Reaching The Chief Supply Chain Officer Level

[00:00:00] Chris Gaffney: Welcome to the Supply Chain Careers Leadership Podcast. And I’m your host, Chris Gaffney, and I’ll be joined by my co hosts, Mike Ogle and Rodney Apple. We’re excited in this series to talk about a number of key impact areas for leadership and development for supply chain professionals, students, and employees.

[00:00:20] Chris Gaffney: We’re going to talk about how you can work more effectively as an individual. To create your own space for development, how you can differentiate in the workforce, how you can chart your own path to grow and develop, and how you can guide your own career. So sit back and enjoy the ride.

[00:00:38] Mike Ogle: This podcast is made possible by SCM Talent Group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm.

[00:00:45] Mike Ogle: Visit s SCM Talent [email protected].

[00:00:51] Rodney Apple: Welcome to the Supply Chain Careers podcast. This is your leadership series featuring our own Chris Gaffney. I am Rodney Apple, your co host along with Mike Ogle. And we’re excited about this topic today. It’s totally dedicated to those that are budding and aspiring supply chain leaders that want to reach the top position.

[00:01:13] Rodney Apple: You want to run the big show. These are the skills, competencies. Uh, and experiences you need to seek after to reach that coveted chief supply chain officer role, or perhaps the chief operating officer, or even the CEO of your own company. So we’re going to tap into those skills and competencies needed.

[00:01:30] Rodney Apple: How are you going to get there? How you can draw on the experiences of others, your network. To reach the top. So Chris, let’s dive on into this. You’ve got a lot of extensive experience running big supply chains, dynamic supply chains. Can you take us through your list of essential skills and competencies that are required for someone aspiring to be that C level leader?

[00:01:51] Chris Gaffney: Rodney, absolutely. And I would say my experience and perspective on this is drawn, not only from my roles, but also exceptional leaders who, you I have worked with who have risen to the top and then been successful there. And interestingly enough, a couple of people who have worked for me. Who have now reached that senior position.

[00:02:17] Chris Gaffney: So it’s an interesting there’s probably 5 people I can think of on this. And so this list would be a common list and some are not going to be surprising, but let’s just talk about it real quick. And then we can dig in a little bit. I think you clearly have to be a strategic thinker. And you clearly have to have affinity for leading others and building teams.

[00:02:38] Chris Gaffney: And I’ve read a lot of recent articles that the day of the manager who is not empathetic and self aware is really moving beyond us. And so I’m talking about people who are. Strong and confident, but willing to be humble servant leaders and build teams. I think you clearly have to have financial acumen.

[00:02:56] Chris Gaffney: If you’re going to get to that level, you’ve got to be comfortable understanding both the balance sheet and the PNL for a business, not just the expense side of a supply chain. You’ve got to understand how the company makes money. Even if you’re the CSCO change management is a game changer. I talked to a very senior person this past week and they said, I still leverage that everywhere I go.

[00:03:17] Chris Gaffney: Because we’re trying to move people’s self interest in driving an evolution of a business. I think in today’s world, you have to be curious and engaged in innovation. Broadly and innovation and technology and supply chain technology perspective, specifically. I do think you have to have a global perspective.

[00:03:36] Chris Gaffney: There’s no business that’s immune to the changes going around. So you’ve got to have that frame of reference. Um, you have to be able to lead through others. At this point, you’re leading massive organizations and large sub teams. So you’ve got to be effective leading through two or three layers of other people, leaders.

[00:03:53] Chris Gaffney: And then I’ve added a couple that I think are really differentiating. I think you have to be good at. Developing an operating model in most cases, when you come in, you’re going to evolve an operating model and there’s some art and science to be able to do that. And that’s how you plan a business and ultimately how you run a business within a given year.

[00:04:14] Chris Gaffney: And I think you’ve got to have an external focus. You’ve got to be comfortable bringing in. Things from the outside world, whether they be risks that your team needs to digest or whether they be new ideas that your team can adopt or whether trends that your organization needs to respond to. So I think these are things for our aspirants that they’re not only the things that will help you get to the chair, but that are the ones that will also help you be successful and stay and deliver exceptional results.

[00:04:45] Mike Ogle: And Chris, that’s a great set of nine to be able to focus on. Can we break these down a little bit further to be able to understand if you’re trying to be competent in each of these, what are some specific questions our listeners should consider to assess and develop those skills in themselves?

[00:05:04] Chris Gaffney: I think that’s perfect.

[00:05:05] Chris Gaffney: So, just rapid fire, um, in the world of strategic thinking. I think it’s really about how you balance short term demands and long term strategic goals. And I talked to a senior person last week, and I was like, are you giving your organization organizational focus 5 percent of time beyond the current year?

[00:05:26] Chris Gaffney: And how do you play in different time horizons? I think that’s really important for that differential leader. And I think You have to make sure that you understand the magnitude of large strategic decisions. I think of when I ran. Coca Cola supply, we made a couple big decisions and 1 was we had a 3rd party logistics provider who played a role of outsource transportation management with us.

