The end of the year is a natural time to give thanks, exchange gifts, and make resolutions. Most of those resolutions involve doing more, like exercising more, volunteering more, or spending more time with the family. While all of these are worthy resolutions, most won't be kept. By February 1, they will be a distant memory.
Often, that's because most of us simply add our new commitments to a workload that is already heavy. We trick ourselves into believing that we can always do more. But perhaps what we really need is to stop doing more and start thinking more. To be successful, we need to take a moment and question everything we are doing. We need to stop and ask ourselves: Where am I going? What is most important? Where should I really focus my time? What should I stop doing?
Stop "fighting fires"
When reviewing goals for my clients, I generally see a conspicuous absence of longer-term goals and plans. I am not talking about 10-year or even five-year time horizons. I'm referring to plans for the next 24 to 30 months. Clients will say that they don't have time to develop longer-term goals and plans; they are too busy executing their day-to-day responsibilities. However, what could be more important than knowing where you are going in your business and career?
Work life can seem like a never-ending series of mini-crises, interruptions, and distractions. We become entangled in handling perceived "emergencies," which in reality aren't truly crises. In fact these activities can often be delegated or delayed without the world coming to an end; in other words, the consequences would be minor, or at least manageable. But here is the difficult part: Most of us like the adrenaline rush of "putting out fires"—solving those immediate emergencies. They make us feel needed; they are exciting.
If you are spending most of your time handling emergencies, when do you find the time to think about longer-term plans for your organization and career? When do you find the time to sit down with your people, coaching and developing them? When do you find the time to lead?
Consider this New Year's resolution: "This year I will spend at least 50 percent of my time on value-added and nonemergency-related activities." That transition from putting out fires to operating thoughtfully with a strategic plan that includes how to deal with exceptional situations can be difficult. The activities of planning and setting goals lack the short-term excitement of handling emergencies. But remember that in the long term, they will help you get where you want to go and not just where the "wildfires" have driven you.
To resist the temptation of succumbing to time-consuming emergencies, recognize that you are more effective if you spend your time on the most important areas first. You need to schedule this time on your calendar. Make it a real commitment. And during that time, you need to just say no to the things that get in the way of accomplishing that deep thinking and planning.
Stop distractions
One of the things you should just say no to is distractions. Some of the biggest, most "urgent" distractions are e-mail and phone calls. They waste time not because you respond to them but because you respond to them as they come in. When you do this, you stop the momentum of other important tasks that require focus and thought. During your value-added, long-term planning time, stop the distractions. Put your phone on "do not disturb." Put the mobile device on "silent" in a drawer.
Instead, attend to e-mails and calls at specific times during the day, and not during your planning and thinking time. You will still return phone calls and e-mails several times per day, just not as they come in. Otherwise they will trickle in all day and interrupt your concentration.
How long should this slot of scheduled uninterrupted time last? It is generally believed that you can retain a high level of performance and focus for 40 to 90 minutes at a time. After 40 to 90 minutes, take a short break. You can engage in an unessential task if it keeps you connected or gives you pleasure. This might involve grabbing a cup of coffee or chatting with a co-worker. You will come back refreshed and ready to refocus.
Stop multitasking
When working on long-term planning, you should also just say "no" to multitasking. When you multitask, you may feel like you are doing more, but in reality, you are probably not doing any of the tasks well. The idea that multitasking is efficient has now been debunked. We need only look at our own performance to see that when we try to focus on more than one thing, we do none well. How many times have you lost track of the conversation because you were looking at your computer? How often have staff meetings droned on because the focus and energy in the room was divided by participants multitasking on their handhelds? Like the old saying goes, "Listen and silent have the same letters for a reason."
You need to give your planning time the same attention—without interruptions—that it would receive if you were meeting with a career coach or mentor. Frequently, when I start working with new clients, the first conversations are transforming. When the focus is solely on their career and goals, they get deeply engaged and animated. They can finally say things about their plans, and have them heard, validated, and sometimes challenged. You need to give your own planning time that same focus and full participation.
Not multitasking is just as crucial in our personal lives. You cannot have "quality time" if you are multitasking. If we are paying attention to what we are doing, the family knows it and appreciates it. Do one thing, do it well, and move on.
When you realize that setting goals and planning your work is the most important task you have, everything else will fall into place. Once you know what your long-term goals are, you are better able to focus on what needs to be done now, and in what order. When you take away unnecessary work and distractions, you get more time for those important tasks. Most of all, when you focus—when you stop multitasking—your work speed and quality improve. So this year, resolve to just say "no."
We may be living in a world full of technology, but strategy and focus remain the top priorities when it comes to managing a business and its supply chains. So says Roberto Isaias, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer for toy manufacturing and entertainment company Mattel.
Isaias emphasized the point during his keynote presentation on day two of EDGE 2024, a supply chain conference sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), being held in Nashville this week. He described Mattel’s journey to transform its business and its supply chain amid surging demand for Barbie-branded items following the success of the Barbie movie last year.
Isaias discussed the transformation on two fronts: Commercially, through the revitalization of its brands that began years ago, and logistically, through a supply chain strategy focused on effectiveness and cost leadership.
