Category Archives: Blog

Heading Back to School

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It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating high school graduations, ramping up for fun in the sun, and celebrating not having to make an early morning run to the bank or Safeway at the crack of dawn for the weekly lunch money! But before too long, it will be time to head back to school.

back to schoolWhether you are sending your first grader off to his first big adventure, sending out a senior with dreams of diplomas dancing in her head, or making the journey yourself, the first day of school is a big deal. Heading back to school brings changes – new experiences and friends, new challenges and successes. How you achieve success is up to you – a little planning can make all the difference. Are you ready?

So as you prepare for the 2009/2010 school year, here are 7 tips to help you through whether you are a parent coaching a first grader, a seasoned veteran of the homework wars, or a returning life long learner:

1. Set a goal

Ask yourself or your student – “What do you want to get out of school this year?” This gives you a ruler you can use to measure your success. A friend of mine likes to say that “What gets measured gets done.” Good grades of course are a common goal, but that is not all you might shoot for. Get creative with your goals – something like – “learn something new every day” – keep it in a journal so you can look back at it at the end of the year. Another goal might be to get involved in a club, a sport, or a study group so that you add a little spice to your regular learning diet. .

2. Create a system

The next step in making the most of your back to school adventure is to create a system to help you achieve your goals. It would be nice if all we had to do was dream it and it was so, but usually it takes a little more than that. Even Itzhak Perlman, one of the greatest violinists of our time still has to practice – carefully – everyday. Being great takes more than just luck or talent, it takes planning and hard work. Ask yourself…

3. “Who do I want to be at the end of this journey and who can help me get there?”

Will you be a scholar – embracing knowledge for the love of it – or perhaps, you wish to be a teacher or tutor, sharing your knowledge with other students.- or maybe your goal is just to get through – gaining enough knowledge to meet the requirements for moving on to the next level while you focus your energies in other areas. It could be all of the above, or none of the above, the choice is up to you. The trick is – make it part of your goal and your plan to choose.

4. “What tools can I use to achieve my goals?”

There are many tools you can use to help you achieve your learning goals. Some are simple – a notebook, a pencil, a compass, or perhaps an eraser. (Nobody’s perfect.) Perhaps your phone can be a tool. Use a smart phone like the Motorola Q® or a Blackberry or PDA to manage your schedule of assignments or even use your camera phone to capture a blackboard full of notes. Phones today have everything from the cameras to calendars, and calculators to the Internet.

Fill a backpack with the tools you need, from snacks to keep up your energy, to reference books, or a planner if you choose a lower tech solution to keep things organized. But beware the bottomless back pack. It’s the nemesis of every helpful parent and erstwhile student. Bottomless backpacks eat notes and assignments. Backpacks are useful for carrying things, but if it all goes in – to never again see the light of day – they can be more hindrance than help! Use your tools wisely along your journey.

5. “Where will I go to focus?”

Get the lay of the land. Find your learning place. When I went back to get my MBA after 20 years, I knew that my study skills and lifestyle had changed. Now I had so many distractions – work, family, dumb things I needed to do. I needed a place where I could focus without any distractions. I tried setting up a place at home, but that did not work and even if I went into the office early – the day to day distractions followed me there. Finally I found a Burger King® around the corner from my office. They opened at 5 AM and were more than happy to let me study at a corner table. I had my breakfast and did my school work until 7AM before packing up and heading to work. The staff all thought it was funny and even became part of the plan – bringing me refills as I worked through my text books and even flowers when I finally graduated! Where will your learning place be? Find a quiet corner in your home, at the library, or anyplace where you can set yourself up, stay quiet and focus on what you need to do to learn. If you are a parent working with a young student – help them set aside their special place. Let them know that it is their little corner of the world. You are just around the corner if they need you, but it is their place!

6. “How will I focus in on achieving my goals?”

How we get in focus works differently for everyone. Some of us may use music to tune out the rest of the world’s distractions, others may need perfect quiet. If you are a fan of The Secret set up a Vision Board to help keep the positive thoughts around your learning goals in focus. A vision board is a simple tool. It can be a framed collage of the positive things you want to achieve – a picture of a report card will high marks, a diploma, or the college you want to go… Perhaps on your vision board you also have a picture of what you will do after school is through – a dream job or a get away location. If your learning place is outside of your home, use the front of your notebook or binder to make a portable Vision Board you can carry with you. Look at your Vision Board every day – see yourself achieving your goals, then buckle down and do what you need to do to get there.

7. “Whose job is my success?”

The answer is you. Each student must accept responsibility for achieving their goals. It is not the teacher’s job or a parent’s role force study or get necessary assignments in on time. YOU must make the commitment to your learning and to your goals. If you are coaching your children through the learning process, help them understand why what they are doing is important for them – not for you. “Do it because I said so” is not a learning motivator. Help them understand how what they are learning will help them get what THEY want. The job of a parent as learning coach then gets 100 times easier! Never nag a child about homework – it turns learning into a chore and defeats the purpose. You get frustrated, they get frustrated and you head into the homework death spiral. Instead – create a No Nag Contract with your student (or yourself). Come to an agreement where if “A”, “B” and “C” get done correctly and on time – then NO Nagging! This gives your student a chance to control their destiny and makes your home life a whole lot more pleasant!