[00:05:53] Chris Gaffney: And we made that make by decision to in source the capability. We went out and selected a TMS and we resourced for it and I think we did a good job. I think our big miss at that period of time was really understanding the analytical capability we needed to change the business and we didn’t make the right decision.

[00:06:12] Chris Gaffney: Provisions for that early on. It was something we really played catch up on. So I think that whole strategic thinking thing matters a lot, both in terms of the balance and in terms of understanding consequences, both intended and unintended consequences. When you make those big strategic decisions in terms of leadership and team building.

[00:06:32] Chris Gaffney: It really is about understanding the essence of a high performing team and how do you assemble that team? How do you bring them together? And how do you deal with the natural ups and downs of people who are aspirational and accountable and at varying levels of their own maturity? And then I think it’s the whole culture of continuous improvement and innovation in any business.

[00:06:55] Chris Gaffney: You’ve got to run the business and change the business. So you’ve got to have people with affinity for delivering day to day, but also the ability to say, where should we be dissatisfied with what we’re doing? And how do we bring in new ideas? And I think also I’m a fan of servant leadership as a style, and I would say that’s your best bet.

[00:07:17] Chris Gaffney: We’ve talked about that in some organizations, you may need other school skill sets and tools, but being self aware about your leadership style and what is needed for your organization. When I think it’s financial acumen, I think there are lots of things to do. Number one, I always pick great CFO to come with me because that’s as good a bet as any, and make sure that person is a really close business partner, whether they’re on your team or a cross functional partner, but then getting aligned really quickly around.

[00:07:46] Chris Gaffney: The overall dashboard for your business, and if you’re the chief supply chain officer, how do your metrics line up to the overall business? So you’re not sub optimizing. You’re really always focused on the key measures for the business. And you can understand that hierarchy within your supply chain when you may be trading off speed for asset intensity.

[00:08:04] Chris Gaffney: If that’s how you differentiate how you serve the market. I also think. Managing tough decisions and scarce resources is critical, and that can be both operating expense and capex. You’ve got to have a rigorous process for how you that prioritized capital. So you maintain your infrastructure and build new capability.

[00:08:24] Chris Gaffney: That’s true in any enterprises. Capital prioritization is a fundamental skill set. And I think inside of the year. Being smart around where you’ve built a budget, but you understand during the year, their ebbs and flows. And when do you lean in and make a bet on something? And when do you hold back? I think that’s a reality that you’ve got to be good at that.

[00:08:44] Chris Gaffney: And I think when it comes to change management, that’s a skill set that’s a methodology based thing. I don’t think you do that freelance. I think you could be a good person and be self aware, but for a large organization, you’ve got to use a structured tool set to, The managed change against a large transformation, whether you build that.

[00:09:03] Chris Gaffney: In your own team, bring in your HR talent and in O. D. People to help you with it or bring a third party. I’m never bashful around that. I do think at this level, you need to be an aspirant and not only a good student of change management, but having been through large transformations, have your own lessons learned and washouts that you’ll deploy during a transformation process.

[00:09:24] Chris Gaffney: We’ve said lots of them fail. So you need to know why they succeed and fail and how your organization has succeeded and failed and make sure you’re successful. Pre planning against that and then I think when it comes to innovation and technology, it’s really a matter of is your organization going to be an early adopter, a late adopter and then watching the technologies that can make a difference in your organization.

[00:09:48] Chris Gaffney: And when you see something that is a difference maker, then you hit the gas and I’ve seen a lot of our. Intense DSD partners figure out that warehouse automation was critical for them. And once they did that, they hit the gas on that and they’ve gone slower on other things, but it was a fundamental difference maker for them in terms of serving customers in peak periods at times when labor was going to be more and more scarce.

[00:10:10] Chris Gaffney: So just make that strategic decision, go deep in it. Once you get it right, then you replicate it. And then I think also, how do you assess new technology coming into your organization? Everyone kisses frogs when new technology comes in, but what’s your model? And I know some people who say it’s easy for me.

[00:10:27] Chris Gaffney: I’m not an early adopter. I want to hear good references for somebody I trust and let somebody else dip their toe in the pond and then I’ll go fast. But what’s your strategy around that? I think from a global perspective standpoint, Is really understanding the design of your supply chain out to tier 2 and tier 3 and understand where you have those extended risks and go deeper in into that.

[00:10:50] Chris Gaffney: And I am always listening to what’s going on in the global supply chain for that kind of whatever you want to call that far reaching. Black swan kind of thing that could eventually come close. We’ve had them in our near term. So you always want to be listening to say, is this something that could indirectly impact me or my supply base sooner rather than later?

[00:11:13] Chris Gaffney: And then I think understanding again, when you’ve got an extended supply chain, particularly in other countries, what are the unique challenges of running a business in that part of the world? And is there anything there that could impact your company’s both performance or brand? In terms of brand standards and performance in terms of how suppliers do business, I think that’s important.

[00:11:34] Chris Gaffney: We mentioned leading through others. I think it’s clearly providing clear guidance to people against a larger plan than giving them the guardrails to go do that, empowering them. And letting them run, they’ve got to be able to run the field in these large organizations for the vast majority of decisions that they have to make on a day to day basis.

[00:11:54] Chris Gaffney: You’ve got to understand how you both hold them accountable and have their back and demonstrate that in a structural way. And then understand in your organization, where are the more challenging elements, whether it be different types of talent. Competitive talent markets where you’ve got to protect to make sure you’ve got the best people cross functional challenges where parts of your organization may be dealing with difficult customers internally or externally, making sure you’re both designing against that and then paying a little differential attention to what’s going on there while supporting your leaders.

[00:12:29] Chris Gaffney: In terms of operating model development, I said it before, you got to be able to develop a multi year plan, even if your organization is not big on that. I think any leaders got to have a 3 year plan that they can speak up sideways and down about and understanding again how you’re building capability over time.

[00:12:46] Chris Gaffney: And then you’ve got to be able to chuck that up. Into an annual plan, right? So you’re in my mind, if you’re this enterprise leader, you’re starting to think about the following year in January. So, if it’s January of 24, I’m already spending 3 percent of my time thinking about January of 25 and beyond. And that’s part of that art and science.

[00:13:06] Chris Gaffney: And as you go deeper into the year, you’re focused on the future. Needs to get greater against building a business plan for the following year. I think you’re not building your business plan in October, November anymore for the following year. If you’re doing this right. So how do you manage that spread of time over the course of the year?

[00:13:22] Chris Gaffney: And then inside of the year, what are your operating cadence? So you can both manage running the business and changing the business, delivering to customers today, but also taking care of the future. And you have to be really good at the first, because lots of customers will say. I don’t want to talk to you about new business.

[00:13:37] Chris Gaffney: If you can’t deliver my current business. So you’ve got to be good at both of those. And then I think the external focus piece of it. So many of these leaders are consumed internally and in many cases as they should be. So, the external focus is as much as being really smart about how you use your time so that when you do invest externally, it’s really valuable for both you and your organization.

[00:14:02] Chris Gaffney: You can clearly. Justify how you’re spending time understanding what’s going on with your customer, your consumer ear to the ground regarding your competitor. And then I think now you have to constantly be always on about external risk and what’s going on in the macro economy. And then I think you’ve got to look upstream.

[00:14:22] Chris Gaffney: How are you working with your procurement team to make sure you understand your supplier segmentation, supplier performance, supplier risk at all times, there’s no getting away from that anymore if you’re running the large part of the organization. And I now think you have to be attuned to your tier two and tier three suppliers at this level, who they are, prioritize risk, geographic risk, all of those things.

[00:14:45] Chris Gaffney: I know that’s a bunch, but I think that’s a pretty compelling list.

[00:14:49] Rodney Apple: I agree, I think you nailed you nailed the list here. It’s a solid list. That is my time in the recruitment chair. These are the ones that come up the most often when we’re asked to go hunt down a supply chain executives. What about examples?

[00:15:03] Rodney Apple: Chris? Obviously, in your. Time at coke, and, uh, you’ve seen folks, uh, move to the top level. You’ve had folks work for you that have done that as well. I certainly have my fair share of people. I placed as an analyst that are now 20 some years ago that are now chief supply chain officers. So anybody you want to highlight there is an example.

[00:15:25] Chris Gaffney: As I said, I could highlight 4 or 5 people who I am proud to have worked with who I think really have done it. So when I mentioned 1 person, all those other people say, of course, I was in that short list. And the answer is you work, but I really. I think most of the people in my peer circle would never debate me calling out Dave Katz, who is now, I think, the president at Coke Consolidated, sometimes I get his title right, but I think he runs the operating business for Coca Cola Consolidated, the largest U.

[00:15:56] Chris Gaffney: S. Coke bottler. Dave and I have known each other now probably 20 plus years. Early on, when I was at the company, and he was at, we had a lot of things in common. We had similar roles as our organizations evolve. We eventually, I think he, he was on a board when I worked at Coke supply. When we work together as Coca Cola refreshments came together, he and I were peers.

[00:16:22] Chris Gaffney: And then I think he was actually on my board when we started the national product supply group. And what I would say about Dave is he started lower in the organization from a supply chain standpoint, super strong analytically. He was an engineer. He understood that optimization mindset and ran the optimization practice for Coca Cola Enterprises.

[00:16:44] Chris Gaffney: Then he got into a really smart. Management of his own career. He managed a procurement organization. I think he managed CCBSS for a period of time, the procurement organization that manages the U. S. Coke bottlers procurement. He made a decision to go into sales and he moved his family to Chicago and ran a market unit.

[00:17:02] Chris Gaffney: So he understood the revenue side, customer side of the business. Then he came to Coke Consolidated and had a couple of different roles. He took a role as a CFO, a big leap for a guy who was an engineer, was really good at it and came to his current position. And what I would say is, so he had that great breadth of experience and was able to be able to manage that.

