Tag Archives: Talent Management

Take Care of Your Best People or Someone Else Will

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Take care of your best people or someone else will.  I’m sure you have heard this saying many times; I know that I have.  How many of us really internalize the meaning to ensure that we are indeed doing everything we can to retain our very best people?

I have been writing a lot about people, competency and talent management over the last few months.  But nothing hit closer to home (no pun intended) than when my 24 year old millennial son quit his job last week for a new career opportunity.  The response he got was exactly what I expected but I was still dismayed nonetheless.  His immediate boss was shocked, hurt and told him he was making a big mistake. She also told him that he was unprofessional by not letting her know that he was looking for another job.  Huh?  His boss’s boss told him that since my son had given them two weeks’ notice he had two weeks to get him a promotion.  Sound familiar???

As a backdrop, my son was a high performing sales associate AND not shy (he gets the “not shy” part from his Mom).  He let his boss, her peers and her boss know for months that there were major issues in the way the sales associates were being managed starting with the VP (who knew no one by name and never left his office) to the Sales Managers who refused to juggle territories to make it more beneficial to long term employees (“we just don’t do that here”) to the Regional Manager who had other issues. Eight sales people left within an eight week timeframe.  My son’s boss is spending most of her time recruiting, recruiting and recruiting because her experienced people are walking out the door left and right.  Perhaps more time spent on retaining, retaining and retaining would curtail the need for recruiting. More retaining would result in less time and money spent on bringing new people in (which is extremely costly) and could result in more time spent on building customer relationships and increasing the bottom line.  It’s time for someone to realize that the old way of managing sales people just isn’t working.  Wake up people!!

The scenario I am illustrating is not only a real one but happens more often than we like.  I know numerous Supply Chain professionals that leave because promises made – “we are going to do more sourcing”, “we are going to lead the entire supply chain”, “we are going to provide you training to help increase your skills”, “we are going to help you manage your career”, “we are going to give you more exposure or more responsibility”- just never seem to happen.  There is nothing more frustrating than going to an organization where you believe you can make a real bottom line impact only to find yourself expediting P.O.s.  Sound familiar???

In many organizations the employees that get the most attention are those that are NOT doing their job as opposed to the ones that have real potential.  Why is that?  It just doesn’t make any sense?

I was recently at a conference and listened to Jeff Silver, the CEO of Coyote Logistics, speak.  His company is not only one of the fastest growing transportation and logistics companies in North America but has also won a number of awards for being one of the best workplaces as well.  Mr. Silver hires young professionals and provides them the training, tools and guidance they need to flourish and grow their careers.  There are no offices, except for HR and he knows all his employees by name.  My son has several friends that work there and they all feel like valued employees.  This is a talent management model to replicate.

To all those bosses out there that have forgotten that your best employees are your greatest asset and deserve to be nurtured and valued; consider yourself warned.  Employees that feel like they are being treated fairly (or more so) will give back to the company ten-fold.  Take this post  as a wake-up call to act now before someone else has the opportunity take care of your best and brightest.

Not realizing that your “stars” are out looking for another galaxy is almost as bad as forgetting your partner’s birthday . . . . . .

Join the conversation and give us your thoughts . . . . . .

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Could Supply Chain Skills Return America to Prosperity?

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mpower earthManufacturing in Asia (China, India, Indonesia, etc.) is no longer a slam dunk for U.S. companies.  In fact, according to an article by James R. Hagerty in the Wall Street Journal entitled Once Made in China:  Jobs Trickle Back to U.S. Plants, “after a 35% decline in the number of manufacturing jobs between 1998 and 2010, the tally has risen by 489,000 or 4.3% to 11.9 million.  In addition,  . . . . . .IHS Global Insight, an economic research firm, forecasts that the number of manufacturing jobs will climb 3.2% this year compared with a 1.6% increase in all jobs.”   At one time, moving manufacturing to China seemed like a no-brainer because the labor rate differential was so great but “Asian wages have surged over recent years and the wage gap between the U.S. and China has narrowed.  In addition, as some of our most well-respected companies have stumbled due to the risk associated with manufacturing a half a world away, many U.S. companies are contemplating “reshoring”.   Let’s face it, the drop in the U.S. dollar and sky rocketing oil prices have also made U.S. produced goods more competitive.

There are many factors to consider when deciding where to manufacture and the analysis required is not that easy.  You need to look at everything from taxes, regulations and currencies to culture, fair labor practices and quality/safety standards to supplier networks, skilled labor, infrastructure and everything in between.   Many global companies are still expanding production in Asia to specifically serve those fast-growing markets but are looking toward more regional strategies to serve North America.  That means that there can be a significant opportunity to move production back to the U.S.    A survey of 105 companies by David Simchi-Levi, an engineering professor and supply chain expert at MIT, found that 39% were considering moving some manufacturing back to the U.S.  Those goods that are most likely to be “reshored” are heavy or bulky items where transportation costs are excessively high compared to the price or expensive items that require frequent changes (style, color, etc.) according to customer demand.    Which group within your organization should be in the best position to do the analysis AND facilitate getting this type of decision made?  This question is really a no-brainer for me – it is the Strategic Sourcing or Supply Chain function.

