To advance your career, make yourself uncomfortable
If you want to advance your career, you will need to come to terms with your discomfort zones by first admitting that you have them and then by taking action to better understand them.
Do you have a comfortable pair of old shoes in your closet? You know what I'm talking about: your favorite pair, the shoes that fit like no other. We all have a pair of those shoes, and some of us have more than one.
Now think about your top skills and talents, and about the way you work. Are there activities and thought processes that come naturally to you, that feel comfortable and familiar—just like your favorite shoes? In my company's coaching practice, we refer to these psychological "old shoes" as "comfort zones." Comfort zones are the areas in our professional lives where we feel the most confident, knowledgeable, competent, and motivated. They are the areas where we have experienced the most success. As a supply chain management professional, your comfort zones might include analytical activities, negotiating with suppliers, and executing cost-reduction plans.
It's natural to tend to migrate toward your comfort zones. After all, that is where you have real influence and a demonstrated track record. However, focusing on comfort zones to the exclusion of less familiar areas carries a risk: you may stop learning and unintentionally limit your career options. It is also likely that you eventually will become bored and that your professional life will become less satisfying.
That is why it's important to devote more attention to areas where you may be less comfortable and confident. Uncomfortable areas might include: sales and customer interaction, financial discussions, people development, team building, and business strategy. You may also be uncomfortable around certain personalities, especially those that are different from your own. For instance, you might strongly prefer to collaborate with analytical, somewhat introverted individuals and shy away from more conceptual and emotive people.
These "discomfort" zones can seem mysterious, awkward, or even scary. When we are conscious of them, we may feel uninterested or even resistant to exploring them. When we are not conscious of them, they become "blind spots," or weaknesses we are unaware of. Since we don't know blind spots exist, we must rely on people who know us well and are willing to be brutally honest to point them out.
Addressing discomfort zones
People tend to avoid discomfort zones because they create a feeling of vulnerability. Most people, in fact, engage in this or some other form of denial because they don't always like to admit that there are things they don't know or understand.
But if you want to advance your career, you will need to come to terms with your discomfort zones by first admitting that you have them and then by taking action to better understand them. You may even need to force yourself into what feels like foreign territory.
This doesn't mean that you must aim for the same level of competency in uncomfortable areas as you have in your comfort zones. Rather, it means that you should work toward achieving greater understanding and mastery than you have today. It also implies the need to build relationships with people who are willing to teach you what they know.
The following true story offers an example of how moving beyond your comfort zones can strengthen your qualifications and capabilities. We worked with a vice president of supply chain who came to realize that strategy development was a blind spot for him. He wasn't aware of it until it came up for discussion during a coaching session. "You don't seem to be at all visible when corporate-level strategies are being developed and debated," his coach said. "How do you manage to avoid them?" After some reflection, our client recognized that he had avoided participating in strategic initiatives for most of his career. He had chosen instead to make his subordinates available to provide subject-matter expertise when needed, that way he could stay in the shadows. Moreover, his uncanny ability to develop and execute tactical plans actually insulated him from exposure to strategy initiatives. He was seen as a solid "battlefield officer" who wasn't interested in the more conceptual activity of strategic planning.
Our client decided that he needed to eliminate this blind spot if he was to achieve his career goals. The first thing he did was to pick up the telephone, call his company's chief marketing officer (CMO) and ask for a meeting. Over lunch, they discussed the coming year's strategic planning cycle. He asked many questions about the process and how he might participate. The meeting went so well that the CMO offered to be his "strategy mentor." Ultimately, the supply chain executive's participation in the strategic planning process led to a significant insight regarding the configuration of his company's value chain, which earned him the right to present a portion of the strategic plan to the board of directors. All of these experiences helped him to become a multidimensional executive who achieved greater visibility within his company.
