was with an organization that we've been supporting for years
18:16
Speaker 1: and they just let go of their chief operating officer.
18:21
Speaker 1: Their chief operating officer was trying to undermine a project
18:25
Speaker 1: and undermining the CEO because he felt that he did
18:32
Speaker 1: not understand the technology and did not understand the business.
18:36
Speaker 1: As the CEO and the son of the founder and
18:40
Speaker 1: the CEO kept saying, we don't need these activities, we
18:45
Speaker 1: don't need this, we don't need that. And the CEO
18:49
Speaker 1: wanted to be intimately involved with the project and was,
18:53
Speaker 1: and he kept getting these notifications that this was being
18:56
Speaker 1: changed and this was being changed, and we're not going
18:58
Speaker 1: to do this. They all had a C level come
19:02
Speaker 1: to Jesus meeting. I've only heard and been a part
19:07
Speaker 1: of a few of these, and what is interesting is
19:10
Speaker 1: they literally sat down in a room and they all
19:13
Speaker 1: had a part of my language in itch session. Now'll
19:17
Speaker 1: put the B in front of that what it was,
19:19
Speaker 1: and we're in consulting. We get these all the time
19:22
Speaker 1: from usually end users and usually from individuals that are
19:26
Speaker 1: part of the project teams. But this was a c
19:29
Speaker 1: level itch session. And apparently this thing went on for
19:32
Speaker 1: about four hours to finally where the points where the
19:35
Speaker 1: CEO said that they were resigning and the CEO said, nope,
19:39
Speaker 1: you have been terminated, and they literally walked them out
19:42
Speaker 1: of the building. Undermining a project hurts everybody. And by
19:50
Speaker 1: undermining a project, to just make a change that you
19:55
Speaker 1: feel is more comfortable for you or your organization, if
19:59
Speaker 1: it's come from the sea level, from the CEO himself
20:02
Speaker 1: or herself, you make those changes and you bring it
20:06
Speaker 1: all together. Now, it may not be the right idea,
20:09
Speaker 1: and so you explore that conversation, You discuss and you
20:14
Speaker 1: digest what is going to happen if we make this decision,
20:19
Speaker 1: if we say we're going to do we're going to
20:21
Speaker 1: implement enterprise warehouse management, and how this is going to
20:25
Speaker 1: affect the warehouse management, the distribution, the supply chain, everything across,
20:30
Speaker 1: and you lay that out in front of everyone and
20:33
Speaker 1: you make the right decision, or if you're going to
20:35
Speaker 1: make a wrong decision, Okay, at least you've made a decision.
20:38
Speaker 1: But now let's understand why it's positive and why it's
20:41
Speaker 1: negative and then make that forward momentum. But never undermine somebody.
20:46
Speaker 1: Don't sit there thinking that you from a sea level,
20:49
Speaker 1: from a mid management to somebody who's doing the testing,
20:52
Speaker 1: to somebody who's doing the implementation. Don't undermine a project
20:57
Speaker 1: for your own benefits or for your activity. It's for
21:00
Speaker 1: the betterment of the company and everyone involved. And I
21:04
Speaker 1: I it grates on me when people do things for
21:08
Speaker 1: their own direction or their own activity and forgets that
21:13
Speaker 1: it's for the greater good.
21:16
Speaker 2: Well, and I hear you saying a lot of this
21:19
Speaker 2: boiled down ultimately to a lack of communication. And I've
21:24
Speaker 2: seen a number of large scale implementations for for many
21:28
Speaker 2: different reasons within these these types of companies or or
21:32
Speaker 2: within these types of projects, and they're not quick. These
21:36
Speaker 2: things take time. Sometimes we move a little quicker than others.
21:40
Speaker 2: But when it comes to these big strategic moves, there's
21:43
Speaker 2: there's time given to, you know, do some some data research.
21:47
Speaker 2: There's time given to understand the implications or at least
21:51
Speaker 2: we hope sufficient time is given. But you know, this
21:54
Speaker 2: isn't just a snap decision. This is something where a
21:57
Speaker 2: number of people should have been brought to the table.
22:00
Speaker 2: And perhaps I'm hearing you say that they just weren't
22:03
Speaker 2: brought in in the right time until it was too
22:06
Speaker 2: late and opinions had been formed, heads were budding, and
22:10
Speaker 2: now there is no good resolution to the problem.
