If your future depends on how well your teams do (and it does), you've got to invest in conscious team construction, using every tool and insight you can find.
Art van Bodegraven was, among other roles, chief design officer for the DES Leadership Academy. He passed away on June 18, 2017. He will be greatly missed.
As football reigns and basketballs bounce in the wings, thinking about teams is inescapable. In most all team sports, split-second and intimate interactions are paramount to success. (Baseball is a bit of an exception, with more room for the freewheeling cavorting of superstars and misfits—not mutually exclusive categories.)
In our supply chain world, opportunities and needs for team effort and collaborative solutions abound—even overwhelm: Corporate implementation of an ERP. Installation of a new warehouse management system. A process redesign in the facility's pick/pack/ship operations. A move to a new DC. Integration of automated equipment into material handling operations. And on and on.
Teams have been a fact of life in our organizations for a couple of generations now. The once-vaunted cross-functional team approach has been around long enough to become a cliché. This approach, now an anachronism, was a useful beginning in assembling a variety of functional skills for complex problem solving. But cross-functional presence alone falls far short of what it takes to make truly effective teams—and can actually create seriously suboptimized solutions.
Without denigrating the importance of having competency resident in teams, there are a few levels of planning, selection, and leadership without which teams risk falling off the edge of a cliff into an abyss of failure.
TEAM FUNCTIONS, ROLES, AND BEHAVIORS
Classical team research shows that, while the nomenclature may vary, all teams must have embedded within them specific roles that are critical to success. For instance, in management consultant Glenn Parker's work, we find:
Contributors: Those who typically provide the nuts-and-bolts-type functional skills and expertise
Communicators: Those who, along with useful functional skills, work to foster a strong sense of group interaction, mutual trust, and alignment on goals and behaviors
Challengers: Those who test concepts, demand consideration of alternatives, and (while appearing to obstruct progress) keep the team from disastrous outcomes
Collaborators: The big-picture visionaries; the forward-looking folks who are committed to reaching the Shining City on the Hill, sometimes overlooking pesky details and dismissing challenges.
Other practitioners classify team members as task-oriented, goal-directed, process-oriented, and idea-challenging. Please note that the tendency to identify four classes of team member in no way indicates that the team should be restricted to just four individuals. Teams can be large and complex, with a number of each type of player present. Of course, any team that gets to be too large runs the risk of becoming a committee—a sure kiss of death.
No matter. What is important is that the team leader recognizes the legitimacy of each role. The next step is to teach the team members about themselves, and to help them value the other members and their roles and contributions to the end objective.
Importantly, a little examination will reveal that whatever the role nomenclature, team members' preferences, styles, and behaviors will map vary closely with the sundry assessment tools that have become popular in business, industry, the military, and government in the past several decades. This recognition is vital, in that simply knowing what you've got with respect to team composition is not likely to get you where you need to go in a world that demands results.
There are many tools available to help the savvy leader to build with purpose and determination high-performing teams; merely accepting what you've been handed has worse odds of winning than a Mega Millions lottery.
TEAM BUILDING AND ASSESSMENT TOOLS
When it comes to team building and personality assessment tools, perhaps the best known is the venerable Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Dating back to WWII, this indicator classifies individuals into one of 16 boxes in a matrix, with a four-letter code to provide a shorthand description. Despite its age, it remains a useful (if imperfect) device to assess personality.
Over the years, a number of similar personality assessment tools and temperament sorters have emerged. Usually simplified versions of the MBTI, they employ comparable categorizations. David Keirsey's work in this variant is probably the best known, along with Otto Kroeger's.
Other well-known assessment methods include the DiSC tool (now proprietary to Wiley), which focuses more on communication and styles. (DiSC, which stands for Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Compliance, slots individuals into the usual number of boxes.) Perhaps the most sophisticated of this family of tools is the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, which presents a nuanced profile of the balance (or imbalance) of styles, preferences, and characteristics.
Whatever the system used, it is imperative that the leader deliberately seek out differing personality types, with the four principal team roles in mind. It's not simply a matter of balance; it takes all styles to make a complete team and to achieve an optimal result.
Also important in team construction and assessment is the employment of a tool to determine conflict resolution preferences—you've got to know how team members handle contention and differing opinions, interpretations, and perspectives. For this, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument is invaluable.
