Doors of Perception
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception. - Aldous Huxley
As a professional in supply chain management you’ll always have lots of questions. How can we change this process? How can we improve that? Why does this happen? What’s the root cause of this? How can we get buy-in?
You have oodles of questions, but what you really need is answers. The solutions to your quandaries and quagmires.
But the world of potential solutions is a world of unopened doors.
Of course, one of the most popular doors is labeled “Best Practices”. Many supply chain professionals open this door regularly. The logic and reasoning seems solid. “What are other companies doing”? “What results have they achieved?” “Let’s just copy what everyone else is doing.”
And what do they find? In many cases they discover that best practices often lead to mediocrity. After you’ve taken the time to implement them, today’s best practices can quickly become yesterday’s solutions.
And while this fact can disappointing, it’s hardly surprising. After all, the notion that the way one organization is doing something can be magically transferred to another is a little silly. It completely ignores critical factors such as culture, current processes and people.
Furthermore, why would you strive to achieve what someone else (probably a competitor) is already doing? In this day and age, it may not be wise to assume that the rest of the world will stand still while you catch up.
Have you ever thought about opening new doors? Doors that seem silly to open. Doors you walk by everyday.
What about opening the kaleidoscope of doors from other industries, other disciplines, and even Mother Nature herself? Do you ever wonder what you might find behind those doors?
Henry Ford opened doors. He developed the production line by opening the door to a meat slaughter house and learning how people did their job, then passed their work onto the next person in line.
Fred Smith has also opened a few weird doors. He got the idea for FedEx by opening the door to how banks processed and moved paperwork throughout their network.
Steve Sanger is another example. He paved the way to massive cycle time reductions at General Mills by opening the doors to the pit crew at a NASCAR event.
Similarly, Southwest Airlines has spent numerous hours watching and studying the pit crews of the Indy 500 to help them improve the turnaround times for planes.
To find solutions, it seems like you need to open different doors.
So, how do you know what doors to open?
It’s straightforward really. To open doors from other industries, processes, products, or disciplines, ask the following questions:
• What are the attributes of the problem you’re trying to solve?
• What is the problem like?
• Who else has to deal with a similar type problem?
• How did they solve it?
• Could you adapt their solution to your situation?
Then do it.
The answer to your problem lies behind a door somewhere.
Which ones are you opening?