22:13
Speaker 1: And it happens all the time. Unfortunately, we're actually helping
22:18
Speaker 1: to clean up an organization's mess right now. They didn't
22:22
Speaker 1: bring in any of the stakeholders up front, and that's
22:26
Speaker 1: a big piece of it. Bring everyone in before you
22:29
Speaker 1: even start to buy your licenses or to make a change,
22:34
Speaker 1: or you need everyone's opinion. Now, not everyone is going
22:37
Speaker 1: to be in alignment, and I get that, and we've
22:39
Speaker 1: always said you're probably going to have someone that's going
22:42
Speaker 1: to descend, and that's great, but they're going to have
22:45
Speaker 1: an idea, a thought, a concept process that they're going
22:49
Speaker 1: to bring in to say why this can't work. And
22:52
Speaker 1: as long as you keep that line of communication open,
22:55
Speaker 1: our best projects have always been when everybody's allowed to
23:01
Speaker 1: voice their opinion and have that conversation at the table.
23:04
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's good bad otherwise, or just
23:08
Speaker 1: whipping a heat off and throwing it on the table
23:10
Speaker 1: and saying no communication. It's like being in a marriage.
23:16
Speaker 1: If you don't communicate with each other, you're not going
23:19
Speaker 1: to be a very happy marriage. If you're not communicating
23:22
Speaker 1: as part of a project team for any supply chain project,
23:26
Speaker 1: for any ERP, for any type of a project, you're
23:29
Speaker 1: not going to have good relationships with anybody. And so
23:32
Speaker 1: that's why communication is vital. When we came into this
23:36
Speaker 1: project that I was just referencing, they were not doing
23:40
Speaker 1: weekly calls or weekly meetings to give updates. They were
23:44
Speaker 1: not doing weekly calls for change management activities, they were
23:48
Speaker 1: not doing weekly calls for even strategy sessions of anything
23:52
Speaker 1: that would change anybody that needed to make a change
23:55
Speaker 1: in the system. They just said, oh, okay, send it
23:58
Speaker 1: over to the basis team or this technolog your team,
24:00
Speaker 1: this group. Nobody was talking amongst themselves. So we implemented
24:06
Speaker 1: our strategy, which is we are going to have a
24:08
Speaker 1: change management meeting every Monday as soon as we get
24:11
Speaker 1: back from the weekend, because we had to make a
24:13
Speaker 1: lot of changes on the weekends. Two you've got an
24:16
Speaker 1: executive meeting. Three, you've got a full team meeting. Five,
24:19
Speaker 1: you were going to have a technical meeting. We literally
24:24
Speaker 1: lined up about fifteen different meetings all week long, so
24:27
Speaker 1: it's about three every day. And people were like, well,
24:31
Speaker 1: what am I going to do on my calendar? But
24:32
Speaker 1: I said, I don't care. You will attend this meeting.
24:36
Speaker 1: You will have conversations with the team, the trainers, the testers,
24:41
Speaker 1: the change management, and the executive team, and we will
24:44
Speaker 1: go through everything to make sure that everyone is in alignment.
24:49
Speaker 1: And that's the key was making sure that everyone is
24:51
Speaker 1: in alignment. And the CEO came in, had a conversation
24:54
Speaker 1: with me. About fifteen minutes later, he goes, holy cow,
24:58
Speaker 1: nobody's talked to each other months. Thank you. I said,
25:02
Speaker 1: this is what we do. This is why you hired us.
25:05
Speaker 1: This is we're going to make sure that this is
25:06
Speaker 1: back on track, and we will have this project back
25:09
Speaker 1: on track and close to their original timelines. But it's
25:13
Speaker 1: because now everyone is talking true communication, and I love
25:18
Speaker 1: it when they do that.
25:20
Speaker 2: Well, it does make everything a lot easier when they
25:23
Speaker 2: actually talk to each other. I know, you know, there
25:27
Speaker 2: have been days when I get so wrapped up in
25:29
Speaker 2: the work that I'm doing that I forget to tell
25:30
Speaker 2: other people what's going on, and it does cause an issue.
25:34
Speaker 2: You have to talk to your to you know, upstream
25:37
Speaker 2: and downstream of what's happening and what's going on, even
25:41
Speaker 2: if it's just an update. So one thing you were
25:45
Speaker 2: mentioning that once they started talking to each other and
25:48
Speaker 2: having the meetings, it was night and day. They they
25:51
Speaker 2: were able to communicate, they were able to get things
25:54
Speaker 2: at least moving in a forward direction. This is the
25:58
Speaker 2: Aha moment for a lot of companies to realize that
26:01
Speaker 2: their communication was not as good as they thought it was.