[00:17:24] Chris Gaffney: Navigation. Those aren’t all laterals, but there was, those were some big bet cross functional moves that were there. I would say he leads from the front. He is a tough minded people leader. He comes from that school where he takes care of people, but he also holds people accountable. And if things aren’t right, they get handled appropriately over time.

[00:17:43] Chris Gaffney: He’s great at getting things done through others. He runs, he is, I talked to me, I think he, he feels like this job is the best job he’s ever had. He’s gotten really good at leading through others. He working with the owners of that company is set and delivered a vision that’s really translated into great outcomes over time for their consumers, their communities, their customers, their employees, and their owners.

[00:18:10] Chris Gaffney: And that’s, you know, his journey underscores that idea of having versatile experience, continuous learning. And really setting yourself up to be successful. And then he’s just a good, decent human being,

[00:18:21] Mike Ogle: you know, during this short break, we recognize that this podcast is made possible by SCM talent group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm visit SCM talent group.

[00:18:35] Mike Ogle: At SCM talent. com

[00:18:40] Mike Ogle: when an episode that we had released back in October of 2023, Chris Smith, who is, who was president of McLean grocery, talked about climbing the supply chain leadership ladder. And Chris Smith came from background of economics and accounting. When you talked about in the list, being able to understand the financial side, we’ve had several guests that have come from that end of things and got.

[00:19:02] Mike Ogle: Austin to supply chain and found out that they loved it being able to see beyond cash flows. So in. When we talk about supply chain professionals seeing beyond just their piece, it’s people on the financial side as well who will get exposed to other things and you never know where that’s going to take you.

[00:19:21] Mike Ogle: And being able to provide that kind of background, he got involved in projects with Home Depot, particularly when they were opening a huge amount of stores. cashflow is king, had to worry about some of those kinds of issues. And he was brought into a situation where he was the only non C level person in the room working on cash flows.

[00:19:43] Mike Ogle: So he gained a greater perspective of how real goods actually flow in their distribution network and how they could get to the stores. So he said that changed his career path, being able to get that broader perspective beyond finance. So always seek out those kinds of opportunities. And as we talk about aspiring C level leaders having that greater perspective, and just as I teach my own principles of supply chain classes, there are three major flows you always have to make sure you’re considering.

[00:20:11] Mike Ogle: Everybody thinks about goods flow, but you don’t have that without coordinated money flows, where Chris initially came in. And of course, information flows. You have to have a balance. You have to be able to understand the greater perspective getting to the points that you’re making Chris in the list. And part of that information flow is about the goods and money flows, but it’s also coordination of the team.

[00:20:33] Mike Ogle: And that’s where that leadership really kicks in pretty heavily. The aspiring CSCO, they set and emphasize and track goals. The head coach of a football team. I think I’ve used this analogy in a previous leadership episode, but you’ve got your offensive, defensive, and special team coordinators. You’ve got to realize when you step up to that head coach level, you’re not trying to tell them exactly what to do, but you’re leading them in strategy and being able to understand big picture.

[00:21:02] Mike Ogle: Those people that are the coordinators are the equivalent of the VPs in supply chain. They’re in turn. And you have to be able to have that perspective, understanding that they’re directing their directors and managers, which could be like offensive line and linebacker coaches. So you’re not doing all the individual day to day pieces of it, but now you’re being a great coordinator.

[00:21:26] Mike Ogle: And I think that was one of the things that Chris really got across in his episode. And one more area that I’ll finish with that Chris emphasized is how your work focus changes. A lot less internal supply chain detail. Now that you have people doing that for you to a more global perspective. Are you getting the right vision there?

[00:21:47] Mike Ogle: Have you created the right culture? Have you dealt with the outside stakeholders plus his supplier base and customer base, getting to one of your external, the ninth point that you’d made Chris, that external side of things, plus understanding what’s happening in industry, going to industry forums, being able to get the bigger pictures that you understand how to truly grow the business within what the world is dealing to you.

[00:22:14] Chris Gaffney: Like, of your list and mine, the one thing that I reflect on as I think of this short circle of people who I’ve seen do really is, all of that has one more thing, and that typically is a lot of discipline. Right there are only 24 hours in the day. The people that I know are also family people. So they’ve got priorities out in the world.

[00:22:38] Chris Gaffney: And in that work life balance section, we’ve done, they are typically doing things somewhere in the community, whether that be philanthropic church. Whatever, and most of these folks are doing a pretty nice job taking care of themselves. So I think that’s probably an underlying one for the real differentiators.

[00:22:55] Chris Gaffney: When we say, get that system where you can keep balance and even in difficult times rebalance. I think that’s a skill set that these people built up over time to where they were when they were at the top level, they could be in an unbelievable amount of intensity. And do it over time,

[00:23:13] Mike Ogle: and Chris, based on your experiences with a variety of these leaders, and especially when you talked about the short list of being able to understand the wisdom that’s been shared with you from other senior leaders.