Celebrate Success

Last but not least – as you are learning and achieving you goals – take time out to celebrate your little successes along the way. What is the point if you are not having some fun as part of the process? Reward yourself or your student with a movie, a walk in the mountains, or even a hot fudge sundae (my personal favorite!) Interim goals and the small successes that you celebrate generate the energy you need to succeed in making your long term learning goals a reality. So take a minute – chill out – look at your vision board – or just imagine what it will be like next May – when summer vacation rolls around again.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Making Cents of Your Health Insurance Dollar

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As President Obama continues to lobby the American people and Congress on Healthcare Reform, talk of change and what it means to average Americans travels from the board rooms of global corporations to the kitchen tables of homes across the country.

In quite a number of discussions, this quote sums up the feelings of many people I have talked to.  “Spare me the details – I just want to know what Healthcare Reform will mean to me.”  If this is how you feel, than this short video from CNN Money might help answer the question.  CNN Money video

One of the major components of the President’s plan is to require almost everyone to have some form of health insurance – tackling the current social and economic  burden of a population of approximately 47 million Americans who are uninsured.  This will add approximately 47 million Americans into the existing insurance pools of either government provided insurance, employer provided insurance or private insurance.  You can find the current breakdown by coverage class in my related post earlier this week.

That being they case, I thought it might be helpful to look at where our insurance dollars go.  To do  that, I referenced the bi- annual report on that information from the same industry report that was referenced by the Senate.  In January of 2008, Price Waterhouse Coopers published research on health insurance costs as commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans.  This link takes you to the full report. The Factors Fueling Rising Healthcare Costs 2008

The graphic above shows the break out of the pool of dollars that make up the  employer and private health insurance spend. Looking at the graphic, 13cents of each dollar goes to corporate profits, administration and sales and marketing support.  The other 87 cents goes towards the basics of helping us stay healthy, diagnosing illness or other medical conditions, and treatment.

So if we are going to lower healthcare cost, realistically, the focus will fall predominately in the area shaded in aqua – that 87%.  It is in these areas where we have the greatest opportunity to use American innovation to improve the healthcare process.  Information technology enhancements in the area of medical records management can help us reduce duplicate tests and better manage patient care.  New biotech diagnostics currently in development will allow us to detect and diagnose diseases earlier – thus greatly reducing the total cost of treatment by addressing small problems before they become big ones.   But technology and process improvement alone will never be the answer. 

We, the people, will also need to make some changes in our behaviors if we are ever to really get things under control.  Here are a few things each of us can do to put the health back into healthcare:

  1. Get a check up.  85% of Americans, who have health insurance, do not get an annual check up.  Yet studies by Medicare and Medicaid have shown that if we detect and diagnose chronic disease early we can avoid as much as 90% of the costs of treatment. And, chronic disease represents almost 70 percent of the medical services spend. 
  2. Take a walk.  It is estimated that approximately 31% of Americans are either clinically overweight or obese.  This condition has been directly correlated to a wide range of chronic conditions including Diabetes, Heart Disease, Stroke, Hypertension, some types of Cancer, Sleep Apnea, Osteoarthritis, and Gallbladder Disease.
  3. Ask questions and talk to your doctor.  Whether in your annual exam or during treatment, take an active part in the healthcare discussion.  Ask your doctor what you can do to be proactive about managing your health and your healthcare spend.  Very often a few extra minutes can leave you with good information, ideas, and in the case of treatment sometimes more cost effective alternatives.
  4. Understand what your healthcare plan has to offer.  If you have a bad health habit you want to break, many plans offer free services to help you.  Pull out that booklet they send you once a year and look.  You might be surprised at the resources you are paying for that you have never used.

President Obama may or may not get everything he wants out of Congress this year in the way of health care reform.  And even if he does, the some of the changes will take years.  But we can each start our own healthcare recovery plan today – if we choose to.

Thanks for stopping by. Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Healthcare: A Perfect Problem with No Perfect Solution

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In the United States, we have two “perfect problems”: our Healthcare system and our Taxation system. What makes these problems perfect is their absolute complexity and an almost universal agreement that a problem exists.

The focus of this article is on healthcare.  I’ll leave taxation for another day – even though eventually our country will not be able to truly address one without the other.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKOfXlB_3Wo]

Up until December of 2006, I did not think a lot about healthcare.  It was something I had, something I paid for, and with the exception of annual check ups for my family, something that I rarely had to use.  I knew it was a problem, but it was not necessarily mine. That changed December 21, 2006 when I became the CEO of the Arizona Small Business Association, and had to answer to and speak on behalf of our 3,000 business members and through them over 200,000 employees. 

The more I researched, surveyed, and listened; the bigger the problem became.  And I was just looking at one state, and within that, only one subset of the population, small business owners and their employees.  Yet both in our state and on a nationwide basis estimates from both the Federal government and independent agencies estimated that of the 45 million people plus who lacked health insurance, approximately 60% of them either owned or worked in a small business.   The constantly rising cost of health care was a burden these businesses were struggling to battle.  Others were starting to give up hope that anything could be done.