26:04
Speaker 2: So even when companies think they're in a good place,
26:08
Speaker 2: you know what kinds of things aside from the communication
26:13
Speaker 2: piece where they're maybe not as good as they think
26:15
Speaker 2: they are. But you know, have there been situations where
26:18
Speaker 2: they thought they were ready for something and they were
26:21
Speaker 2: they were trying to communicate, but then the technology piece
26:24
Speaker 2: was just so far behind that there. It really is
26:29
Speaker 2: an actual roadblock in most cases. I don't think technology
26:33
Speaker 2: is the roadblock that people think it is.
26:35
Speaker 1: It depends on the age of the infrastructure and on
26:38
Speaker 1: the applications that they're using. We have we've had customers
26:42
Speaker 1: in the past where they thought, oh, we're good to go,
26:44
Speaker 1: we can do and I'm looking at their system. But
26:47
Speaker 1: wait a second, you are in violation of the operating
26:51
Speaker 1: system patch level. Your in violation of your database patch level.
26:55
Speaker 1: You don't even have an update on your SAP environment
26:59
Speaker 1: or your oracle or your technology cannot go to perfect
27:04
Speaker 1: example is SAP. He's got a thing called ECC ECC six.
27:09
Speaker 1: It's the right Now we're on S four, which is
27:11
Speaker 1: all going to a club, and the ECC was the
27:15
Speaker 1: on premise or bar metal or virtualized environment. Come in
27:20
Speaker 1: here when we start talking, Oh, we're ready to go
27:21
Speaker 1: to S four. We were excited, we want to do this,
27:24
Speaker 1: and so our team did an evaluation of the environment.
27:28
Speaker 1: Well wait a second. Here, you're on ECC six Enhancement
27:32
Speaker 1: Pack one. You have to be on Enhancement Pack eight.
27:36
Speaker 1: Oh wait a second, you're on max dB. You cannot
27:39
Speaker 1: go to max dB unless you go to HANA first,
27:42
Speaker 1: and then you got to go up. So you need
27:45
Speaker 1: to pump the brakes. Your technology is nowhere near ready.
27:49
Speaker 1: Let's put together a project plan. Let's talk through these scenarios.
27:53
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, the CTO thought that we had stepped
27:57
Speaker 1: on as cheerios or something. They were so upset. Well,
28:01
Speaker 1: what do you mean we can't do this, this and this,
28:03
Speaker 1: I said, sir, I'm sorry. This is here. Here's the documentation.
28:07
Speaker 1: We did an early watch report on your system and
28:11
Speaker 1: it's not gonna work now. Mind you, there are there
28:14
Speaker 1: are companies that I've dealt with, and I kid you
28:18
Speaker 1: not know there are on legacy environments of either Oracle
28:23
Speaker 1: or SAP or whatever it is that you couldn't even
28:27
Speaker 1: do an upgrade with. You have to beg and plead
28:30
Speaker 1: with God, please do not turn off that system. Don't
28:35
Speaker 1: have a power outage, don't have a batup up, because
28:38
Speaker 1: if they were to log back in and that system
28:40
Speaker 1: kicked on, they would probably have five thousand Microsoft hot
28:44
Speaker 1: packs go into that system and it would kill the environment.
28:47
Speaker 1: And so these folks just go, oh, it's fine. We
28:51
Speaker 1: live with this every day. We can work with them,
28:53
Speaker 1: like pretty soon, you're not gonna be they're working on
28:57
Speaker 1: anything anymore because it's gonna be so bad.
29:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're working with the hope and pray method of
29:02
Speaker 2: you know, is this going to continue to work tomorrow?
29:05
Speaker 2: They've got some they've got some poor person sitting in
29:08
Speaker 2: a closet that their job, their only job is to
29:11
Speaker 2: make sure that it stays on and doesn't you know,
29:14
Speaker 2: have a hiccup and you know, keep the band aids coming,
29:18
Speaker 2: you know, the duct tape, the paper clip, whatever they
29:21
Speaker 2: have to do to maguy or this system to keep
29:23
Speaker 2: it running, as opposed to just biting the bullet and saying, hey,
29:28
Speaker 2: we have to modernize. This technology is not going to
29:31
Speaker 2: support our goals anymore. This technology is not going to
29:35
Speaker 2: allow us to achieve the you know whatever, you know,
29:40
Speaker 2: whatever goals they have in plan, whatever plans they have,
29:42
Speaker 2: whatever sales, they're not going to be able to do it.
