Podcast: Launching Off the Career Springboard – with Brett Frankenberg, Coca-Cola Supply Chain Executive

Rodney Apple: [00:01:42] Welcome, Brett Frankenberg to the Supply Chain Careers

Podcast. We’re very excited to have you on the program today.

Brett Frankenberg: [00:01:49] Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Rodney Apple: [00:01:51] I know we’ve got a lot of shared experience here from the

Coca-Cola system. It’s a very integrated system between the Coca-Cola company and

the various bottling franchise systems, so we’re looking forward to maybe diving a little

bit into that and the unique career paths that exist with such a massive system that

distributes products in 200 countries basically all over the world. We’d love to get started

with a better understanding, the very beginning stages of your career. How did you get

started and what are some of those key lessons you learned?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:02:21] I was recruited into a management training program by

Pepsi-Cola to work in their Philadelphia manufacturing facility. I was a recent graduate

of Penn State, industrial engineering degree. And then I started on the floor as a

management trainee. It was a program where you started on the floor, and you rotated

through the various functions, departments, within the operation, at that facility. There

were production components, QA, beverage testing, there’s blending, and then there

was warehousing, as well and maintenance. You rotate through there and at some

point, you get splintered off into a real job. Mine was in the warehouse. And so, I

became a supervisor for the warehouse. You generally don’t get the shift of your choice

so I was a midnight to 8:00 AM shift.

Chris Gaffney: [00:03:16] So Brett, I have this debate with lots of folks in my network

about the value of working in the physical operation side and how that informs and kind

of enables you to be more successful as you advance. Obviously, you have advanced,

steadily and significantly over those intervening years. What have been the keys to

success for you in that kind of continued path of advancement through the world of

supply chain? And how do you think having those hardcore operational experiences in

an operating plant, operating warehouse, off shift have helped you be more effective

through your career?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:04:00] I don’t know if there’s a magic recipe for this, Chris. I

think it’s as basic as doing your job. I had this conversation with many folks. Do your

job, do job well, do your job when no one’s looking, do your job when people are

looking. Do what’s asked of you and ask questions and learn. Be curious, understand

what you’re doing, but understand how it impacts others. Ask others questions. Try and

find out how your service or the output of whatever it is you do. How is it received or

digested by the next function or out of the groups upstream and downstream? I

appreciate consistency and people who do the job, particularly the job I hired them to

1. And then can do it in a way that doesn’t generate a wake of issues that you have to

clean up afterwards. So, to do it the right way. Don’t take shortcuts.

There’s no substitute for real life experience and on the floor experience. And I wouldn’t

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trade it for the world. It was a way for me to work with folks on the front line, which is if

you look at Coca-Cola Consolidated, we’re frontline company and you never want to

lose touch with the ability to understand or the ability to relate to the frontline folks who

are out there everyday making your business successful. I don’t know if there is a better

way or a better foundation you can have then starting out in an operation and learning

how things are done.

Chris Gaffney: [00:05:30] You’re preaching to the choir there, Brett, so I’m glad to hear

that.

Rodney Apple: [00:05:34] As you look at your career, we’d love to hear more about

what took you in that direction into planning and procurement after managing multiple

sites on the warehousing side.

Brett Frankenberg: [00:05:44] I say to everyone, do your job you’re asked to do. That

doesn’t mean you eventually don’t want to do something else and expand your horizons

and learn more. So, I was a supervisor on the floor for years. I then went into the

training department for the plant and that was more cross-functional and the plant got to

work with the various teams. And I loved working cross functional teams. From there, I

got an opportunity to join a company initiative to overhaul the supply chain. I joined as a

logistics manager doing special projects out in the field. But eventually they were

overhauling the planning system. And I guess they ran out of volunteers to take on the

modules. So, I got volun-told that I would be leading one of those modules. I told

everyone to get an opportunity to get on some sort of step function, change initiative in

the company. Those are springboards. It’s kinda like what pitstops are at NASCAR.

That’s a way to change the order going in versus coming out. And so the more

disruption there is, the more complexities and more chaotic it is, the better it is for

someone who’s a young in career to carve a great path, to develop a subject matter

expertise in an area because coming out of any type of initiative like that, you’re going to

need folks who know the tool, know the business. And what an opportunity to be

curious, digest and learn and master a subject. Anytime we’ve done that with our ERP

or any new tool or process, I always watch to see who’s going to come out of this

initiative and springboard their career into a kind of a different stratosphere as a result.

It’s a great opportunity. Don’t shy away from it.

Chris Gaffney: [00:07:29] Brett, from that first role in planning and people who know

you in the Coke system, know that you were one of the most experienced folks in

however you describe it, integrated business planning, supply chain planning, not just in

the US, but globally, how do you go from taking on the supply planning module in to

ultimately leading the planning organization for the largest bottler in the U.S. And what’s

that process of becoming an expert enterprise leader in that function. Talk us through a

little bit about how you feel like that played out.

Brett Frankenberg: [00:08:04] Well, I can talk about how it played out. I don’t think I

had a master plan. I would offer, never underestimate the power of the force of

serendipity, and the outcomes that everyone plays. I often think of John Kennedy, when

they asked him how he became a war hero and his response was something like, it was

pretty simple. They sunk my boat. And so, you don’t always get to pick your

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circumstance. You do get to pick how you react in the circumstances. You are master

and commander of yourself, and how you want to operate, how you want to build your

brand.

I was very curious about the whole system end to end. I wanted to know how orders

were taken. I wanted to know how forecasts were generated. I wanted to know why we

produced things in the sequence that we did or, was that real or was that an old wives’

tale or were those constraints that were awfully valid in 1970, but not so much so in

2012. I was just curious about it but it’s really a cross-functional exercise, Chris, at that

point where you want to work cross-functionally as best you can. But you got to earn

that right. You got to earn a seat at the table cross-functionally for folks to listen to you.

You have to be credible enough that people come to you with problems that you help

solve them. And everyone knows people in their lives where they work with and their

family, and their personal lives. If you’ve got a problem, you call this person and they’re

going to help you. There’s probably a real short list of folks you know, if you need help

on something that they’re going to give you sage counseling. Where they’re going to

lean in and help you solve it. And I wanted to be one of those folks on that short list, and

build that out and be relevant, not just to the people that I was honored to lead. But my

peers I worked with in various functions from selling to manufacturing. I wanted to be

relevant, but I knew I had to earn the privilege of being relevant in someone else’s mind.

Rodney Apple: [00:09:56] What were some of the things that you would attribute to

your success as it relates to coaches or mentorship? We’d love to hear more about that

piece, because I feel like everybody has someone that assists them up that ride in the

elevator as they expand their career journey.

Brett Frankenberg: [00:10:11] I was fortunate to work around for most of my career or

much of it the individual who hired me, in the beginning. He had an amazing vision for

how the business should run. He wasn’t perfect. Right? We all have flaws and ones out

there and thinks any leader is not flawed. Every leader has their challenges and has

their opportunities. But the coaching and guidance I received was just fabulous,

especially for a hard charging Type A kid from Jersey, probably predisposed to not

listening most of the time. You want to make sure someone can get your attention, to

tell you like, Hey, you’re going down the wrong path here, or don’t do that like that, bad

things will be the ultimate outcome. I’ve been in the same role for over a decade now.

I’ve picked up areas, areas have been re-orged out, but I worked for an awfully lot of

people. It didn’t even resonate with me until one of my direct reports sat me down one

day and asked me how I was. I’m like fine. Why? He’s like you literally said, dude,

you’ve worked for three different people in the last 11 months, three different senior

leaders. And I kind of sat back. I’m like, you know, you’re right. I have. I think you learn

as much or more from the people that you report to than the job you do. At a certain

level, it’s the coaching you get. Having been coached by so many fabulous senior

leaders throughout our company. I’ve worked for three of the six or seven people on the

ELT. Directly reported to those folks. So I, you know how to interact with them, how to

be successful and talking through ideas or selling your ideas and they couldn’t be more

different.

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You couldn’t get more different personalities and mental structures and approaches. But

all three are successful. There’s more than one way to heaven. But I guess the key was

for me to learn how to navigate and be successful with each leader, which ultimately

gave me more arrows in my quiver for how to work with various personalities across

senior leadership which was very important when you want to sell change or get people

to support the change that you’re advocating.

Chris Gaffney: [00:12:27] A couple of times you’ve mentioned your curiosity, and to

me, that sounds like it’s a catalyst and obviously you’re in a situation now where you’ve

got a fair amount of assembled domain experience, but you and I know each other and

you’re still a pretty curious person. I’d like to get your thoughts on where you got that,

cause you’ve leveraged it along the way, and what’s your perspective for others on

being open to at least hearing other perspectives and how you use that to your

advantage.

Brett Frankenberg: [00:13:00] So that’s a really interesting question. I kind of go back

to the beginning, right? I was an industrial engineer. Not by choice. I wanted to be a

lawyer and my dad didn’t want me to be a lawyer. So, we compromised and I didn’t

become a lawyer. Dad wanted me to be an engineer. And he was right. The thing that I

walked away with, with an industrial engineering degree, is this passion to understand

the bill of materials for every process or anything you do. When I see someone building

a deck, right? You think that there was a process. When you see your car, you know

that there was a process. If something goes wrong, you want to troubleshoot the

process. So, I just want to understand how things work. And not just mechanical things,

but business process things, anything in a company, works for a reason or doesn’t work

for a reason. Right. And the question is why is that?

I think understanding the process and the components of it that, can help you

reconstruct it and make you, or grant you the acumen to help massage it or influence it

where you can. So that’s the curiosity I’ve always had. And maybe that’s the lawyer part

of it, right. So to me that’s just a larger process outside of what you see in

manufacturing, logistics, or supply chain or banking or in technology. There’s a way

people, at some point, they’re going to make it a formula for how in a playbook for how it

should be approached. I think using that playbook, you can try and understand almost

anything in your life.

Rodney Apple: [00:14:23] That’s a fascinating perspective. And I think it’s a great

outlook, to always be curious. You’ve led the company through a lot of change. You’ve

put in new systems and we know figuring out that process. But we also know,

influencing change and leading others, getting everybody on the same bus and getting

them in the right seats is the difficult task. How do you go about leading through the

change and getting people on the bus and getting to that final destination?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:14:46] Leading through change is interesting to me and I often

cite a professor that I had when I was going for my MBA at UNC Charlotte, and she still

lives in Charlotte. And I’ve seen her recently, Dr. Ella Bell. She’s a colorful and

interesting lady. In our org behavior II class, I remember this, she had us take an hour a

week and watching nature. I was working a lot. We have baby on the way. As part of the

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program, I had to go sit and watch nature for an hour a week. At the end of that

semester, she was like, well, what’d you observe. Okay, well, in August it was hot. In

December it was cold. There were leaves on the trees. There are no leaves on the trees

in December. She’s like, but it didn’t happen overnight. There was a slope to that line

and some days it got colder and some days it got warmer, but eventually the colder

days outnumber the warm ones. The key learning there is, there is a path from summer

to fall and from fall to winter and you can’t force it. It’s gonna happen. No, it’s not linear.

Her overarching theme was you can’t inflict change on a system at a rate greater than

the system can absorb the change and expect anything but chaos to occur. And that

kind of stuck with me, because I see a lot of change and it’s like thrust upon you.

Whereas they can take a longer glide path and make that change at a slope that can be

digested, but project planners don’t tend to think that way. They tend to bucketize their

projects and say, all right, we’re going to do this project is two years long and the last six

weeks are going to be change management. And we’re just going to cram that change.

But you don’t have to do it that way. You can begin to change management at any point

in the two-year project. And the sooner you begin it, the gentler the slope is of that

change. Now I’m not proposing to know exactly what the right slope is. I would offer is

probably different by individual. So, you want to make sure the slope is set so it can

accommodate the largest percent of individuals involved in the change. So I think of it

that way and I want to be thoughtful. I want to make sure it’s calm. I don’t want change

to come to people chaotically. I recognize the environment we work in is innately,

chaotic, right? It’s what I love about our business. But that’s not necessarily how we

have to manage or how we should manage significant change. And so significant

change should be thoughtful, and people should understand the why behind it. I think

we’re all agents of change, but again, I think where, and when we can impact the slope

of that change, it would be in our own best interests for the success of the outcome for

us to do it.

Chris Gaffney: [00:17:30] We’ve talked about the whole debate of having a very

planned and formulaic career path versus the unplanned. Where do you strike the

balance in terms of what’s productive there and what’s realistic as you talk to the folks in

your team?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:17:47] I walk in a room and I’m talking to someone who’s half

my age and roughly the same age I was, when I started with the company. For all I

know, they just think I’m ancient. It’s amazing when I look over and 40% of my team has

less than 12 months in position right now. But as I look over the team, I’m really looking

for who’s showing me the curiosity. Who isn’t satisfied with current state. Who’s always

trying to figure something out. To solve a problem better, for the business.

What you bring up is really interesting because as leaders, we have an obligation to

mentor, and elevate those who work on our teams. The reciprocal responsibility is on

the individual to actually be worthy of being into it. I don’t think we talk about that nearly

enough. You just can’t sit at your desk, be marginally engaged. Exhibit the most

introverted of all behaviors, and then hope someone crashes through that wall to get to

you or have any reaction when the person next to you gets chosen because they exhibit

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more curious behaviors.

