learn·ing /ˈlərniNG/ Learn to pronounce noun noun: learning     the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught.  I came across the notion of "Disinterested Learning" this morning and I absolutely love it. I was never a straight A student through school, to be honest, it would probably be more like straight B's! That was never really because of a lack of ability, it was more of a result of how much I enjoyed the subject. In the classes I loved or was really interested in, my marks would be high, in the classes that I took because I had to or if I didn't enjoy the professor or material, B / B+. People often find it amusing then when they find out about how much "self learning" that I do. I read a ton, I research things that I don't understand or want to improve on (and I can even get a little obsessed with my focus). While it wasn't as apparent earlier in life, I do love to learn. It is so...

  I have a really weird brain. I am always thinking and have so many divergent trains of thought someone once described my brain as a spider web (I totally prefer awesome neural network, but hey, I'm probably pretty biased). While I have come to enjoy the way I think and it most certainly has benefited my throughout my career, as I get older, maybe even a little wiser, I have come to accept the fact that I can't just go all unfiltered on people (I usually know this has happened when I get this deer in the highlights look from the person in front of me). It's one of the main reasons I have invested in and spent so much time on my own self-development. From leadership, to communication, to coaching, it's important to me to be able to manage myself to create the best possible connections with my team and those that I work with. That being said, it's not always easy, and sometimes it's extremely frustrating. Having ideas bottled up in you...

  I have always loved the idea of time, which is probably why I have a solid sci-fi geek streak that runs through me (but you may have already guessed that if you recognized my title!). Really understanding and appreciating the nuances of time, isn't something I feel most people are really into. There's all kinds of authors and books who reference time and that it is just a man made creation that has infected our lives; something that stresses people out as they keep feeling like there isn't enough for all of the things they "have" to do. If you haven't seen them yet and want to twist your mind up with time, check out The Arrival & Interstellar . So the question ... why am I writing about time? With all of the talk of Supply Chains in the news lately, with story after story about the stress on them, how some are failing, pressure to perform, etc, talking about time resonated with me. Effectively managing any operation is about effectivel...

These ideas might be a bit jumbled as they are crashing together in my head right now. I am currently reading Originals by Adam Grant (which I am enjoying much more than I expected based on some peer feedback). One of the chapters in the book addresses the concept of Groupthink which is quite relevant for the times we are currently experiencing. The CoronaVirus has, in my opinion, created a really challenge within our communities when it comes to Groupthink, Social Influence and those wanting to be different. Here are my thoughts. Groupthink I feel as though a lot of businesses are being dominated by Groupthink at this time. From my experience, when times are stressful and uncertain, people are quite happy to let someone else make the decisions, no one really wants to be the person who takes responsibility for owning the solution. There is a focus on harmony and conformity, that no one wants to rock the boat or challenge the person making the decisions. The reas...

This is a really great read and I recommend it to anyone, but especially those in a leadership role. It is written in such a way that it's as if Bob is answering your questions right in the room. He does a great job ingrating events and facts with his personal feelings and thoughts. What I found really refreshing is that this is another wildly successful leader (like Phil Knight with Nike) that really benefitted from hiring people and not just a resume. The views he presents are insightful about focusing on ability and even putting people in roles that are a little beyond them. What was also interesting to see was that it sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn't, but it never made him question his approach. He is a great model to highlight that people can achieve amazing things, even if it is initially outside of their comfort zones. The back of the book contains an annex that basically summarizes a few of his key learnings and the messages he wants to share....

  So I was finally able to get through my second 72 hour fast in the last 12ish months or so. I have been trying to hit this milestone for a while now, but would constantly find myself cracking and grabbing something in the cupboard. This time however, it was really strange, from the second I started the fast, I was good. I didn't really go through massive sugar drops and seemed like my body transitioned really well into fat burning mode. It was important for me to take control of something and show myself that I can still focus my attention and discipline to achieve a goal in front of me. With everything that is going on, a lot of people feel out of control and are struggling. Setting goals and hitting them brings that sense of achievement and normalcy that we are lacking as we manage the outbreak of the COVID-19. This has given me back some of my motivation to now get back into some other work that I haven't been committed too over the last 3 to 5 d...

As the CoronaVirus runs across the world, everyone is suddenly being exposed to news story after news story that is talking about Supply Chains. For an industry that usually doesn't get this much attention, this is great and terrible at the same time. As someone who has spent 13 years of my life in the Supply Chain world, it is normal that your friends, family and other professionals don't really get what you do; or they understand your world in bits and pieces. This is completely normal, I don't profess to know all about financial markets, software development, sales or any other industry for that matter. As we grow and develop in our professional lives, we each develop greater levels of expertise and understanding within our field, and we all do our part to contribute to society. The challenge with this however, comes as we experience Black Swan type events ... suddenly there is all kinds of media coverage, conversation and opinions being shared and not...

  Maybe I think differently because I have read this? With everything going on with the CoronaVirus, it is incredible to see how people are behaving. Everyone and their cousin is talking about the Supply Chain, about being prepared, about not having enough capacity ... it's crazy. I honestly wonder if the people making all of these comments have ever actually ran any operations, if they ever had to responsibility to actually get things done. It's easy to say how prepared you can be, and what companies should have been doing, or pointing the finger saying "how could you be out of stock". The reality is, we have a lot of choice. The average grocery store for example can easily have 15,000 to 20, 000 skus that move through their stores ... think about that for a minute. That many skus, that are all cycling through the stores on some type of regular rate of sale.  Or let's take something that's more in people's face at the mo...