29:46
Speaker 2: And I don't always understand the mentality. I mean, I
29:50
Speaker 2: guess when it comes to business, there are big decisions
29:52
Speaker 2: that have to be made and sometimes, you know, you
29:55
Speaker 2: do have to cut some corners in order to make
29:59
Speaker 2: ends meet the end of the day. But you know,
30:02
Speaker 2: this is when we're when we're talking about strategic change.
30:05
Speaker 2: This is not just I need to change this light bulb.
30:09
Speaker 2: This is we need to have something working differently in
30:13
Speaker 2: order to enable something bigger than what we're already doing.
30:17
Speaker 2: And I wonder how often companies even look at it
30:22
Speaker 2: in that light, you know, if they're if their leadership
30:26
Speaker 2: looks at it in that light of this is this
30:28
Speaker 2: is not something we have to do because X is
30:30
Speaker 2: broken and why we'll fix it. It's if we don't
30:33
Speaker 2: do this, we can't get to Z at all.
30:35
Speaker 1: Correct. It's it's a business transformation for most of these
30:38
Speaker 1: organizations because they're going from something so old in our kit.
30:42
Speaker 1: Remember we used to have the old green screens running
30:45
Speaker 1: all over my father's company, and then all of a
30:47
Speaker 1: sudden we started getting X eighty six laptops or desktops
30:51
Speaker 1: and people were like, Okay, what do we do? Well,
30:54
Speaker 1: now we're transforming the business. It's amazing when they went
30:57
Speaker 1: from the old to the new and to be able
30:59
Speaker 1: to interact with each other and the talk to the
31:01
Speaker 1: front of the house warehouse to the back of the
31:03
Speaker 1: whare else and the distributes, well, that's kind of the
31:06
Speaker 1: transformation activities that we're doing now. We're doing from the
31:09
Speaker 1: bare metal or in a virtualized world and we're now
31:12
Speaker 1: going to cloud based worlds with AI and activities wrapped
31:15
Speaker 1: around it. And that business transformation is key and to
31:21
Speaker 1: be able to move them into the next level of
31:24
Speaker 1: their business now is it going to happen overnight. No,
31:27
Speaker 1: and nobody should ever expect that. But at the end
31:29
Speaker 1: of the day, you've got to start making those baby steps.
31:32
Speaker 1: I call it stair stepping. You need to take the
31:35
Speaker 1: first step, then you need to take that second step. Now,
31:38
Speaker 1: you might have a little delay in there because maybe
31:40
Speaker 1: your financials didn't work out that year, or maybe you've
31:42
Speaker 1: got somebody that left the organization, or maybe you guys
31:45
Speaker 1: haven't come together as an organization to be able to
31:48
Speaker 1: go that way. But keep keep climbing, keep climbing. That's
31:54
Speaker 1: all you need to do, is keep climbing. Or as
31:56
Speaker 1: a door used to say, just keep swimming. Keep Yes,
32:01
Speaker 1: I'm a two time girl dad, so I know those songs.
32:05
Speaker 1: My heart up here.
32:08
Speaker 2: So for some of those supply chain executives that are
32:12
Speaker 2: in our audience, what signs should they be looking for
32:15
Speaker 2: to indicate that there is that deeper misalignment and overcome it?
32:23
Speaker 1: So how to find it? First of all, if you're
32:25
Speaker 1: working in an environment and your eyes are wide open
32:30
Speaker 1: and you're able to see what's going on on a
32:34
Speaker 1: daily basis, if you're involved in your having those dilemmas
32:37
Speaker 1: and those problems, and those activities, and you truly are
32:42
Speaker 1: invested and engaged with those activities. That's the things that
32:47
Speaker 1: you need to understand to step back document document, document, communicate, communicate, communicate,
32:56
Speaker 1: and talk through a plan, process and activity wrapped around
33:02
Speaker 1: that specific understanding that you see where there's an issue.
33:07
Speaker 1: As long as I find this to be quite soothing
33:11
Speaker 1: when executives go to other executives and they've got that
33:15
Speaker 1: fully documented out, this is the pain, this is what
33:19
Speaker 1: we're doing, what we could do be doing about it,
33:23
Speaker 1: How we can fix this, even to the point where
33:25
Speaker 1: maybe they've got a cost structure with a timeline cost
33:28
Speaker 1: of the upgrade, cost of an implementation, retraining of staff
33:33
Speaker 1: members as part of that organization first, second, third shifts,
33:38
Speaker 1: and to be able to present that in an executive
33:41
Speaker 1: manner to the board or to the executive and then
33:44
Speaker 1: also being able to go down the funnel. Hey, guys,
33:48
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about something i've seen.