LOOKING AT THE NUMBERS:  HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE IN THE UNITED STATES

Source: Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007, p.69

hc-numbers-chtThe chart at right shows the estimated U.S. population (as of 2007) and the breakdown of the insured/uninsured and where the insurance comes from.

But as we all know, there have been some pretty significant economic factors since 2007 that probably shift these numbers upward in the areas of both government provided program and the uninsured due to the significant change in the unemployment rate (4.7% in June of 2007 vs. 9.7% in June 2009) and the continuing economic pressures on businesses of every size.

With a problem this large, it’s hard to have any impact.  Especially when it’s also highly complex and politically charged.  At the state level we had various mandates, imposed and proposed, that were continually driving the costs up.  A state provided program for small business had serious limitations and flaws not to to mention a serious deficit that threatened its sustainability.  The whole thing was a mess. 

I had learned a long time ago that it is almost impossible to tackle a really big complex problem – but that if you break it into little ones and tackle them one at a time, you can make headway.  So that is what we did.

First we framed the problem with a set of goals.  Our conditions for success were the following:

  1. It had to be available to any business of any size (even groups of 1) without limitation.
  2. It had to cover the entire state AND provide coverage for employees out of state.
  3. It had to provide the same level of quality care and service that was available to employees in a Fortune 500 company.
  4. Coverage had to be guaranteed issue with no pre-existing conditions limitations as long as there had been prior qualified coverage and pricing and eligibility would NOT be determined by health status of the employees.
  5. It had to be reasonably affordable and competitive.

The next step was to look at what resources we had to work with and to identify potential partners.  We reached out to corporate partners, legislators, the Governor’s office, and national organizations to see what was available, what we could work with or what we could change.  Through a combination of negotiations, partnerships, and collaborations, we were able to design a plan that met all five of our defined goals and launched it 10 months after we started the process.  To see the full details of the program, visit the ASBA website. 

Now, this program did not solve the national problem, but it did provide a solution/option for the community we served across the state of Arizona. AND, it did so without a single taxpayer dollar.  Best of all,  from 2007 to 2009 the gross increase in premium was a total of THREE percent while at the same time the program benefits were enhanced – not reduced.

So my question is this.  Perhaps, while they battle in Washington tackle the perfect problem of Healthcare Reform – and fight over every sacred cow.  Maybe, just maybe, individuals like you and me, in our little corners of the country can build viable solutions by breaking the problem down to smaller more manageable chunks and tackling them one at a time.  That way WE can solve the problem and THEY can keep on talking.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

P.S. While I no longer serve as the CEO of the Arizona Small Business Association, my time there taught me something very important.  There is very little that can not be accomplished by American small business with a little hard work. collaboration, and ingenuity.  If we focus on the challenge, frame it properly and get down to work the results can be pretty incredible. 

What DO you do?

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Friday I got a tweet very early in the morning, just as I was heading out to a 7 AM meeting across town.  It said simply “What Do you do?” I sent of a quick note explaining with a link to my website and my number so the person could call me later if they wished.  Grabbing my purse, I headed out to the car.  As I was driving to my meeting with The Shea Group that question stayed on my mind.

Silver_Bullet_GripsThe Shea Group is a collection of executives and business owners who understand that learning and career development is a lifelong process.  Each time the group meets, a speaker shares their experience as part of the session.  This time it was Jack W. Milligan of Leathers Milligan & Associates a long time veteran in the area of human resources and executive career management.  Jack told us a story that really resonated with me.  It went like this…

“This is a secret that only human resource professionals know.  Hidden deep in every company, there is a special closet where they keep the silver bullets.  On the day that you start, they will engrave your name on one.  On the day that you leave you will get it back.  They may shoot you with it, or they may hand it to you as they once did an engraved gold watch.  But, that bullet is there and it has your name on it.  It is up to you to be prepared.”  Jack W. Milligan

Jack went on to share tips and techniques that every executive should be employing to manage their career both during employment and during the transition process that is sure to come at one time or another. 

So today I decided to give some real thought to answering the question – What Do you do?  Not just based on what someone might find on my resume or bio – which shows what I have done, but in  terms of what I actively do and engage in and what I hope to bring to the next growing company I have the opportunity to lead.

My “What I do list”

  • Engage employees and partners in our organization’s vision and with them develop a plan that delivers tangible results.
  • Lead throughout the execution process by example.  Never ask another to do something that I personally am not willing to do.
  • Communicate openly and often on what is working, what needs work, and what is yet to be done. Use every appropriate platform – from public speaking,  to writing, to informal chats to deliver the message.
  • Listen to what our customers and our market has to say, learn from them, and put those lessons to work.
  • Take forgotten or underutilized resources and redeploy them for added results
  • Reach out to our community to offer assistance, share ideas, and keep our organization connected, engaged, and respected.
  • Develop and mentor the people around me so that when my silver bullet comes, they can continue on the journey to find even greater success.

