It's been a while since I have written anything new. As I have started and gotten into a new role with a new organization, finding time for other interests has been harder. I had couple of events over the last two weeks however that found me back in a place to share. My new role is all about Continuous Improvement. Working with my team and the broader operations teams to drive a lot of change. This is not a new world for me or aren't responsibilities that I haven't had in the past, however it is the first time I find myself in a role completely dedicated to it. The most important thing that you need to be able to do in order to drive change is to understand what is going on. You HAVE to ask A LOT of questions, to keep asking "... and what else?", to keep pushing past the first answers and responses you get (often these are what the business has always done, or what individuals have been doing based on their understanding). Asking questions and pushing ...

In a world built on relationships, meetings matter. They are important and really help bring people together to achieve common goals. Since meetings are important, it's critical that you know how to run one, properly. First and foremost. Make sure you know what the meeting is for: • Discussion / Exploration • Decision • Information sharing Next, make sure that you actually have the right people at the meeting based on your intention, and more importantly, make sure THEY know why they have been asked to participate. Third and most important, respect people's TIME. Everyone is busy, has a lot on the go and attending meetings takes away time from other things they could / should be working on. To respect people's time, manage your meeting. Start on time, end on time and make sure that you drive the meeting in such a way that you will cover what needs to be covered during the stated time. Don't allow the meeting to go off the rails and then simply think that you can book an...

There is so much talk with respect to COVID and how it has 'changed everything forever'. That's hard to accept. From a professional side, I get it. New restrictions, new concerns and trying to figure out how you can effectively put in place, manage and communicate that it is 'safe' to return to normal. Within a business, changing the culture or the structure of your organization is extremely hard. Businesses have grown and evolved their culture to where it is today. There is a huge amount of shared beliefs, norms and expectations that allow you to operate how you do. You can't just flip the switch and have a totally different picture tomorrow. From a personal side however, I am still waiting to see it. Having been the one who has been going to stores and doing the shopping all throughout this pandemic, I can see that people are done. In the beginning, a lot of people, if not everyone was adhering to whatever guidelines where given. We waited patiently in lines, ...

Coming from an operations world, you are always on the go. While you might work 8 or 10 hours a day, the other parts of your business and/or your responsibility are usually going 24 hours a day. This is one of the most challenging things for people to manage as they get into an operations world. At first you simply believe that you will do more hours, get ahead of the curve and then you will be able to slow down and relax. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. The more you get accomplished, the more 'opportunities' you seem to have. Added to this, you start to deal with the matrix above more often then you realize. The biggest trap that people fall into with their work and responsibilities is not taking the time to understand where each task / problem / responsibility fits. The other major challenge is that we often take on what 'seems' to be urgent and important ... for other people and not necessarily ourselves. With so many people working from home right now, I...

Today's post was inspired by the following quote from the book "The Dichotomy of Leadership": "Every leader must be willing and able to lead, but just as important is a leader’s ability to follow. A leader must be willing to lean on the expertise and ideas of others for the good of the team. Leaders must be willing to listen and follow others, regardless of whether they are junior or less experienced." One of the best ways a leader can truly lead the team is to also follow them. It is extremely empowering for your team to know that you not only listen, but trust them to make important decisions and that you are going to have their back and let them take charge. Some people think that being the leader means you make all the of the decisions all of the time, and if you think your idea is best, to just pull rank and make it happen. Like everything in life, it is better when people CHOOSE.  The autonomy and flow it provides your team is extremely importa...

I often am challenged or get asked how I have developed the thoughts and insights I have into certain domains even though I don't have years of work history in those spaces. Maybe I'm just weird, or wired differently, but this always leaves me puzzled. The reality is I'm not sitting around coming up with quadratic equations, most of the way I frame things is rooted in common sense. At the end of the day, when not at work, I am a customer / consumer too, just like everyone else. Often I simply look at things and say, "how would I do this", "how would I make this better or less of a pain in the ass"! It's not rocket science. This always makes me think of some line from a movie or TV show (probably something geeky that I came across over the years because I couldn't Google it - if you know it, let me know!) Basically the idea is that to truly understand something, you need to see it while hanging upside down in front of a mirror. The ide...

This week seems to be starting off with a theme for me ... the idea and requirements of Express Delivery in last mile. Last mile is a challenging space. You are making direct deliveries to a customer. These are typically the least efficient deliveries that you can make, because an individual order size most likely will be challenge with respect to the operating costs to perform the activity. The discussions I have seen recently seem to be providing people with a bit of a false sense of security (in my opinion). We live in an age of data and technology, where the smallest operations can replicate what used to only be achievable by the biggest companies. This is a double edged sword however in the face of rising expectations. Everyone thinks about Amazon, and how they are 'easily' able to deliver on their service experience, but even Amazon has been careful and slowly approaching express / same day delivery. Walmart has been in the news recently as they launched their...