33:50
Speaker 1: You're the you're the shipping manager, or you're the warehouse manager,
33:53
Speaker 1: or you're this and you're that, or you're the district
33:55
Speaker 1: trucking and distribution site. I still remember to this day,
34:00
Speaker 1: I was doing a project for the folks over at
34:04
Speaker 1: Cohler Corporation in Coler, Wisconsin, and had a great relationship
34:08
Speaker 1: with different individuals at different levels. And then because I
34:11
Speaker 1: actually it was actually one of my first jobs as
34:13
Speaker 1: a kid in high school was working with Coler because
34:16
Speaker 1: I lived in that area of the country. And then
34:19
Speaker 1: as I started to see and watch and talk with people,
34:22
Speaker 1: went to college, went through my SAPs and came back
34:25
Speaker 1: and asked me to do another project there. And it
34:28
Speaker 1: was great because a lot of those people were still there.
34:30
Speaker 1: And I watched one executive who was there. His name
34:33
Speaker 1: is Jim and he would talk intelligently to the executives,
34:38
Speaker 1: and he would talk intelligently to the people that worked
34:41
Speaker 1: on his shifts and throughout, and he would get people's
34:44
Speaker 1: buy ins and communications. And now he's a VP over
34:49
Speaker 1: at the organization before he gets to retire in a
34:51
Speaker 1: couple of years because we still keep in touch. But
34:54
Speaker 1: it's amazing if you communicate those ideas and thoughts up
34:58
Speaker 1: and down to your staff and to your executives, there's
35:02
Speaker 1: so much that can happen because now you get people
35:04
Speaker 1: buying in. Oh, jimmy right, you know, I noticed this,
35:08
Speaker 1: but I really didn't think about it. And what if
35:10
Speaker 1: we did this, this and this, and now all of
35:11
Speaker 1: a sudden, you've got somebody who's working the night shift
35:15
Speaker 1: or the day shift that is integrated interacting with you,
35:18
Speaker 1: and you take some of that information up. And then
35:20
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, David Kohler comes walking in and says, hey, Jim,
35:24
Speaker 1: you were making reference to this guy. Who is this guy?
35:27
Speaker 1: And can I talk to him? Well? Okay, Sen David Kohler,
35:31
Speaker 1: the chairman and CEO of Coler Corporation, is walking around
35:33
Speaker 1: the distribution center and he's looking for Ellen who made
35:37
Speaker 1: these comments and ideas, and they start to have a conversation. Well,
35:42
Speaker 1: holy cow, all of a sudden, that's getting some traction
35:45
Speaker 1: communication and the idea to be able to make really
35:50
Speaker 1: strong change to an organization of even that side. That
35:55
Speaker 1: could be that could save them an hour's worth of
35:57
Speaker 1: work every day, or it could help a customer with
36:00
Speaker 1: the distribution activities that they've got. Those are the things
36:04
Speaker 1: that I think are and this is going to sound tacky,
36:07
Speaker 1: but it's beautiful. It's beautiful to see the communication and
36:13
Speaker 1: the changes that happen just from those types of conversations.
36:17
Speaker 2: I absolutely agree, and I've talked about this on another
36:21
Speaker 2: episode in another interview. But there was a book that
36:25
Speaker 2: was very popular around twenty years ago. It was called
36:28
Speaker 2: Gung Ho and it was you know, talking about you know,
36:31
Speaker 2: motivation at work, and you know, one of the chapters was,
36:35
Speaker 2: you know, people want to feel important. They want to
36:38
Speaker 2: feel that their work matters at the end of the day.
36:42
Speaker 2: And what you're speaking to is exactly that, making sure
36:45
Speaker 2: that everyone believes that the work that they're doing matters
36:49
Speaker 2: at the end of the day to the company, to
36:51
Speaker 2: the bottom line, to the world at large, whatever, that
36:55
Speaker 2: it's not just going in and spending their eight hours
36:58
Speaker 2: away from their home, away from what they rather be doing,
37:02
Speaker 2: just to earn a paycheck. You know, if the work
37:04
Speaker 2: that they're doing has some meaning, then they're more apt
37:09
Speaker 2: to pay attention to it and to care and be
37:12
Speaker 2: there and aligned when there does need to be a change.
37:16
Speaker 1: One hundred percent agree, people want to, even if it's
37:20
Speaker 1: just for one day out of a year, feel important
37:23
Speaker 1: and that their opinion and their work matters. If you
37:28
Speaker 1: make everyone in your organization know that they truly do
37:33
Speaker 1: matter to the bottom line and to the organization, even
37:36
Speaker 1: if once a year you're shaking a hand kissing babies,
37:39
Speaker 1: telling them how great they are, and showing them that
37:43
Speaker 1: they true. And it's funny, it's not even about the money.