What’s on YOUR “What I do list”.  It’s a great exercise – try it and see.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Looking back at a Perfect Storm

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During the downturn that shook the foundations of the technology industry after the dot.com implosion, I wrote and article about the Perfect Storm that hit the industry.  In that article I suggested that there are Seven Deadly Sins that can challenge the stability of the supply chain and our overall economy.  This was written in July 2002.

Reading it now, seven years later, it is amazing how we have seen the storm hit once again – this time in the construction and finance industries.  Hopefully someday we will learn our lessons.

bigwave2The Perfect Storm:
What happened to the Supply Chain in 2000/2001
and could it happen again?

July 3,  2002.

In November of 2000, Roy Vallee, Chairman of the Board of Avnet, Inc., the worlds largest electronics distributor, announced, at the Avnet, Inc. Annual Shareholders Meeting, that Avnet was seeing indicators that the Technology Boom of 2000 may not be sustainable.

This unleashed a storm of protest from analysts, investors and supply chain participants. While today we all know that those indications were all too true, with hindsight, we, as an industry, only wish he had been wrong. As the technology sector slowly begins the climb out of the most dramatic downturn in its history, the question asked repeatedly is… “How did this happen? & “Will it happen again?”

Many hypotheses have been put forward in the last year as to what happened and why it was so extreme. Some attribute the cause to:

  • The external environment – globalization, industry consolidation, Y2K, or the dot.com implosion and resulting telecom plunge;
  • Industry cyclicality – sharper and more dramatic cycles as the size of the industry and key sectors within it grow disproportionately;
  • Technology – our sophisticated IT systems let us down. The forecasts were all wrong;
  • An increasingly complex supply chain;
  • Wall Street – pressure for growth driving unrealistic forecasts; or
    All of the above – a Perfect Storm!

Pick any of the above and you can find people to agree with you as to what was responsible.

Interestingly, each of these factors is a “thing” we can point to. We do not have to take personal responsibility because it was an external economic effect, an industry group or corporation at fault, not us.

Organizations and IT systems do not make the decisions that drive the supply chain, people do. Each one of us represents a link in the supply chain and it is the choices we make every day that drive the outcome. Until each of us within the industry chooses to accept this responsibility, we are doomed to face similar extreme business cycles in the future.

So, if human beings are the key factors that control the supply chain, what are the human conditions that drive our supply chain behaviors?

The Seven Deadly Supply Chain Sins

The Path of Least Resistance: In our increasingly busy roles, seeking the path of least resistance comes naturally. Whether as engineers, we design with parts we have always used it the past (designing in parts at the end of their product life cycle or missing out on possible benefits procurement or manufacturing may gain with a more commonly available part) or as procurement and materials professionals we do not make the effort to establish part numbering standards so we truly know what we have and what we need. At one time or another, in good times and bad, we have all fallen into the trap of viewing the old ways as “good enough” rather than making the extra effort to optimize our systems and our processes.

Self Preservation: From birth, self-preservation is the most basic human instinct. Each of has a natural inclination to protect ourselves, our jobs, and our companies. In times of allocation or constraint, a buyer may double order or increase forecast requirements to ensure his company gets what it needs to keep the production lines going. In isolation this may be a small thing, but across an industry, this can create a groundswell of demand that may be unrealized as capacity is increased and product frees up. Within our organizations we use this nature of self-interest by creating incentive programs to drive certain behaviors. Unfortunately, these often conflict from department to department. Thus, our materials team must keep inventory low to earn their incentive and the sales team needs product on hand so they can get the sales level they need to make their sales goals. These conflicting interests lead to distrust and ultimately to breakdowns in communication or even distorted information as each individual protects his or her own interests. If our lines of communication break down within our own companies, how can we provide accurate information to our partners across the supply chain?   

Risk Avoidance: If as human beings we have a natural inclination to protect our selves, the next logical progression is to shy away from risk or find ways to shift the risk from ourselves to another. In the supply chain this manifests itself in many ways. In our contracts and legal forms we add penalty clauses and loop holes to shift the risk of doing business from us to another. Whether it’s the quality of imperfect forecasts, the liability for service or product failures, or artificial or often unnecessary restrictions on date codes, we often spend much more time and effort constructing rules and systems to shift risk to another than we do investing together to improve processes and systems to identify and mitigate the real risks we face. 

Fallibility: “Nothing and no one is perfect. There is always a margin for mistakes. But naturally the other guy will let us down more often then we will err. We must protect our selves from his failures.” This is the thinking that leads us to greater supply chain inefficiencies – bonded inventories, excessive buffers, padded forecasts, and ultimately inventory gluts. It is often easier to assume our supply chain partner will let us down than it is to pick the RIGHT partner and work closely with that them to develop strategy and process so both of us will be successful. 

Distrust: If everyone else is driven by self-interest, risk averse and fallible, no wonder we find it so hard to develop the levels of trust we need to share good information and partner effectively. When we do not trust our suppliers to deliver, we compensate in the supply chain. When we do not trust the product groups to have enough inventories, we pad the sales forecast. When we do not trust the MRP system we tinker with it. When numbers don’t give us the answers we need, we “adjust” them until they do. With everyone doing what comes naturally, it’s a wonder we get any good information across the supply chain at all. 