Solicit feedback, then act
Here's a simple exercise that will help you to identify your comfort zones and discomfort zones. Take out a sheet of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle of the page. Title the left side "Comfort Zones" and the right side "Discomfort Zones." Now begin brainstorming what should be in each column. If you are like most people, you will identify your comfort zones fairly quickly; uncomfortable areas are more challenging to define.
When you believe your list is complete, think of three people you could talk to (confidentially) about your thoughts. In the next 30 days, sit down with each of those individuals and solicit their "unvarnished" feedback on the items you placed in both columns. Ask: "Does this look right based on what you know about me? Is anything missing?"
Once you have identified some blind spots, choose one you believe is important and find an ally who has the expertise, experience, and interest in helping you to overcome that weakness. You will be surprised how generous most executives will be with their time and support. Leaders like to coach others.
Make a commitment today to "break in a new pair of shoes" by spending more time outside of your comfort zones. While it may be difficult for you in the beginning, the payoff will be well worth the effort.
Supply Chain Xchange Executive Editor Susan Lacefield moderates a panel discussion with Supply Chain Xchange's Outstanding Women in Supply Chain Award Winners (from left to right) Annette Danek-Akey, Sherry Harriman, Leslie O'Regan, and Ammie McAsey.
Supply Chain Xchange recognized four women who have made significant contributions to the supply chain management profession today with its second annual Outstanding Women in Supply Chain Award. The award winners include Annette Danek-Akey, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Barnes & Noble; Sherry Harriman, Senior Vice President of Logistics and Supply Chain for Academy Sports + Outdoors; Leslie O’Regan, Director of Product Management for DC Systems & 3PLs at American Eagle Outfitters; and Ammie McAsey, Senior Vice President of Customer Distribution Experience for McKesson’s U.S. Pharmaceutical division.
Throughout their careers, these four supply chain executive have demonstrated strategic thinking, innovative problem solving, and effective leadership as well as a commitment to giving back to the profession.
The awards were presented at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) annual EDGE Conference in Nashville, Tenn. In addition to the awards presentation, the leaders discussed their leadership philosophies and career path during a panel discussion at the EDGE conference.
The surge of “nearshoring” supply chains from China to Mexico offers obvious benefits in cost, geography, and shipping time, as long as U.S. companies are realistic about smoothing out the challenges of the burgeoning trend, according to a panel today at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
Those challenges span a list including: developing infrastructure, weak security, manual processes, and shifting regulations, speakers said in a session titled “Nearshoring: Transforming Surface Transportation in the U.S.”
For example, a recent Mexican government rail expansion added lines to tourist destinations in Cancun instead of freight capacity in the Southwest, said panelist Edward Habe, Vice President of Mexico Sales, for Averitt. Truckload cargo inspections may rely on a single person looking at paper filings on the border, instead of a 24/7 online system, said Bob McCloskey, Director for Logistics and Distribution at Clarios, LLC. And business partners inside Mexico often have undisclosed tier-two, tier-three, and tier-four relationships that are difficult to track from the U.S., said Beth Kussatz, Manager of Northern American Network Design & Implementation, Deere & Co.
Still, dedicated companies can work with Mexican authorities, regulators, and providers to overcome those bottlenecks with clever solutions, the panelists agreed. “Don’t be afraid,” Habe said. “It just makes sense in today’s world, the local regionalization of manufacturing. It’s in our interest that this works.”
A quick reaction in the first 24 hours is critical for keeping your business running after a cyberattack, according to Estes Express Lines, the less than truckload (LTL) carrier whose computer systems were struck by hackers in October, 2023.
Immediately after discovering the breach, the company cut off their internet, called in a third-party information technology (IT) support team, and then used their only remaining tools—employees’ personal email and phone contacts—to start reaching out to their shipper clients. The message on Day One: even though the company was reduced to running the business with paper and pencil instead of computers, they were still picking up loads on time with trucks.