37:46
Speaker 1: People don't care about the money. Once they get a
37:48
Speaker 1: handshake from a CEO or from somebody who's part of
37:51
Speaker 1: the executive team, thank you for what you're doing for
37:55
Speaker 1: the company.
37:56
Speaker 2: We appreciate you even more so when it's something you
38:00
Speaker 2: know specific to say that idea you had was really great.
38:03
Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought it to our attention. You know,
38:06
Speaker 2: that's that's a wonderful thing. And I think that that
38:09
Speaker 2: kind of brings this to to my next point, which is,
38:13
Speaker 2: you know, when we when we think of leadership, we
38:16
Speaker 2: think of control. They're the ones who are in control
38:19
Speaker 2: of the business decisions. They're the ones who are in
38:22
Speaker 2: control of the direction that the company is going to go.
38:25
Speaker 2: They're in charge of, you know, all these different strategic issues.
38:29
Speaker 2: But when they seed some of that, when they let
38:32
Speaker 2: that mask of control drop and allow themselves to consider
38:38
Speaker 2: alternate approaches, alternate opinions, then it becomes an adaptability. And
38:45
Speaker 2: so that's shifting that mindset from controlling the outcome to
38:50
Speaker 2: building a system that can adapt to the changes that
38:54
Speaker 2: the system encounters.
38:57
Speaker 1: Ellen, you are speaking directly to someone who actually just
39:03
Speaker 1: watched a movie a couple of months ago about the
39:05
Speaker 1: gentleman who created the flaming hot cheeto. I don't know
39:10
Speaker 1: if you've seen this on Netflix. It's a kind of
39:12
Speaker 1: a documentary kind of thing. The CEO Freedo A Corporation
39:17
Speaker 1: sent a letter to every employee, act like the CEO
39:23
Speaker 1: of our company and anything that you see, you do
39:27
Speaker 1: you be a part of. Because he had walked through
39:29
Speaker 1: a part of the company and it was dirty and this,
39:32
Speaker 1: and so he sent out this. Well, this gentleman, he
39:35
Speaker 1: calls himself a Somebody keeps calling them a janitor, but
39:39
Speaker 1: he calls himself sanitation control. He had built slurry. It's
39:46
Speaker 1: called slurri. It's the flavoring they put on in these
39:48
Speaker 1: different FreeDOS and Doritos and all that kind of stuff.
39:51
Speaker 1: While he had built that or created that, spread it
39:54
Speaker 1: on Fredo's and people just loved it back in his
39:57
Speaker 1: Latino communities and other areas. So he sent a letter
40:02
Speaker 1: to the chairman and CEO of Freedom A Corporation. Didn't
40:05
Speaker 1: getting so he calls the office and because of that
40:10
Speaker 1: CEO empowering the individuals within his company. We now have
40:17
Speaker 1: Flaming Hut, Cheetos and Flaming Hut and now he is
40:21
Speaker 1: an advisor directly to the CEO about product and about
40:26
Speaker 1: how to move the flaming slurry. And he became a character,
40:33
Speaker 1: well a real life character that now is got a
40:36
Speaker 1: movie and other stuff. And it's when you empower your
40:39
Speaker 1: people to be able to make the changes within your
40:43
Speaker 1: organization and offer that insight and advice, that's when the
40:47
Speaker 1: magic happens. Because we work in a supply chain industry
40:51
Speaker 1: and an ecosystem of ERPs and activities. If we empower
40:57
Speaker 1: and that organization empowers, we're letting them open up their
41:01
Speaker 1: eyes and open up their ears to other activities that
41:04
Speaker 1: are happening and around those projects and activities, and now
41:08
Speaker 1: they're willing to speak freely about that. That's that's where
41:13
Speaker 1: the magic is happening. And that's where we get our
41:15
Speaker 1: flaming hot FreeDOS or Cheetos are yeah, flaming how cheetos
41:19
Speaker 1: I believe they're called.
41:20
Speaker 2: I mean, that's informational gold to an organization to have
41:24
Speaker 2: to have employees who are looking at the work that
41:27
Speaker 2: they do and the work that the company does or
41:29
Speaker 2: the product that the company creates, and looking at it
41:32
Speaker 2: with that critical eye and saying, how could this be better?