Greed: Whether you believe that “Greed is Good” or greed is bad, the interesting thing we often forget is that greed is not just about money. Greed is getting your “unfair share” of money, market position, market power, attention, and information. Interestingly if you take the word greed out of the description, it reads like the objectives of many of our companies. 

Increase Revenue & Profits
Increase Brand Position
Increase Market Share
Increase Market Intelligence

It is when greed gets out of control that we get into trouble. At the peak for the last technology wave, that is what happened. As investors we got caught up in escalating stock prices based on company projections that had little basis in financial reality or business basics. This influx of capital created a flurry of investment in telecom systems, IT infrastructure, and other products creating a groundswell of demand. As demand increased and supply became constrained, as buyers, we compensated within our supply chain to ensure we got our “unfair share” of what we needed. As sellers, we raced to capture orders and market share to get our “unfair share” of this inflated demand. And as an industry, we reeled in shock as the whole thing imploded. And then we started looking for someone to blame.   

Denial: When we refuse to acknowledge the truth, we are in denial. Another way to look at denial, one we got caught up in this last time around, is getting caught up in a wave of unrealistic optimism that approaches euphoria. Things were so great in our industry and we were so proud of our strategies, our growth, and our success, that we failed to look closely at the business basics our companies were founded on. Not only do we need to be aware of our own tendencies to get caught up in unrealistic optimism, but we must also be aware of the affect of those around us. When our biggest customer doubles his forecast, we double ours, plus a little extra just to be safe. So does his next supply chain partner and the next one. Soon the forecast has grown beyond anything sustainable, even assuming that the first projection of double growth was correct. At an industry or market level it is even more complicated. Here, when the analysts predict the market will grow by X%, each market participant projects that they will capture their unfair share. If you go back and add each company’s projection up, the aggregate often exceeds the level of projected growth. These are some of the storm clouds on the horizon that signal rough weather ahead.

Are We Doomed?

So with all of our faults, is it hopeless? Are we doomed to ever increasing and sharper cycles? NO! Each of us, at each level of our organizations has the power to drive change in the performance of the supply chain.

Looking at the bigger picture: Whether we call it a supply chain or a supply network, the reality is that the choices, decisions, and actions of each of us, individually, link to others within our companies and across the supply chain. If we are to truly develop the level of quality information needed to drive to success, we need to recognize the linkages to internal customers, partners, and external customers and ensure that we are sharing the highest quality information available at all times if we are to be successful in reaching optimal levels of performance.

Each of us must Dare to Innovate – Design for Supply Chain Information – Providing the design engineers with not only easy access to technical information, but also information on the product life cycle of the components, their availability over time, and parts that are most commonly used within their company and within their industry to reduce the potential for stock outs in time of constraint and liability inventory in times of excess. 

Materials Management and Procurement – Investing in resources, tools and partnerships to create solutions for standardization of part numbers and sharing that information between departments (like engineering) and other manufacturing sites around the world.
Manufacturing – exploring systems, tools and processes that add visibility into inventory activity at the point- of use and relaying it back through the supply chain to support lean manufacturing for lower manufacturing costs and greater inventory trend data to support improved forecasting within the materials management function.
Operations – establishing systems and processes to link global operations and create inventory and supply chain visibility. (This is especially challenging for international companies running on disparate computer systems.)  

Channels To Market – Ensuring that we have the right channels mix to match our products and services to the needs of our customers. Then, ensuring that the right information and support systems to support those channels are put in place to get maximum return on the Sales and Marketing efforts across the direct, representative, distribution, and self -service channels. 

Be generous with your supply chain partners: The opposite of self-preservation and self-interest is generosity. This willing ness to give and share freely is the key to our success as partners in the complex supply chain. Generosity manifests itself in the willingness to share complete and accurate information to partners, not just that portion that supports what you need right now. It also extends to the willingness to pay for the value a supply chain partner provides, and the openness to share what portions of the partners’ value proposition truly adds value. In today’s tight financial times, neither buyers nor sellers can afford services that do not add measurable value to the supply chain process. 

Understand Risks and create process improvements to mitigate them – Accept responsibility: No business relationship is without risk, especially as you move across a complex supply chain. The key is to mapping the process to identify the potential for problems and establishing service recovery systems to address them. In recent years the trend has been not to manage risk, but to try to shift it across the supply chain from the OEM to the CM to the distributor or Manufacturer of the component. For the supply chain to work effectively and for the participants to openly share information, each supply chain partner must accept responsibility for that part of the supply chain information and risk that belongs to them. Otherwise, innovation and trust between partners becomes impossible. 

Dare to Trust/Share REAL information: The key to being able to trust your supply chain partners is to pick the RIGHT partner, then give them complete and accurate information, set reasonable allocations of risk based on accountability for the supply chain information each generates, and then let them do their job. Choose the right partner based on their ability to get the job done, their track record within the supply chain and the innovations they can bring to your processes that add value and help you realize your goals. 