Where are we playing? How do we win? So many businesses these days don't see to really be able to answer these questions. Now, while they seem straight forward and simple, they are actually extremely powerful questions and answering them properly requires quite a bit of work; but for the companies that can answer them properly, they are successful in what they do. Businesses of all sizes struggle with really understanding where to play. A company that tries to be everything to everyone while being everywhere is a great example of a company that doesn't really know where to play (and how to win). The underlying premise of those two questions is to really understand where or what your competitive advantage is. For anyone who wants to read more, please see: Competitive Advantage . Simply put, a competitive advantage is an advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices (cost) or by providing greater benefit...

   If you haven't read this book, you need to. In a world where we all talk about doing things, we don't as often talk about the things that we don't do, or better yet, the things someone else told us "no" to. As I find myself looking for the next step in my career path, I am really happy I have read this book a while ago. It really highlights how much of our decisions are based on our own fears and how we end up limiting ourselves by deciding in advance. I have heard A LOT of "no" in the last couple of months. That in itself has been a really eye opening experience. I was always praised and build up and had all of the accolades.  To find myself being judged, told you aren't the right fit, we don't see you being able to do it ... is maddening. At the same time, it is allowing for a lot of self discovery and I am learning a lot about myself. It's really uncomfortable to look inwards and be brutally honest with ...

I enjoy success as much as anyone else. That rush you get when a project or launch that you have been working on goes as planned (or even better than planned). It gives you a great sense of accomplishment, pride and probably a solid boost to your ego (this is a whole other discussion!). I have been fortunate to have had a lot of those moments in my career up until this point, and have taken the opportunity to maximize the learning from each  of them, building my style and my "way". What I am more fortunate for however, is having had the opportunity to lead. Working with a team, helping them succeed and develop while at the same time growing yourself is extremely rewarding. It's way way harder than then technical stuff; learning systems and processes is so much simpler than effectively leading a team. In my experience, most "leadership training", which a lot of the time is actually management training...

    This is an interesting and sometimes polarizing topic. One group of people believe that the more content (ideas, conversations, posts, videos, etc) that you put out into the world, the better your return is as you are connecting with more people and getting greater exposure. Another group feels that by investing all of this energy into giving away "free stuff", takes away from what you could be doing to grow your business, give to your clients or to your employer. That giving your stuff away doesn't pay the bills, so what's really the point other than feeling good. For me personally, I'm all about giving my best stuff away for free, and what follows are really my "whys". First and foremost, I don't really prescribe to the idea that anyone really has "best stuff". That's finite and fixed and I truly don't believe this applies to people the way it can be associated to things. If you are a miner, and you m...

It's 3:00AM and you have been out all night with your friends, having a great time, and drinking WAY too much. As you are getting yourselves together to go face the world (at less than peak performance), your friend pulls his phone out of his pocket and hails the Uber. As you all stand outside, huddled together against the cold, inevitably frustration mounts and someone says "where is this guy already?" The phone once again makes an appearance to set everyone at ease, "relax, he's just around the corner." What we don't talk about anymore, was that exact same scenario played out years earlier, the only difference being that instead of the Uber, you were waiting for the cab after calling into dispatch. How frustrating and sometimes infuriating was it to be standing there shivering, dwelling in your uncertainty? The popularization of Uber is often linked to things like: ease of use, lower prices, mutual safety, a simple payment pr...

What does "customer experience" mean to you? Or maybe better yet, the real question should be what is "customer experience" to your customers? I often see two types of streams when this topic comes up, and you can usually see which a business adopts pretty quickly. The first I would say is a functional one.  Under this model, a business prides itself on their processes and creates good workflows for the fact that they deal with a lot of different customers, and try to be something for everyone. This business pride themselves on their clean invoices, their simply payment options, their execution of basic services ... all in all, they are essentially easy to deal with but still relatively impersonal. The second type is more personalized. Here, you will find a business that leverages their people and their ability to create connections with their customers (on top of focusing on be great at what they do) in order to "wow" their customers. Wowing y...

Change Management is a pretty hot topic these days. You can't seem to be involved in any type of larger project without the discussion around change being put onto the table (and rightly so). Our organizations are made up of large numbers of individuals, and when we look to make transformative change, we are impacting many different processes and workflows which in turn impact larger and larger numbers of employees. Trending approaches today are heavily focused on communication. Basically get top level buy in, have that pushed down through each level of management, communicate changes, be transparent and try to make people feel "included" in the change (it is more complex then than that, feel free to Google to your heart's content for more information). The challenge or question for me however, sits more on the initial assumption that people will accept change once they understand it and see the value of the change for the organization. So then why is it s...

You often hear people talk about strategy and being strategic in interchangeable ways. The reality is, these are not the same; added to this, people often mistake strategy or strategic thinking for goals. Many leaders create a lot of confusion for their teams by not being able to apply these concepts properly. Here's how I look at it and how best I have found to communicate it. Goals: The end state, where would we like to be, what do we want to achieve Strategic: What direction should we be moving to in to create or further leverage an advantage Strategy: Specific actions and initiatives that will make real or enhance your advantage As you can see, strategy is actually about what your team is going to do.  Being able to focus your team this way is essential to avoid the trap of having everyone working extremely hard yet never fully accomplishing the goal. All too often, leaders explain the goals and the strategic thinking of the initiative and assume that their teams w...