[00:23:25] Mike Ogle: What kind of durable advice can you offer our audience

[00:23:29] Chris Gaffney: 1st on my list is. Being a continuous learner, these people are curious, and they engage in conversations with others to say, this seems new, you’re involved in it, help me understand it, and help me understand the relevance to my business, and they just don’t stop.

[00:23:51] Chris Gaffney: So that curiosity drives that continuous learning. All of these folks that I’m thinking of. Have a strong network and it’s a two way street there. They nurture those networks with respect. They have time again being super busy. They have time for people, but they do it in a thoughtful way. And they gain from that not only because they’re listening and they’re learning, they’re able to convey things into their network to send messages and that network pays bills for them whenever they need something.

[00:24:24] Chris Gaffney: Because what comes out of that is a trusted network, right? You also need a network of mentors. And coaches people who you can bounce ideas off of and get confidential feedback, trusted feedback that allows you to calibrate that against other stakeholders you’re dealing with. So I think that’s this from 2nd to 3rd.

[00:24:47] Chris Gaffney: I would say resilience is critical. All leaders have challenges, and I know many of these folks on my list have had either significant professional challenge, or they’ve had personal challenge that they’ve had to navigate. And in most cases, it’s not a 1 shot deal, and these folks are able to face those challenges and setbacks and then respond to them and then continue on.

[00:25:11] Chris Gaffney: Okay. And make choices along that way, given some of those challenges. All these folks are super high integrity. These are people I would trust with my life. I talked to people about your linkedin network. It’s that a segment of people who, if you reach out to them, they’re going to be in your corner instantly and.

[00:25:32] Chris Gaffney: They do that by deeds, right? It’s not words with these folks. They’ve demonstrated this by their actions over time. They are, they build significant trust in their organization and it, it pays bill bills from them. Their people know they do what they say they’re gonna do and they treat people fairly and then their big, not only on their own career planning.

[00:25:55] Chris Gaffney: But what I, we probably also said, these folks are great on pipeline management of their own talent pool, and they make smart decisions around moving people in their careers. I’ve seen people make very proactive decisions. So instead of an organization where there’s a lot of late moves and. Jumping around in many cases, these folks are big on proactive move.

[00:26:17] Chris Gaffney: Somebody’s successful in a job and they could run in that role for another period of time. But the next thing you see someone on their team moving into something completely different allows that person movement, create space potentially for different viewpoints, different diversity in the organization.

[00:26:33] Chris Gaffney: And it’s done in a very plan for way to me, you know, that’s a hallmark of someone who wants to really succeed in this space.

[00:26:42] Rodney Apple: Chris, we’ve had a hundred podcast episodes. We’ve talked quite a bit about career paths and the journeys of our audience. It’s rare to see the same two paths, right? Everybody in supply chain with the diversity of jobs and functions and job families.

[00:27:00] Rodney Apple: There’s a plethora of career paths. But with that said, what are your thoughts when you think about. Those functions within supply chain, procurement, planning, logistics, the operation side, et cetera, does that factor in to rounding out that experience to be able to lead cross functionally across the whole supply chain?

[00:27:19] Rodney Apple: And then other factors that come into play here include, can you do this going straight from the corporate office? Do you need to spend time out in the operations? Your thoughts on company size? Anything on the industry side? Any related factors?

[00:27:35] Chris Gaffney: When I think of the five people that I. Look at who I consider to be a players in reaching the top of this hill significant multifunction experience within supply chain.

[00:27:48] Chris Gaffney: So the 1st thing is, you’re not going to be a narrow silo logistics person and go from bottom to top or manufacturing or planning or procurement. These folks made big leaps across those and had significant depth in. Typically, at least 1, but typically more than 1. So they were really credible from a supply chain perspective.

[00:28:12] Chris Gaffney: Most of them have had an experience outside of supply chain to compliment them in some setting. And whether that be in revenue, whether that be in finance or whatever, that would also can be in this data set. That’s. My view of it, I, I, I do think again, depending on the size of the organization, most of the folks I know had classic were local operating unit experience as well as something closer to the center.

[00:28:42] Chris Gaffney: I think ultimately, if you can touch both of those, your odds rise for sure. I think you mentioned if you’re going to run a supply chain, do you have to have run a plant? The answer from this data set is no of the 4 or 5 people that I have seen run a plant. Sometimes they’ve managed multiple plants, been a multi plant person for a short period of time and I have great respect for people who run plants.

[00:29:11] Chris Gaffney: But if I look at the preponderance of people, we know who’ve reached cheap supply chain officer, I would not say the majority of them were a plant manager early in their day. That said. I’m an absolute proponent that you have had to have had some hands on operational experience. Materially in your career in order to be effective at the top spot that may not have been running a plant may have been running a DC may have been logistics experience.

[00:29:41] Chris Gaffney: It may have been operational procurement, but something where you’ve really had to get close to the. Coal face if you will in order to really be understand how your business transform raw materials into finished goods how your business serves customers you got to have 3 to 5 really hardcore years to have any chance at rising to that top level and you may say more than that but I think that’s my bare minimum

[00:30:06] Mike Ogle: and if you don’t mind me tossing in one other little data point this semester I had Mike Leggett who is CSCO of lazy boy come into my class.