You will also want to know how enthusiastic and committed team candidates are, and how they see their roles, how strongly they are motivated to lead—or to follow. You can't afford to have talented people on board who really don't care about the outcome. Nor can you afford to have two or three who are determined to drive the team bus, no matter who the preferred leader might be. Further, strong contributors might need a lower-key, calm leader, but more passive followers might do much better with a strong, even fiery, de facto floor leader. The right tool for these decisions is FIRO-B (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation - Behaviors). Btw, there is no such thing as FIRO-A.
Of course, there is no assurance whatever that a person with an identified style or preference is any good at using what might be inferred from the assigned nomenclature. Further, an individual might be highly skilled in the use of a style opposite his or her primary preference. All the more reason to get to know people beyond superficial levels.
READY TO THROW IN THE TOWEL YET?
This team stuff is not easy. But if your future depends on how well your teams do—and it does—you've got to invest in conscious team construction, using every tool and insight you can get your hands on. There's plenty of information online about each of these tools, and there is a multitude of skilled practitioners who can help you through the process. Tip: If you pursue any of these options, do not send one or two people to learn them and report back. Train your entire cohort in them at the same time for optimal internalization and adoption.
Maybe you can even use how well your teams, with you as ultimate leader, do to leverage your way up from logistics and supply chain management execution into a valued role at the highest levels of the enterprise. No promises, but going unarmed into the combat of corporate politics is not likely to be a winning strategy.
States across the Southeast woke up today to find that the immediate weather impacts from Hurricane Helene are done, but the impacts to people, businesses, and the supply chain continue to be a major headache, according to Everstream Analytics.
The primary problem is the collection of massive power outages caused by the storm’s punishing winds and rainfall, now affecting some 2 million customers across the Southeast region of the U.S.
One organization working to rush help to affected regions since the storm hit Florida’s western coast on Thursday night is the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). As it does after most serious storms, the group continues to marshal donated resources from supply chain service providers in order to store, stage, and deliver help where it’s needed.
Support for recovery efforts is coming from a massive injection of federal aid, since the White House declared states of emergency last week for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Affected states are also supporting the rush of materials to needed zones by suspending transportation requirement such as certain licensing agreements, fuel taxes, weight restrictions, and hours of service caps, ALAN said.
E-commerce activity remains robust, but a growing number of consumers are reintegrating physical stores into their shopping journeys in 2024, emphasizing the need for retailers to focus on omnichannel business strategies. That’s according to an e-commerce study from Ryder System, Inc., released this week.
Ryder surveyed more than 1,300 consumers for its 2024 E-Commerce Consumer Study and found that 61% of consumers shop in-store “because they enjoy the experience,” a 21% increase compared to results from Ryder’s 2023 survey on the same subject. The current survey also found that 35% shop in-store because they don’t want to wait for online orders in the mail (up 4% from last year), and 15% say they shop in-store to avoid package theft (up 8% from last year).
“Retail and e-commerce continue to evolve,” Jeff Wolpov, Ryder’s senior vice president of e-commerce, said in a statement announcing the survey’s findings. “The emergence of e-commerce and growth of omnichannel fulfillment, particularly over the past four years, has altered consumer expectations and behavior dramatically and will continue to do so as time and technology allow.
“This latest study demonstrates that, while consumers maintain a robust
appetite for e-commerce, they are simultaneously embracing in-person shopping, presenting an impetus for merchants to refine their omnichannel strategies.”
Other findings include:
• Apparel and cosmetics shoppers show growing attraction to buying in-store. When purchasing apparel and cosmetics, shoppers are more inclined to make purchases in a physical location than they were last year, according to Ryder. Forty-one percent of shoppers who buy cosmetics said they prefer to do so either in a brand’s physical retail location or a department/convenience store (+9%). As for apparel shoppers, 54% said they prefer to buy clothing in those same brick-and-mortar locations (+9%).
• More customers prefer returning online purchases in physical stores. Fifty-five percent of shoppers (+15%) now say they would rather return online purchases in-store–the first time since early 2020 the preference to Buy Online Return In-Store (BORIS) has outweighed returning via mail, according to the survey. Forty percent of shoppers said they often make additional purchases when picking up or returning online purchases in-store (+2%).