41:35
Speaker 2: How could this be done differently? How could this be
41:37
Speaker 2: more efficient? Because one person can't be expected to come
41:40
Speaker 2: up with every single possible, you know, answer to every
41:45
Speaker 2: question or problem. And these are the people who are
41:48
Speaker 2: who are doing the work a lot of the time,
41:49
Speaker 2: so surely they have some insight. But when we're asking
41:54
Speaker 2: executors to do this, it is a bit of a
41:57
Speaker 2: step outside their comfort zone because they, you know what,
42:00
Speaker 2: they got to the positions they are in because they
42:02
Speaker 2: are very good at you know, control, They're very good
42:05
Speaker 2: at that strategic mindset. So what can they do to
42:11
Speaker 2: model some of that cultural change to drive that? Aside
42:15
Speaker 2: from just listening to employees. I mean we've we've had that,
42:18
Speaker 2: We've got our freeolay, you know, back to your your
42:22
Speaker 2: Disney movie ratitui if anyone can cook. So when when
42:30
Speaker 2: we're looking to make some of these larger strategic changes,
42:34
Speaker 2: we're looking at these legacy systems, these erp systems, these
42:37
Speaker 2: things that we know have to change in order to
42:40
Speaker 2: keep up with not only to keep up with the competition,
42:44
Speaker 2: but to enable strategic realignment toward new goals in in
42:52
Speaker 2: the time that we're in because you know, business is
42:55
Speaker 2: cut throat out there. So in some of these legacy
42:58
Speaker 2: heavy environments where we're we're looking at older systems, older
43:02
Speaker 2: ways of doing things. How can we drive that cultural
43:05
Speaker 2: change from the executive level.
43:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really starts from the top. And I'll give
43:12
Speaker 1: you a personal example. I was very fortunate I got
43:15
Speaker 1: to work for the Atlantic Committee for the Olympic Games
43:18
Speaker 1: a KAG and the chairman and CEO was Billy Payne.
43:24
Speaker 1: Billy Payne is an incredible executive in the Georgia market,
43:29
Speaker 1: run multiple companies. He's used to be the chairman of
43:33
Speaker 1: Augusta National at one point in time. He's now retired
43:36
Speaker 1: from there. Just an incredible, incredible man and everything started
43:42
Speaker 1: with him, and so from the communication came straight down
43:47
Speaker 1: from him. He wanted individuals all the way down to
43:51
Speaker 1: those people that were going to be at the locations
43:55
Speaker 1: for the Olympics in Atlanta to be involved with activities
43:59
Speaker 1: help each It's got to start from the top, and
44:02
Speaker 1: so as part of that, you need to make sure
44:05
Speaker 1: as an executive you are laying the foundation in the
44:10
Speaker 1: groundwork for the activities that are going to happen within
44:13
Speaker 1: either your company as a founder, your company as a CEO,
44:18
Speaker 1: and then you have to make sure that those individuals
44:21
Speaker 1: one level underneath you take that baton and you must
44:25
Speaker 1: run with it. And if they're not, bring them back
44:28
Speaker 1: together and understand this is my directive. I want this
44:33
Speaker 1: done these individuals, like I have one hundred and seventy
44:36
Speaker 1: three staff members around the world. It comes down from me.
44:40
Speaker 1: It comes down from my How can I say this nicely?
44:46
Speaker 1: I am the leader of this company, and I want
44:50
Speaker 1: everybody underneath me to lead as if they were me.
44:54
Speaker 1: I want them to talk with your customers. I want
44:57
Speaker 1: you to talk with your partners. I want you to
44:59
Speaker 1: commune with each other. I'm constantly on teams and zooms
45:04
Speaker 1: and those things because I want those individuals to know
45:07
Speaker 1: that they can have a direct conversation with me. I
45:10
Speaker 1: will talk with anybody and everybody on my team at
45:13
Speaker 1: any time of the day. Mind you, it gets a
45:15
Speaker 1: little hard when they're in indiot in Brazil. I'm on
45:19
Speaker 1: the West Coast at one time. But it's got to
45:22
Speaker 1: start from that person up on top. I don't care
45:24
Speaker 1: who they are. Lead and ask them to be there
45:29
Speaker 1: holding hands with me to lead the organization to get
45:32
Speaker 1: the numbers, and then as part of the project team,
45:36
Speaker 1: I give them the authority to make decisions on the
45:39
Speaker 1: project teams. My project managers, they know how these projects
45:44
Speaker 1: need to run, and I fully expect them. If there's
45:47
Speaker 1: somebody that is slacking on their team, they have the
45:50
Speaker 1: authority to bring in a manager along with them and
45:53
Speaker 1: that individual to have a conversation, why is your work
45:57
Speaker 1: falling behind her? What can we do to help you?