In one of my past blog posts titled Making America More Competitive Through our People, I explored the types of competencies required to make America more competitive.  These are the very competencies that every Strategic Sourcing and Supply Chain organization needs to have to really be successful.   While functional skills such as understanding the sourcing process, negotiating, contract development, etc. are important these are NOT the skills necessary to guide your company through this type of decision.  Strong strategic competencies such as:

  • problem solving
  • data analysis
  • collaboration
  • managing / leading change
  • project management
  • decision making
  • etc.

These are the skills that will allow your Sourcing / Supply Chain organization to play more of a leadership role in helping to determine whether can begin to “reshore” and return America to prosperity.

When I ran a Sourcing organization in a large financial institution a number of years ago I was determined to have a group that could be mistaken for the external consulting resources we had hired.  What I QUICKLY realized was NOT that the consultants were smarter but that they had formal training in all the strategic competencies I noted above.  Frankly, once that gap was closed (and we did close it) I had several people that eventually left to join some of the top consulting firms to help lead decisions such as “WHERE should products be manufactured?”

If you are looking to make your Sourcing / Supply Chain organization more valuable to your company and help drive critical decision making consider some of my comments…

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Next Practices with “Generation Next”

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The “Millennials” or often referred to as “Generation Next” are not only coming, they are already here. With this new generation 80 million strong (born between 1980 and 1995) and rapidly taking over from the baby boomers who are now pushing 60, we are being forced to look at Talent Management in a completely new way.  We must take a Next Practice approach to managing “Generation Next” or lose the war for talent altogether.  60 Minutes’ MorIey Safer did a report a few years ago entitled “The Millennials are Coming” where he discusses some of the challenges being faced in the workplace as we deal with this new generation of workers.  Safer says, “They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds. And if you persist in the belief you can, take your job and shove it”.  Where there are challenges there are also opportunities and Supply Chain leaders have the opportunity to turn these young, multitasking, tech-savvy, “I come first” workers into the most innovative, productive workforce of our time.

I was sitting in a conference yesterday listening to a number of speakers discuss the challenges we will all be facing with “Generation Next” (I have three sons in this category and am quite familiar with both the joys and challenges of this generation).  As I was listening, I was also thinking about all the Next Practices we (The Mpower Group “TMG”) have been trying to drive home to the Supply Chain community.  The thought occurred to me that some of the attributes of “Generation Next” may very well be THE personal attributes of a successful “Next Practice” Supply Chain professional:

  • Well educated
  • Hardworking
  • Self-confident
  • Team players / collaborators
  • Inclusive and diverse
  • Technology / social media savvy
  • Socially responsible
  • Information gatherers
  • Communicators

Would these not be the very attributes that would be required to attack the Supply Chain from a value focus as opposed to the traditional (they are not even familiar with this approach) TCO approach as Dalip Raheja laid out in “Friends, Romans and Countrymen – Lend Me Your Ears!  I Come to Bury TCO . . . . . .”  or tackle the Social Media issues as depicted by Crystal Jones in “Social Media and the Supply Chain”  or  help solve the adoption issues (has this generation not been the faster adopters of new solutions and technology?) as discussed in “Old MacDonald Was Right — It Is About E-I-E-I-O!”

In addition, “Generation Next” has very specific requirements as they are choosing a career. They are looking for the following:

  • Flexibility
  • Work / life balance
  • Direction / roadmap
  • Interesting work
  • Training & development
  • Career advancement
  • Frequent feedback
  • Coaching / mentoring

In other words, they are literally crying out for Competency Based Talent Management (“CBTM”) which is what I was at the conference to present AND TMG has had numerous posts on

In a nutshell, CBTM starts out by defining the demonstrable skills, knowledge and behaviors (competencies) required to be successful within your role to meet and/or exceed the goals and objectives of your organization – direction and roadmap.  It then uses those competencies as the foundation for an integrated talent management program:

  • Recruiting (you must have all the other elements in place or you will be forever recruiting)
  • Performance evaluation (frequent feedback focused on demonstrated competency)
  • Training & development (a MUST – focused on APPLICATION of new competencies)
  • Career Management (coaching / mentoring to advance your career)
  • Succession Planning (identification and movement of high potentials)

Interesting work – I may be a geek but I think Supply Chain is diverse, exciting, challenging and offers a wide range of career opportunities within and across organizations and industries!

As for flexibility, work / life balance and social responsibility – well, maybe we Baby Boomers could learn a few Next Practices from “Generation Next”.

If you don’t have a competency based talent management program in place for your organization you may want to step on the Next Practice bandwagon before “Generation Next” passes you by and goes to the Next company.

Join the conversation . . . . . .