Greed is not all bad, but blind greed is dangerous: Wanting to get your “unfair share” is what business is all about. However, when we blindly pursue market-share, revenue, or other business metrics beyond what the marketplace can support, we all ultimately suffer. New innovations and businesses are developing to help us look at excess inventories across the supply chain. Identifying these excesses and redirecting them inside our businesses, channels, industry groups or the marketplace allows us to circumvent the build-ups of inventory that ultimately lead to gluts and market declines. As an industry we must enter into new types of relationships with our supply chain partners to add greater transparency to not only the product we need for the future, but also the residual inventory that is left sitting across the supply chain. By increasing this visibility, we get a better picture of what is needed, what is left over. We then have the opportunity to shift the resources back through the chain and put those assets to work for us rather than pushing them off to a partner as a liability. 

Temper Optimism with Realism: At the height of the boom, optimism was at its highest point. The cyclicality of the technology industry was “a thing of the past” and business was continually headed up and to the right. As the market drastically corrected, reality set in and we all scurried for cover, drastically cutting back on our product requirements, canceling orders and pushing as much liability away from our selves and back towards our supply chain partners. In the darkest days of the downturn, we lost our optimism and trust in each other, cut our costs wherever we could and battened down the hatches to ride out the storm. Looking around us, we hoped that we would make it through and knew that some others may not.

Today the storm clouds are beginning to dissipate and many analysts predict that we are starting a slow recovery from the Perfect Storm that started in 2000/2001. As we move towards recovery, there are lessons we have learned that point us towards smoother sailing in the future if we choose to heed them and learn from the painful times we have been through. We must hold on to the optimism that better times are ahead, and invest accordingly, but we must also temper that optimism with a never ending awareness of the market forces swirling around us and not be afraid to raise the storm flags when optimism conflicts with market reality. 

So, to answer the questions we started with: How did this happen?
Because we let it.

Will it happen again? By the nature of technology, there will always be a measure of cyclicality in our industry, but the shape of those cycles is up to all of us based on our supply chain behaviors. Eventually, there will be other storms in the high tech industry. It is our choice if we sail right into them, as we did this time, or if we plot a new course, one marked by the sharing of accurate and complete supply chain information between partners, a willingness to be held accountable for our supply chain information and decisions, and a willingness to take the time to find the RIGHT partners and then give them what they need to support us across the supply chain.

How will you chart your course?

(This article was originally published in the CorePurpose Executive Brief,  July 2002)

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay  Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Just call me a ‘Preneur

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I feel a rant coming on – bear with me please.  I don’t do it often.  Indulge me and perhaps by then end I can even find something positive to add. 

To start off – I really, really, really dislike the word ‘entrepreneur’.

entrepreneur“Why?” you might ask.  “Aren’t you one? “

The answer is probably yes by some peoples’ definition and then by others’ it would be no. 

There are few words in our business lexicon that are more misused, argued over, or modified than the word entrepreneur.

With all the talk about entrepreneurship these days, you would think our generation invented it.  We did not.

The word entrepreneur was first coined in the eighteenth century by Richard Cantillon and later expanded upon by Joseph Schumpeter in his writing the Theory of Economic Development  in 1911 .  It first appeared in Webster’s dictionary in 1852 and it’s definition is actually very simple according to today’s Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary –

en·tre·pre·neur  (noun)

Date: 1852  Etymology: French, from Old French, from entreprendre to undertake

: one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise

In today’s business literature, we now find a plethora of _____preneurs.

    • Intrapreneurs – entrepreneurial people inside an  enterprise
    • Co-preneurs – husband and wife entrepreneurial teams
    • Solo-preneurs – the me- myself- and I crowd
    • Mommy-preneurs – does being a Mommy make your business different?
    • Home-based-preneurs – does it matter where your office is?
    • Serial-preneurs – these folks just can’t seem to get enough…
    • Green-preneurs – these are the save the planet, eco-friendly folks
    • Social Venture-prenuers – the make a difference folks
    • Micro-prenuers – smaller scale ventures
    • Macro-preneurs – get out of my way I’m gonna be big!

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!

And then we have my personal favorite – the snob-preneur – those entrepreneurs who look at other classes of -preneurs and confidently state that the other group really is not an entrepreneur at all.  They do not count.  They are just a life-style business, or a non-profit, or a franchise, or a …..

You can find snob-preneurs everywhere.  I’ve had this debate with some of the top authors of best selling books on entrepreneurship (and no, I am not naming names) as well as with entrepreneurial advocates across every level of the continuum.  It is like entrepreneurship is some exclusive club and only certain people have the right to belong.

But going back to our simple definition, an entrepreneur is a person: one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.

It should not matter whether…

you own the company or work in it. 

you go it alone, partner with family, or grow your team to be a cast of thousands.

your office is in a corporate complex, your garage, your basement or your car.

your enterprise is structured to create wealth for shareholders, for yourself, to create greater value to society as a whole,  or any combination thereof.

Instead, let’s celebrate the “one” in the definition.  The person who see an opportunity, has the courage to pursue it despite the risks, and who through their passion and persistence creates something great – by their definition – not ours.

Perhaps, it’s time for a new word to encompass that.  Preferably one that is easier to spell. 

Got any ideas?

  Thanks for stopping by.  Stay tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Are Leadership and Management Mutually Exclusive?

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Are you a LEADER? Do you even want to be? One of the hottest topics of conversation in business and education today is leadership. We talk about it in the boardroom; we look for it in our elected officials, and integrate it into the classroom from the elementary school to the university. Back when I was in school, we focused on learning how to manage. Today we focus on learning how to lead. But, we may have shifted the focus too much. Contrary to so many things we read today, management and leadership are not mutually exclusive skill sets.

innovation 4The reality is that we need both managers AND leaders depending on the circumstance. Probably the easiest way to know what style is needed when is to look at what you are doing. When we are involved in making sure an event comes off smoothly, a plan is executed cleanly, or we are keeping track of important things at home or at work, we need to manage. When we are motivating people, changing directions, or exploring new areas, projects or things with our family, friends, or work teams, we have the opportunity to lead. Note that we have an opportunity – not necessarily an obligation – to take the lead. In many cases, too many leaders can be worse than too few. If multiple leaders are pulling the team in different directions – you don’t have leadership – you have confusion. But if you build your team with a solid mix of managers and leaders – with both respecting the contribution the other brings, you have a better chance of getting to where you are trying to go.

To manage or to lead? That is the question.

Much has been written on the difference between management and leadership. Two of my favorite writers on the subject are Warren Bennis and Ken Blanchard. Both have created great models that explain the difference between managing and leading and both draw the distinction between managing processes and leading people. The following table is a combination of their ideas and mine. It gives you a nice short list of the styles and behaviors we use when we manage or lead.  

Managers Leaders
Are Systems Focused Are People Focused
Direct Activities Encourage People to get on board
Control Assets Create or find resources
Risk averse Risk tolerant
Administrative by nature Innovative by nature
Focus on How and When Focus on What and Why
Emphasis on doing things right Emphasis on doing the right thing
Goal/Plan Oriented Visionary
Monitor near term results Look to the far horizon

As you look at the differences between the two, it is very clear – great leaders are important for our future direction – but it is the team and the managers that actually get the work done and make sure things happen. It’s like Oreo® cookies and milk – both are good individually, but together they are even better.

Preparing mangers and leaders…

So often we hear of people who are born leaders. Implying that leadership is instinctive or programmed into your DNA. You either have it or you don’t. But if you look at the games we played as children, they actually laid a foundation for our future management and leadership skills. In our early years the best follower was usually the winner. Think about games like Simon Says, Mother May I, and of course, Follow the Leader. Paying attention to details, following directions, and doing things just like your ‘leader’ was the key to success. If you were the best at observation and imitation, you won the game and moved to the front of the group.

As we grew older, new activities began to focus more on our talents and skills whether it was in the class room, scouting, clubs, sports, or music. Normally we chose the person we would follow based on their skill or experience. The games or activities had rules or guidelines, but within boundaries, we were encouraged to be creative in order to achieve our goals or win as a group. We also quickly learned who was best at a particular activity and more often than not, they became the leader for the day. Our parents, teachers, coaches, or troop leaders became our role models. How they managed or led were the examples we used to develop our own individual style. When we saw things we admired, we emulated them. In other cases, we may have rejected what they did and how they did it. Creating our own style based on the way we wish we had been treated. If you follow this logic, managers and leaders are not born. They are formed by the examples and the experiences we give to them. When I think of it this way – it makes me think twice – suddenly it’s just about what I need to accomplish, but it’s also about the way I will do it. If someone is always watching, how I choose to manage or lead will impact not only today’s activities but can have a lasting impact on the future managers or leaders who are watching what we do.

If no one is following you – how can you be a leader?

As every good drum major knows – they may be marching out in front – but the band makes the music. Good leaders and managers know that it is their team that makes the difference on whether or not they will reach their objective. Leadership implies that there must be followers. Management implies something to manage. Good managers and leaders must also not be afraid to step back and follow when another’s skills, talents or experience would provide a better solution. And as role models, we can demonstrate the value of being a follower as well as the person out in front. Our job is to recognize what skills to use and when so that the team is successful, the job gets done, and the vision becomes reality. After all – that’s what management and leadership are all about.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Want More Opportunity? Be Strategic.

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Who doesn’t want more opportunity? Here’s a simple idea for more and better opportunities – create a personal strategic plan for your business, career or job search and start with a Personal SWOT analysis. 

Image converted using ifftoanyWhat’s SWOT? The letters stand for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Businesses have used this tool for years.  Why not put it to work for you at a personal level to manage YOUR own growth?

Take out a piece of paper and draw lines so you have 4 equal quadrants. Label the top two: Strengths and Opportunities. Then mark the bottom two Weaknesses and Threats.

Start with your strengths – list as many as you can think of. Then move down the page and list all the things you wish you were better at.