Today, Mattel makes millions of toys and is steadily moving beyond the toy aisle with its franchise mindset, becoming a major entertainment company as well. Isaias told the audience Mattel currently has two films in production and 14 others in development, and its television studios business has 13 series’ in production with more than 35 in development.
And as for those supply chain gains? The company has saved millions, increased productivity, and improved profit margins—even amid cost increases and inflation. For the full story on Mattel’s transformation, see our feature story from this past summer.
And Isaias left the EDGE audience with five lessons he learned from his experience in leading change:
The business is our boss;
Don’t delegate complexity;
Take bad news well;
Be fair and take care of people;
Lead the execution.
CSCMP’s EDGE 2024 conference runs through Wednesday, October 2, at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center.
Confronted with the closed ports, most companies can either route their imports to standard East Coast destinations and wait for the strike to clear, or else re-route those containers to West Coast sites, incurring a three week delay for extra sailing time plus another week required to truck those goods back east, Ron said in an interview at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
However, Uber Freight says its latest platform updates offer a series of mitigation options, including alternative routings, pre-booked allocation and volume during peak season, and providing daily visibility reports on shipments impacted by routings via U.S. east and gulf coast ports. And Ron said the company can also leverage its pool of some 2.3 million truck drivers who have downloaded its smartphone app, targeting them with freight hauling opportunities in the affected regions by pricing those loads “appropriately” through its surge-pricing model.
“If this [strike] continues a month, we will see severe disruptions,” Ron said. “So we can offer them alternatives. We say, if one door is closed, we can open another door? But even with that, there are no magic solutions.”
Turning around a failing warehouse operation demands a similar methodology to how emergency room doctors triage troubled patients at the hospital, a speaker said today in a session at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
There are many reasons that a warehouse might start to miss its targets, such as a sudden volume increase or a new IT system implementation gone wrong, said Adri McCaskill, general manager for iPlan’s Warehouse Management business unit. But whatever the cause, the basic rescue strategy is the same: “Just like medicine, you do triage,” she said. “The most life-threatening problem we try to solve first. And only then, once we’ve stopped the bleeding, we can move on.”
In McCaskill’s comparison, just as a doctor might have to break some ribs through energetic CPR to get a patient’s heart beating again, a failing warehouse might need to recover by “breaking some ribs” in a business sense, such as making management changes or stock write-downs.
Once the business has made some stopgap solutions to “stop the bleeding,” it can proceed to a disciplined recovery, she said. And to reach their final goal, managers can use the classic tools of people, process, and technology to improve what she called the three most important key performance indicators (KPIs): on time in full (OTIF), inventory accuracy, and staff turnover.
CSCMP EDGE attendees gathered Tuesday afternoon for an update and outlook on the truckload (TL) market, which is on the upswing following the longest down cycle in recorded history. Kevin Adamik of RXO (formerly Coyote Logistics), offered an overview of truckload market cycles, highlighting major trends from the recent freight recession and providing an update on where the TL cycle is now.
EDGE 2024, sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), is taking place this week in Nashville.
Citing data from the Coyote Curve index (which measures year-over-year changes in spot market rates) and other sources, Adamik outlined the dynamics of the TL market. He explained that the last cycle—which lasted from about 2019 to 2024—was longer than the typical three to four-year market cycle, marked by volatile conditions spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic. That cycle is behind us now, he said, adding that the market has reached equilibrium and is headed toward an inflationary environment.
Adamik also told attendees that he expects the new TL cycle to be marked by far less volatility, with a return to more typical conditions. And he offered a slate of supply and demand trends to note as the industry moves into the new cycle.
Supply trends include:
Carrier operating authorities are declining;
Employment in the trucking industry is declining;
Private fleets have expanded, but the expansion has stopped;
Truckload orders are falling.
Demand trends include:
Consumer spending is stable, but is still more service-centric and less goods-intensive;
After a steep decline, imports are on the rise;
Freight volumes have been sluggish but are showing signs of life.
CSCMP EDGE runs through Wednesday, October 2, at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Resort.
The relationship between shippers and third-party logistics services providers (3PLs) is at the core of successful supply chain management—so getting that relationship right is vital. A panel of industry experts from both sides of the aisle weighed in on what it takes to create strong 3PL/shipper partnerships on day two of the CSCMP EDGE conference, being held this week in Nashville.
Trust, empathy, and transparency ranked high on the list of key elements required for success in all aspects of the partnership, but there are some specifics for each step of the journey. The panel recommended a handful of actions that should take place early on, including:
Establish relationships.
For 3PLs, understand and get to the heart of the shipper’s data.
Also for 3PLs: Understand the shipper’s reason for outsourcing to a 3PL, along with the shipper’s ultimate goals.
Understand company cultures and be sure they align.
Nurture long-term relationships with good communication.
For shippers, be transparent so that the 3PL fully understands your business.
And there are also some “non-negotiables” when it comes to managing the relationship:
3PLs must demonstrate their commitment to engaging with the shipper’s personnel.
3PLs must also demonstrate their commitment to process discipline, continuous improvement, and innovation.
Shippers should ensure that they understand the 3PL’s demonstrated implementation capabilities—ask to visit established clients.
Trust—which takes longer to establish than both sides may expect.
EDGE 2024 is sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and runs through Wednesday, October 2, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville.