It is Saturday morning 8.18 am here in Melbourne and I read that River Logic just put me in their top 10 must read Supply Chain blogs for 2016. Of course I’m very pleased and honoured with this. River Logic correctly calls out that ‘my twist’ is a focus on mindset and behaviours in combination with strategy execution and S&OP.
I also just realized we still got a long way to go in this area.
One of my first blogs, The Behavioural Supply Chain, posted almost exactly 6 years ago, called out the need to address behaviours more seriously in the supply chain. I took that blog serious and in the the last 6 years, I became a behavioural coach and got myself accredited in two psychometric tools. One of them is Life Styles Inventory, the other oneMental Toughness. Both tools measure mindsets and behaviours that a coach can use as a conversation starter to increase effectiveness, but also well-being and performance. I now coach individuals and run team workshops to help people become more effective in their thinking and behaving.
In those last 6 years I also worked with some renowned consultancies on S&OP projects. Some of them call out in every second slide how important behaviours are. I see the same in conferences. Although they call this out as a critical successfactor, they don’t offer any behavioural coaching in their value proposition. Also business leaders talk the behavioural or cultural talk, but don’t walk it! I think indeed behaviours and culture are critical and made a conscious choice not just to pay lipserivce, but to become a behavioural coach and help people and company cultures improve.
In my S&OP pulse check 2015, 68% of practitioners call out that behaviours are not addressed enough in S&OP implementations. Similar to me, they hear the lip service, but see not enough action. When asked what the main cultural change is driven by S&OP, only 26%of participants indicate this is ‘improved constructive behaviours in general’.
A more positive mindset and constructive behaviours are proven to be more effective in S&OP, business and life in general and is better for employee health, well-being en performance. But we still have a long way to go in integrating behaviours properly in S&OP or Supply Chain in general.
It’s 8.40 am now. Time to get my girls to swimming lessons. They’re 5 and 7 and already learned ‘to show grit and not quit’. Commitment and grit are important attributes of Mental Toughness and applicable to almost about everything in life. Not just S&OP or Supply Chain.
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