Now look at what you have written as Strengths and in the Opportunity column list one potential opportunity that can come to you from each strength.

Now look at your Weaknesses. What could keep you from realizing these opportunities. Write it down and think about what you might do to keep your weaknesses from becoming threats to the opportunities you have listed. Write them down and take action.

Whether you are running a business, managing your career, or looking for a job, this simple strategy works.  Just give it a try. (Oh and don’t forget to look at your resume and make sure that all of your strengths show up in what your resume says about you!)

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Partnering – You Can’t Succeed Alone

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“If the company with the best partners wins, how do you create great partnerships that last?”

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Having a great product or service is not enough. In today’s world of competing technologies and services – the company with the best partners wins. But how do you create great partnerships that last? Partnerships that take your product or service and build it into solutions that make customers want to buy and investors want to invest?

Our partners are all around us.

They are the people and organizations that help us get from where we are – to where we want to be. Partners include our employees, our customers, our investors and the outside suppliers of goods and services we work with to make things happen.  Having spent two decades in the electronic distribution industry, I saw a lot of great products come and go. Some were wildly successful while others faded away. The companies that succeeded long-term understood that making their product accessible took partnerships with a broader network like distribution. At the same time, distributors with staying power understood that to build a lasting partnership, they had to add value to what the manufacturer had to offer. Pure transactional relationships don’t work in this world. The levels of investment and time horizons for payback are too long. For both parties to receive the maximum benefit – they have to commit for the long haul.

Are our perceptions of partnerships changing?

As I look around, I am amazed at how transactional we have become in our partnering relationships. A great example is the change in how we look at our employees. In my father’s generation – the partnership between employer and employee was often a lifetime commitment. Through good times and bad, you worked towards a common goal. You grew together. You helped each other. You were partners. You did not talk about it. You just did it. That’s the way it was. Today, we talk about employee satisfaction. We talk about growth and empowerment. We talk about strategy, teams, and commitment to a common goal. But when things get tough, do we stick together or part company. I don’t need to answer the question. The answer is all around us.

And the scariest part of this partnering shift is what it is teaching our next generation.

“There is no partnership. There is no commitment. Look out for yourself.”

If this is what we are teaching our future workforce through our example – we’ d all better watch out!

Successful partnerships are a lot like successful marriages.

My father worked for General Motors for over 40 years. He and my Mom will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on August 1st. It started me thinking. There is a connection here. 

Whether we’ re looking for a date or scanning the field for a business partner, we look around for the most attractive person we can find. The one that sparks our interest – answers a need – has what we want. In the beginning, it’s not hearts and flowers – just the basic laws of attraction. There is no commitment at this phase, just a lot of checking each other out. It’s superficial like an advertisement, a website, or a resume. We see what they want us to see. And, if we like what we see, we reach out to learn more.

The next step is the courting phase. Here we check each other out to determine the right fit. Courting is like dating. We’re getting to know each other as individuals. What we really want and what we really do. In the beginning everyone is on their best behavior. But as you start to spend time together away from the day to day
distractions, you start to get more comfortable and relax. That’s when you start to see the real person you are looking to partner with. In business we call this due diligence. We test the water comparing long term goals and how we like to do things. We match our values. We explore how we can help each other. We listen to what the other person says and we pay attention to what they aren’t saying. Just like when you’re dating, each side wants to look their best for the other person. Sometimes you need to look a little deeper to see the real partner underneath. When you like what you see – when your values match – then you are ready to commit.

Next you get engaged. It’s more than just setting a date. You are setting expectations, making promises, setting goals. As you get ready to take the plunge, you are mapping out the future of the partnership. What you will do. How you will do it. You learn to handle details and who does what best. You start to come together as a team. By the time you get to making it legal, the deal is done. The contract – whether a marriage license, a contract or a purchase order is simply confirmation of what you will set out to do together. Over the life of your relationship, you learn to work with each other, to compromise, and to adjust so that each person is getting what they need.

Like a marriage, lasting business partnerships are personal. They take thought, effort and personal attention to make them work. But most of all they require and open mind and a willingness to negotiate.

We negotiate with people, not companies.

Partnerships that last are built through a continuing series of negotiations. The relationships in the partnership are not based on the life of a contract – they last generations. This key is so simple we often miss it. Each new objective starts with a negotiation. As the partnership grows, we learn more about each other. We take that knowledge and use it to set new plans and higher goals based on each other’s strengths. 

Companies don’t negotiate – people do. Traditional styles of win-lose or win-win negotiations focus on the tally sheet between the contracting parties. Keeping score of ‘who got what’ does not make for a lasting marriage and it doesn’t work in lasting business partnerships either. To keep things working, we must develop a new form of relationship based negotiations. Each party looks at a longer horizon, acknowledging that there will always be conflict and compromise but always placing the health of the overall relationship as the highest priority. When we do this, we anticipate our partner’s needs and care enough to help them fill them. Each time we do so, the bond grows stronger, the partnership better, and we benefit. Not just today, but long into the future.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay tuned…
Joan Koerber-Walker