“Customers never want to hear bad news, but they really don’t want to hear bad news from someone other than you,” the company’s president and COO, Webb Estes, said in a session today at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
After five or six painful days, Estes transitioned from paper back to computers. But they continued sending clients daily video updates from their president, and putting their chief information officer on conference calls to answer specific questions.
Although lawyers had advised them not to be so open, the strategy worked. It took 19 days to get all computer systems running again, but at the end of the first month they had returned to 85% of their original client list, and now have 99% back, Estes said in the session called “Hackers are Always Probing: Cybersecurity Recovery and Prevention Lessons Learned.”
As the final hours tick away before a potential longshoreman’s strike begins at midnight on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, experts say the ripples of that move could roll across the entire U.S. supply chains for weeks.
While some of the nation’s largest retailers were able to pull their imports forward in recent weeks to soften the blow, “the average supply chain is ill-prepared for this,” Tom Nightingale, the former CEO of AFS Logistics, said in a panel discussion today at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
Despite that grim prognosis, a strike seems virtually unavoidable, CSCMP President & CEO Mark Baxa said from the stage. At latest report, the White House had declined to force the feuding parties back into arbitration through its executive power, and a voluntary last-minute session had failed to unite the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA)’s 45,000 union members with the United States Maritime Alliance that manages the 36 ports covered under their expiring contract.
The ultimate impact of a resulting strike will depend largely on how long it lasts, the panelists said. With a massive flow of 140,000 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) of shipping containers moving through the two coasts each week, each day of a strike will require 7 to 10 days of recovery for most types of goods, Nightingale said.
Shippers are desperately seeking coping mechanisms, but at this point the damage will add up fast, whether a strike lasts for an optimistic “option A” of just 48 to 72 hours, a pessimistic “Option B” of 7 to 10 days, or even longer, agreed Jon Monroe, president of Jon Monroe Consulting.
The first full day of CSCMP’s EDGE 2024 conference ended with the telling of a great American story.
Author and entrepreneur Fawn Weaver explained how she stumbled across the little-known story of Nathan “Nearest” Green and, in deciding to tell that story, launched the fastest-growing and most award-winning whiskey brand of the past five years—and how she also became the first African American woman to lead a major spirits company.
Weaver is CEO of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, a company she founded in 2016 and that is part of her larger private investment business, Grant Sidney, Inc. Weaver told the story of Uncle Nearest—as Nathan Green was known in his hometown of Lynchburg, Tenn.—to Agile Business Media & Events Chairman Mitch MacDonald, in a keynote interview Monday afternoon.
As it turns out, Green—who was born into slavery and freed after the Civil War—was the first master distiller for the Jack Daniel’s Whiskey brand. His story was well-known among the local descendants of both Daniel and Green, but a mystery in the larger world of bourbon and a missing piece of American history and culture. Through extensive research and interviews with descendants of the Daniel and Green families, Weaver discovered what she describes as a positive American story.
“I believed it was a story of love, honor, and respect,” she told MacDonald during the interview. “I believed it was a great American story.”
Weaver told the story in her best-selling book, Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest, and has channeled it into an even larger story with the founding of the brand. Today, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey is made at a 323-acre distillery in Shelbyville, Tenn.—the first distillery in U.S. history to commemorate an African American and the only major distillery in the world owned and operated by a Black person.
Weaver and MacDonald's wide-ranging discussion covered the barriers Weaver encountered in bringing the brand to life, her vision for where it’s headed, and her take on the supply chain—which she said she views as both a necessary cost of doing business and an opportunity.
“[It’s] an opportunity if you can move quickly,” she said, emphasizing a recent project to fast-track a new Uncle Nearest product in which collaborating with the company’s supply chain partners was vital.
Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey has earned more than 600 awards, including “World’s Best” by Whisky Magazine two years in a row, the “Double Gold” by San Francisco World Spirits Competition, and Wine Enthusiast’s “Spirit Brand of the Year.”
CSCMP’s EDGE 2024 runs through Wednesday, October 2, at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center in Nashville.