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Who is the First Person You Should Hire (Part Deux) – Lutts and Mipps?

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A question that has been asked repeatedly after my last post is related to asking the right questions so I thought that instead of responding individually, I would use this week’s blog post to respond to it.

Those that have been through the Decision Making or Change Management training with The Mpower Group may well remember the experiential learning simulation called Lutts and Mipps. In essence, teams are handed lots of answers related to a classic time/distance/speed problem. The only challenge is dealing with Lutts and Mipps instead of miles and hours to put the participants in a different context. In addition, the teams are provided with way more information than they need. The challenge is in identifying that they were given two of the variables and they can easily solve for the third, in a total of about 45 seconds – IF THEY ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS! Invariably, there are many teams who never get to the answer in the allotted time(45 minutes) let alone the “solvable” time which is under a minute. And the ones that fail the most miserably? Glad you asked. It’s always the overly analytical types who start gathering the data and crunching it with all kinds of wild formulae. They are also the ones who insist that we must not have given them all the data that they needed! And this is after we have just finished a module on problem solving thinking!

We have been trained and trained and trained to gather as much data as possible and start crunching all kinds of analyses with that data – without determining the Key Questions we must address to arrive at the answer. And this rush to action is nothing but a fool’s errand. We would be far, far better served to make sure that we take the time at the beginning to make sure that we fully and deeply comprehend the question(s) we are trying to answer. Otherwise, how will you know that you are capturing the right data, the complete data, no extraneous data etc. etc.? Which is really what my two friends Pete (Drucker) and Al (Einstein) were essentially saying. And we have proven time and again to many of our clients that determining the right Key Question(s) is a critical and an absolute necessity. Unfortunately, we have all been conditioned to jump into action and time spent in reflection is often viewed as an unnecessary delay. Ironically, that reflection time and developing the right Key Questions and getting consensus on them is a powerful accelerator. And oh by the way, if you follow a structured methodology to develop the Key Questions, it is also a significant Change Management enabler as it builds tremendous credibility with your most reluctant stakeholders. In addition, it enables you to logically structure your argument and essentially serves as a blueprint for your presentation. Furthermore, you can also employ the technique of a reverse hypothesis to completely disarm your most stringent and die hard resistor(s)e.

I cannot begin to tell you the level of frustration that Lutts and Mipps generates in our workshops (which have included CEOs, EVPs, etc., etc.). This is clearly not an issue that distinguishes between seniority. Most people are pretty dumb founded when they realize that they wasted the entire allotted time when they could have had the answer in 45 seconds – if you invest the 3-4 minutes needed to develop the Key Questions. I wish I could show you some of the bizarre answers we have received from teams. How about your organization? How often does it take the time to make sure that it knows what the Key Questions are? And if not, do you think it should? If you would like to know more about any of the concepts mentioned in this post, give me a jingle.

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Who is the First Person You Should Hire?

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If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked that question-well you know how that story goes?  At every single conference across the globe I’ve spoken at, that question has been asked in some way, shape or form.  Almost every single client has asked that question or some variation thereof.  And the ones that did not should have asked that question.  You can think about it in terms of what is a critical role that you must fill in your Sourcing/Supply Chain organization or any other internal “support” function (IT, Finance, legal) or shared service to confirm my contemporary bona fides.

Before I give you the answer, we need to make sure that we are asking the right questions.  And for those of you that have been through TMG’s decision making module, that refrain will sound very familiar.  Remember the New England Journal of Medicine exercise where physicians were asked to evaluate patients for toncillectomies and they were wrong 49% of the time ?  Otherwise, we can turn to what a couple of my friends said.  Pete says “The most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question.” My friend Al goes on to say basically the same thing: “The formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”

Typically, would you agree that in most cases (not including yours of course):

  • Organizations struggle with convincing their stakeholders of the value they create?
  • They face strong resistance in expanding their influence or footprint?
  • Budget wars are an annual and the quarterly norm?
  • Savings numbers are always questioned for validity?

If any of the above is true, then the answer to the title becomes self-evident.  A Marketing person!  I kid you not.  In the first Sourcing organization I set up in my career 16 years ago we had a full time marketing person (Peter).  His job was to constantly market our services and we took a marketing approach to it.  This wasn’t about creating some spreadsheets or graphs of generated savings.  He had to make sure that we continued to expand our footprint inside the company.  To sell our value to the stakeholders.  To keep in constant communication with them.  To make sure we were getting repeat business.  To ensure that we were getting referral to other stakeholders.

Now I’m sure that you are doing all of the above but I’m talking about most of the other organizations.  We have not seen  a true marketing focus being applied to this effort and I’m always surprised by that.  Especially given the tools available today.  It does not necessarily mean that you need to have a full time dedicated resource but you do need to fulfill that role.  So next time you are sitting in a budget meeting being asked one more time to take another haircut, you may want to think about your marketing effort.  Oh, Pete is Peter Drucker and Al is Albert Einstein.  Let me know if you would like more details.

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