[00:30:17] Mike Ogle: And 1 of the points that he emphasized really strongly is, I don’t think he considers anybody unless they’ve had that kind of experience as far as being able to have a chance to to move up underneath him. For instance, he wants them to really understand because they have the manufacturing operations.

[00:30:34] Mike Ogle: They’ve got the distribution. They do transportation. They’re doing things globally around the world. So he wants to be able to give them that kind of experience and he put it as essentially a must. And the. Almost to the students, if you plan on rising up, do it, don’t do it at your own peril.

[00:30:55] Chris Gaffney: Yeah, I think the other thing that’s more practical about it is, if you’re going to aspire to run a supply chain, You’ve got to like the frontline element of it.

[00:31:04] Chris Gaffney: You’ve chosen this path. As I say to my friends in this space, if you wanted the glory, you would have gone into sales. You chose to play fullback or left tackle instead of quarterback. And that’s okay. Supply chains. Are fundamentally required to do that, but you’re not in it for the glory. You’re in it for the understanding of the business process, how you serve customers, how things get made and moved that you have to have some passion.

[00:31:30] Chris Gaffney: So you should want that operational experience. If you’re going to commit your career to the field.

[00:31:36] Rodney Apple: Yeah, from my perspective on the search side of supply chain, we see the same things and I’ll say sometimes because there’s different pathways to get to the top. As we’ve discussed, some come from finance.

[00:31:47] Rodney Apple: I’ve seen people come out of HR that have done this before, and it’s truly interesting to see that. I think a lot of times the company, when we get these big roles, we’re not going to find it’s hard to find a subject matter. Expert that’s a master at each of these domains. And I think a lot of companies need to understand that’s a pretty rare skill set to be an expert in planning and an expert in all things procurement and an expert in logistics, transportation, warehousing.

[00:32:14] Rodney Apple: So, often, when they come to us, it’s what’s bleeding or what’s the most important priorities and they’ll try to tighten the profile up around where they have maybe some functional gaps or where they’re going to be some big initiatives in the coming years to tackle. But more often than not. Having that operations experience is certainly preferred.

[00:32:32] Rodney Apple: And if all things are equal, when you look at the background, if somebody has that, oftentimes they’re going to be the preferred candidate.

[00:32:38] Chris Gaffney: Rodney, let’s dig in a little bit more. I know you’ve done some really substantial chief supply chain searches in the last year or so, big national searches. Yeah. When you step back.

[00:32:51] Chris Gaffney: And say when you’re doing this, what are your clients want the people who’ve been successful? What are the observations perspectives themes when you’re doing this from a search lens?

[00:33:02] Rodney Apple: Yeah, great question, Chris. And as I was preparing. For this podcast, I had remembered I, when I served as the supply chain career coach for apex or now, I wrote an article article.

[00:33:14] Rodney Apple: An article for their magazine SCM now, and it’s 10 steps up to the corner office. So I had, I had 10 on my list. And as I cross referenced it with your list, we have the same ones for the most part, but going back through memory lane and what our clients typically ask for that, maybe some different ones that we can add and consider is a broad business acumen.

[00:33:35] Rodney Apple: And we talked about financial acumen. That’s a no brainer. You have to have that these days in these big roles, but understanding the broader business Supply chain is one of the few areas that touches every aspect of a company. So you’ve got to understand the commercial side, your go to market or sales and distribution channels.

[00:33:52] Rodney Apple: You’ve got to understand R& D innovation, how products come from concept, enabling that to get to the shelves and the customers, the HR side, including my side, you should be tightly aligned with those that work on the talent side, the recruitment, HR, business partners, et cetera, because you’re going to engage with it, finance everybody.

[00:34:12] Rodney Apple: Every function, and then you’ve obviously got the external inputs that we’ve already covered. So that’s a big ask. And then I would say communication. It’s 1 thing. Of course, you’re going to have to be able to confidently present up to. The board level, oftentimes, you may be out into the investor community.

[00:34:29] Rodney Apple: You’ve got to be able to do that, but you especially have to be able to drop down to the shop floor. Side of the house and flex your communication styles around audiences to include board level presentations, or you’re doing a town hall with a factory. You’ve got to be able to to capture their attention.

[00:34:46] Rodney Apple: Continuous improvement is something that we constantly see. And I think it’s not just like a CI person. We don’t need it. It don’t have to be a lean 6 sigma black belt or anything like that, but definitely having that mindset. And I think what we. Well, we tend to hear a lot of is someone that is goes back to change management to is being able to drive that whole mindset across an organization.

[00:35:08] Rodney Apple: So you have a culture of continuous improvement where everybody has that mindset and it really helps to sustain sustain it throughout the organization. Sustainability, speaking of sustaining, we’re constantly asked to find people. It’s not always an ask, but oftentimes, especially with larger companies, large global manufacturers, in particular, they’re wanting someone that can craft those initiatives and programs both internally and then connecting into the supplier base to do it on the external side.