• Consumers are extremely reliant on mobile devices when shopping in-store. This year’s survey reveals that 77% of consumers search for items on their mobile devices while in a store, Ryder said. Sixty-nine percent said they compare prices with items in nearby stores, 58% check availability at other stores, 31% want to learn more about a product, and 17% want to see other items frequently purchased with a product they’re considering.
Ryder said the findings also underscore the importance of investing in technology solutions that allow companies to provide customers with flexible purchasing options.
“Omnichannel strength is not a fad; it is a strategic necessity for e-commerce and retail businesses to stay competitive and achieve sustainable success in 2024 and beyond,” Wolpov also said. “The findings from this year’s study underscore what we know our customers are experiencing, which is the positive impact of integrating supply chain technology solutions across their sales channels, enabling them to provide their customers with flexible, convenient options to personalize their experience and heighten customer satisfaction.”
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Two European companies are among the most recent firms to put autonomous last-mile delivery to the test with a project in Bern, Switzerland, that debuted this month.
Swiss transportation and logistics company Planzer has teamed up with fellow Swiss firm Loxo, which develops autonomous driving software solutions, for a two-year pilot project in which a Loxo-equipped, Planzer parcel delivery van will handle last-mile logistics in Bern’s city center.
The project coincides with Swiss regulations on autonomous driving that are expected to take effect next spring.
Referred to as “Planzer–Dynamic Micro-Hub w LOXO,” the project aims to address both sustainability issues and traffic congestion in urban areas.
The delivery vehicle, a Volkswagen ID. Buzz battery-electric minivan, will feature Loxo’s Level 4 Digital Driver navigation software, a highly automated solution that allows driverless operation. The van was retrofitted to include space for two swap boxes for parcel storage.
During the two-year pilot phase, Loxo’s Digital Driver will navigate a commercial vehicle several times a day from Planzer’s railway center to various logistics points in Bern's city center. There, the parcels will be reloaded onto small electric vehicles and delivered to end customers by Planzer’s parcel delivery staff.
Following the completion of the pilot phase, Planzer and Loxo will build on the program for rollout in other Swiss cities, the companies said.
The partners said the project addresses the increasing requirements of urban supply chains and aims to ensure the “scalability of their disruptive solution.” With largely emission-free delivery, it contributes to greater levels of sustainability for the city as a living space, they also said.
“The uniqueness of this project lies in the fact that it will have a direct impact on society,” Planzer’s CEO and Chairman Nils Planzer said in a statement announcing the project. “We didn't just want to integrate automated technology into existing systems, we wanted to develop a completely new concept and a new business model.”
As the hours tick down toward a “seemingly imminent” strike by East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, experts are warning that the impacts of that move would mushroom well-beyond the actual strike locations, causing prevalent shipping delays, container ship congestion, port congestion on West coast ports, and stranded freight.
However, a strike now seems “nearly unavoidable,” as no bargaining sessions are scheduled prior to the September 30 contract expiration between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) in their negotiations over wages and automation, according to the transportation law firm Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary.
The facilities affected would include some 45,000 port workers at 36 locations, including high-volume U.S. ports from Boston, New York / New Jersey, and Norfolk, to Savannah and Charleston, and down to New Orleans and Houston. With such widespread geography, a strike would likely lead to congestion from diverted traffic, as well as knock-on effects include the potential risk of increased freight rates and costly charges such as demurrage, detention, per diem, and dwell time fees on containers that may be slowed due to the congestion, according to an analysis by another transportation and logistics sector law firm, Benesch.
The weight of those combined blows means that many companies are already planning ways to minimize damage and recover quickly from the event. According to Scopelitis’ advice, mitigation measures could include: preparing for congestion on West coast ports, taking advantage of intermodal ground transportation where possible, looking for alternatives including air transport when necessary for urgent delivery, delaying shipping from East and Gulf coast ports until after the strike, and budgeting for increased freight and container fees.
Additional advice on softening the blow of a potential coastwide strike came from John Donigian, senior director of supply chain strategy at Moody’s. In a statement, he named six supply chain strategies for companies to consider: expedite certain shipments, reallocate existing inventory strategically, lock in alternative capacity with trucking and rail providers , communicate transparently with stakeholders to set realistic expectations for delivery timelines, shift sourcing to regional suppliers if possible, and utilize drop shipping to maintain sales.