46:01
Speaker 1: Do you need somebody to assist you in these activities?
46:04
Speaker 1: Have you not done this type of activity before that
46:07
Speaker 1: we need to either train you on those activities because
46:10
Speaker 1: you told this either you could handle it or couldn't.
46:13
Speaker 1: And we have to make those decisions very quickly, very rapidly,
46:16
Speaker 1: make the decisions to make the betterment of projects, of
46:19
Speaker 1: the infrastructure, of the applications of the partners. Make those
46:24
Speaker 1: decisions quickly and move it forward so we can be
46:27
Speaker 1: successful together as a client, as a company and make
46:32
Speaker 1: those decisions happen.
46:33
Speaker 2: I'm reminded of and I've seen it around the internet
46:37
Speaker 2: a number of times over over the years, and it's
46:40
Speaker 2: if you give each letter of the alphabet a numeric
46:43
Speaker 2: value from A to Z, and you spell out the
46:46
Speaker 2: words you know, knowledge or education or all of these
46:50
Speaker 2: other words, and they're very important. They add up to
46:54
Speaker 2: a lot, but the one that adds up to one
46:55
Speaker 2: hundred percent is attitude. And that's what I hear coming
47:00
Speaker 2: from you. That it takes that mindset of being open,
47:05
Speaker 2: being open to other people's opinions, but also being open
47:09
Speaker 2: to possibly hearing something negative or hearing something critical in
47:16
Speaker 2: order to again use that. You know, the rising tide
47:20
Speaker 2: lifts all ships. So as long as we're all on
47:22
Speaker 2: the same team trying for the same thing, there has
47:26
Speaker 2: to be that level of openness.
47:29
Speaker 1: Absolutely agree. I will take every piece of criticism that
47:33
Speaker 1: anybody on my team gives me. I've got a CIO
47:36
Speaker 1: who loves it criticize me because I'm always trying new
47:39
Speaker 1: things with marketing and promotions and activities. So I feel
47:45
Speaker 1: that everybody in the organization should have that. And if
47:48
Speaker 1: you're on a project team, everybody needs to know that
47:51
Speaker 1: it's not about hurting you or hurting your feelings. It's
47:55
Speaker 1: about the project. It's about getting the best results for
47:58
Speaker 1: the best activities to be able to move forward. So
48:02
Speaker 1: take the criticals actually the better one. I don't want
48:04
Speaker 1: everybody kissing my box side, patting me on the back.
48:06
Speaker 1: Oh Chris here, janius, Oh you know, write another book
48:09
Speaker 1: about that. Oh you four times seventeen blah blah blah blah. No,
48:15
Speaker 1: hit me in the arm and say, look you ding dong?
48:17
Speaker 1: What do you Why are you doing that? Why are
48:19
Speaker 1: you saying that? I'm like, well, I'm saying that because
48:22
Speaker 1: I did this, this, this, and this, I validated this,
48:24
Speaker 1: this is what are you doing as part of the
48:26
Speaker 1: project and this, this, and this. Make sure that you're critical,
48:30
Speaker 1: but make sure you're honest in your criticality. Don't just
48:34
Speaker 1: be critical because you're a critical person. Be critical because
48:37
Speaker 1: there's really some criticism behind it that needs to be
48:40
Speaker 1: adjusted and fixed.
48:42
Speaker 2: All right, It's clear that strategic misalignment isn't just a
48:46
Speaker 2: planning issue. It's a silent force that can compromise your
48:49
Speaker 2: entire supply chain if left unchecked. But with the right mindset,
48:53
Speaker 2: cross functional clarity, and a willingness to challenge legacy systems,
48:57
Speaker 2: leaders can turn complexity into a competitive edge.
49:02
Speaker 1: Yes, stay cant.
49:03
Speaker 2: Thank you so much Chris for joining us today and
49:07
Speaker 2: sharing your perspectives.
49:09
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you all, and I appreciate and I look
49:12
Speaker 1: forward to having conversations with anybody anytime they just want
49:15
Speaker 1: to chit chat. And if they think that my opinion
49:18
Speaker 1: is inferior or wrong, I'm willing to talk about it.
49:24
Speaker 2: To our listeners. If you found today's episode valuable, be
49:26
Speaker 2: sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss another.
49:29
Speaker 2: And if you're interested in being a guest on our show,
49:31
Speaker 2: you can reach me at podcast at meiboch dot com
49:34
Speaker 2: at any time. Thanks for joining us, and remember true
49:38
Speaker 2: adaptability starts with alignment.