[00:35:37] Rodney Apple: Servant leadership is if there’s any kind of leadership style that is requested more often than not. It is that. Servant, leadership, style, leading with humility, empathy, strong EQ, truly having a mindset that I’m here to work and support the success of the people in my organization and my stakeholders, suppliers, customers, et cetera.

[00:36:01] Rodney Apple: So we see that quite a bit, Chris, uh, stakeholder engagement, kind of touched on that earlier, but just being able to craft those relationships internally, cultivate them internally, externally. That is imperative to success. You mentioned the term lead from out front. So we hear that term hands on, they can get their hands dirty more often than not when companies come to us to replace a leader, uh, oftentimes it’s just somebody that wants to sit back behind the desk and try to lead from the office.

[00:36:33] Rodney Apple: And, and that’s, that’s typically the quickest path to an exit. If that’s, if you can’t get out. Into the organization. Other than that, I think about when people companies come to us to replace somebody, we hear that the so and so is they just spend all their time fighting fires. They’re living in the weeds and they can’t focus on staying on top of the strategic initiative.

[00:36:52] Rodney Apple: So I titled that 1, but pivoting prowess, being able to move from tactical to strategic and driving, like, you said earlier, getting work done through others and delegating is. Uh, I think this goes without saying that the data analytics, the tools become smarter with AI machine learning and touches on the technology side, of course, but you’ve got to be able to make quick timely decisions.

[00:37:15] Rodney Apple: You’ve got to be able to access data. The data has to be accurate. You’ve got to be able to visualize it and distill it when you’re presenting or, or making decisions in the business. Risk management. We talked about that a little bit, but to me, 20, 30 years ago, it really A big thing in supply chain, you fast forward to today.

[00:37:33] Rodney Apple: It’s more important today than ever before. We talk about geopolitical tensions and things like that. So being able to extend not only into your supply base, but looking into that tier 2 tier 3, the supplier suppliers, if you will decision making just being timely again, data driven. And then I use this term silo busting.

[00:37:51] Rodney Apple: We still see this. Shockingly out and out in some companies where there’s competing priorities and the 1 hands not talking to the other hand. So that ability to remove barriers, break down walls to still the competing priorities is critical. It leads into casting a vision where the supply chain org from top down is focusing on one common vision, one common set of goals, and everyone knows what their department, what their role is, and how it contributes to the overall vision.

[00:38:25] Rodney Apple: So those are my ads,

[00:38:27] Chris Gaffney: I would react to a couple of those. I think that agility of somebody who can talk to someone at the shop floor and talk to the board is huge. So I definitely think that one is there. And I guess what I would say to me. What it says is you got to want this job, right? You have to aspire to this job because you got to be all in to lead all this.

[00:38:52] Chris Gaffney: And I think that’s there’s some people I knew who were like, just 1 step short. We’re like, am I really you make sacrifices if you’re going to take this job? And we had a study about aspiration 1 time and you’re probably. Going to have a harder time getting that ideal balance that we like. So I think you’ve got to understand for a point in your life, you are going to be all in, if you’re going to do this job,

[00:39:15] Rodney Apple: not for the faint of heart.

[00:39:18] Rodney Apple: Chris, what are some of the watchouts you can call them? Maybe some of these common derailers that budding aspirational supply chain leaders should be aware of that can either slow them down from achieving, getting to this level, hold them back for reaching the top. What do you say? I think if you close off

[00:39:38] Chris Gaffney: feedback, you’re doomed right?

[00:39:40] Chris Gaffney: If you get to the point where people understand they can’t bring you bad information or bring you a contrary point of view, you’re pretty well toast. I think if you start reading your own press clippings and think you’re all that, you’re also pretty well toast. Those are probably the answer. The ones that I would say, and I, I, I think if you start to say that’s for you, and that’s not for me, then you’re in trouble.

[00:40:09] Chris Gaffney: I remember we brought in a brand new feedback system, right? And we were going to, you know, really get into is a 360 feedback kind of thing and I was all in. I was all excited about it and I said something to my boss about it because that’s for you guys. That’s not for me. And I was like, we’re doomed. So those are probably my quick ones.

[00:40:29] Rodney Apple: Yeah, I think those are great ones. And I think I would just add you get into the big companies and you’ve got to be able to navigate the political waters. And I’m not talking about the left versus right type of politics, but more of the corporate politics and bureaucracy and it goes back to relationships and nobody wants somebody that’s either a.

[00:40:48] Rodney Apple: A snitch or brown noser, if you will, and I would say, especially, and I think I see this holding people back more so than any other thing. It’s having an ego and a chip on the shoulder and taking credit for something you didn’t do or your team did. I remember a supply chain executive I worked with a huge presentation to the board.

[00:41:08] Rodney Apple: It was going to be a massive capital initiative for, and the team did all the work and the leader of the team acted like he did the work and took credit as it was being presented up to the board, which I was Shocked, but not surprising to see in a big fortune 500 company. So those are my additions. Mike, do you have anything to add?

[00:41:28] Mike Ogle: Yeah, I was actually listening to a Wharton business daily broadcast that was on a serious exam the other day. And they had former CEO of Yum! Brands talking on there, hitting almost right on top of some of the things that, that y’all were mentioning. And one of those was, if you don’t have empathy today.

[00:41:47] Mike Ogle: Which is understanding how that would end up affecting those people below in all these examples that the two of you were just talking about. In other terms, he said, yeah, good luck being able to maintain that position that you’re in. And I think his opinion was also, I don’t even know how you got there if that ends up happening that way.

[00:42:08] Mike Ogle: So that empathy side of things, and then also just that awareness of being able to have the conversations with your people to know where are they at? What’s happening? What are their mindsets? And it goes along with the empathy. It’s they want to know they want to hear what’s going on. That’s good. And they want to hear what’s going on.

[00:42:27] Mike Ogle: That’s bad. The things that could trip up the organization. So those are the 2 key things that really stuck with me out of that.

[00:42:34] Rodney Apple: Yeah, and I’ll respond to that with, uh, back on the leadership style, and I think this goes hand in hand. We talked a lot about servant leadership. And again, our clients ask for that style.

[00:42:44] Rodney Apple: They need somebody that has the empathy and humility and looks out for others, puts them 1st. It’s critical. And what doesn’t work? And this is following the segue right into what you said, Mike, it’s that authoritarian. It’s that Aristocrat, dictatorship type of style, or lead with the whip, barking orders.

[00:43:04] Rodney Apple: Everything is, comes out from the center. Go do it, go implement it. You have to be thinking more along the lines of ground up, have them be, have your teams be part of these ideas and solutions. And that’s what helps to get the buy in versus the other way around. Just that’s where transformations fail, right?

[00:43:22] Rodney Apple: We see it time and time again. And when companies come to us, it’s to replace a leader. It’s that. It’s the leadership. It’s

[00:43:28] Mike Ogle: more

[00:43:29] Rodney Apple: oftentimes than not. It is not up to par. So just another comment there. Yeah. The

[00:43:37] Mike Ogle: everything you are belongs to me mindset.

[00:43:41] Chris Gaffney: It’s not episode 19 by accident. We talked about this.

[00:43:45] Chris Gaffney: The first 10 episodes are about leading self. And the second 10 are really about leading others, but this is the pinnacle of leading others in the supply chain world. And we, if people are going to go to the trouble to listen to the podcast series, they’ve got aspirations for those who have curiosity, this is just one more thread on top of that and say, if I someday aspire to that.

[00:44:06] Chris Gaffney: What will it take? And I, one of the people who used to work for me, who I recall when she was a young analyst, single parent, just got a big job and she took care of those things then that paid bills that have led to where she is today. So it is a 15 or 20 year plan to be able to position yourself to get these jobs.

[00:44:28] Rodney Apple: Yeah, and if you don’t plan, someone else will do that plan for you, and it may not get you to the top. So imperative to have career goals and write them down or they’re not goals to track them to adjust them to take the time and space to reflect on where you’re at against your goals. Progress wise, make adjustments.

[00:44:50] Rodney Apple: And celebrate the milestones along the way, Chris, uh, Mike, this has been, uh, I think an incredibly insightful podcast episode and like you said, it pulls everything together that we’ve been talking about from. As you start out your career, your individual contributor, you’re leading yourself. You get that 1st promotion, you’re leading others.

[00:45:08] Rodney Apple: Next thing you’re leading other leaders and then you get. If you do things right, maybe a little bit of luck too comes into play. The harder you work, the luckier you get. Of course, uh, you can reach this coveted chief supply chain officer role, great episode, and I know our audience will get a lot out of this.

[00:45:24] Mike Ogle: Yeah. And hope everybody remembers that journey to the top. The, the way that it happens is as important as getting to the destination. And you’re always just continuously improving, building those strong relationships and staying true to your values along the way.

[00:45:38] Rodney Apple: Thanks audience for joining us today. If you do have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover, feel free to reach out.

[00:45:45] Rodney Apple: Our contact information is over at scmtalent. com. So until the next time, keep pushing the boundaries, striving for excellence in your own supply chain career. Thank our audience for joining us today. We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If you found the content value. Valuable, please subscribe to the show, drop us a rating, share it with your network.

[00:46:04] Rodney Apple: If you think of someone that could benefit from our advice and our content up next, that we’re going to have our 20th leadership podcast, and we’re going to put all of these things together that we’ve been teaching from episode one of the series, featuring Chris Gaffney and how you can apply these lessons for your own benefit.

[00:46:24] Rodney Apple: We’ll be looking forward to that next episode here in the very near future until then stay inspired and keep leading with excellence. This

[00:46:37] Mike Ogle: podcast is made possible by SCM talent group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm. Visit SCM talent group at scmtalent.com.