And so, any teacher wants to teach the curious student. All teachers have an obligation

to teach all students, but the reality is the folks that are going to get the best mentoring

and the best tutelage are going to be the ones that advocate and are the most curious

and want to be the best students. The inputs won’t be the same. The outcomes won’t be

the same. I would implore anyone that is thinking of how they want to grow their career,

whether it’s in investment banking or supply chain or anywhere, be curious and engage

with people and be engaging. And you’ll find the road is a lot smoother and leads to

better outcomes.

[BREAK at 19:42]

Rodney Apple: [00:20:08] So Brett, I wanted to switch gears. We know, we’ve got the

retention issues. You hear the big resignation theme, a lot of people quitting and leaving

for greener pastures. Many of those are regretting making those moves, but what are

you seeing and how are you combating these challenges today?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:20:24] Our frontline, I talked about it, is massive, right? And

there’s a host of actions that the leaders in those areas are taking to work and develop

our frontline associates, and how we connect with and how we build our relationships

with folks in the frontline. Within my space, my team is largely all exempt folks, and I

see exactly what you’re talking about, Rodney. They’ve been in position for four or five

years. Other companies can harvest that experience and recruiters like yourself are

going to help structurally connect that. And so then, we’ll look for talented folks to bring

on a team that will lean into and train. There’s reality though, that if there’s 10 people

and one manager, then everyone has to have a realistic view of where they want their

crew to go, how they want to build their career. So, my team has populated teammates

into various functions from marketing to finance, all over the company. There are folks

that have roots in product supply planning, and it’s interesting when folks say, Hey,

you’re a maker, not a taker of talent and that’s great to hear, but you gotta go back to

making, right? The prize for that is you get to make more. But that’s also really, really

inspiring to work with people to see them grow in career, and then build out the next

generation. But there you’re absolutely right. They’re not just at our company, but any

company. You walk in and they’re just an amazing lack of experience. Our job as

managers is to onboard people and get them as effective as they can be as well as,

showing them a path to a great career.

Rodney Apple: [00:22:06] And on the retention side too, that’s becoming a hot area

and companies are getting creative, beyond just throwing money at people. Any

changes there in the spirit of trying to keep as many people as you possibly can,

especially your best people?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:22:22] My coaching to leaders on the team is that look, let’s

really be honest with each other. We have A players, and we have C players. And if you

don’t think you do, then don’t listen to this part. Your A players should know that they’re

the leaders. They should feel special cause they’re A players. They should not be able

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to get picked off for a same job for 30% raise. Your B players, you want to insulate, you

want to work with them and see, can they become A players? What route are they going

to take? You can replace a B player. The C players are more interesting because you

need some churn at the C player level. I don’t see anyone on LinkedIn ever say that,

Hey, at the end of the day, I’m a C, a C kind of effort employee, right? Everyone on

LinkedIn talks like they are the A player and maybe they are, maybe they have only A

players post, right. That’s statistically an outcome that can occur. I don’t believe it. But at

the end of the day, your A player should feel it. You don’t want to lose him. You can

replace your seat.

I don’t mean that to sound like they’re not valuable, but there are some role players on

every team. But if you, again, look at the winning teams, there’s some really solid

players on the team, but then there’s some players going to the all-star game too. And

the question is, they shouldn’t be in a situation where it doesn’t feel like they’re being

treated like an all-star, and if you’re not an all-star player and think you are, that’s a

whole different issue. Why do you think that. And how do you close that gap? Or maybe

you can’t.

Chris Gaffney: [00:23:51] You have obviously been influenced by a lot of people along

the way. Is there any other exceptional piece of career advice that you’ve received from

one of your big influencers that we haven’t covered? What’s the most important,

consistent advice you’re dispensing to your folks?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:24:07] Nothing’s going to be hyper complicated here. There’s

no theory of relativity. You see folks make decisions in a vacuum on their own. They

don’t seek guidance. They don’t make it a team sport. And it’s a complete unforced

error. You don’t have to do things by yourself. You can talk to people, build a

consensus, bounce your ideas off of others. Let them have input to massaging your

mental model. That’s a sign of strength. It’s not a sign of weakness. But I do see leaders

that isolate themselves, that want to do things on their own that don’t want to build a

coalition of the willing. Anyone who works for me knows that you don’t want to be in the

middle of the lake, by yourself, in a boat. Who’s going to help you row back? You don’t

have to do that. It’s a team sport. I don’t know what industry you’re going to work in,

where it’s not a team sport. And so, bring your peers along with you. Talk to them, get

their ideas on how you should approach things. My advice would be to lean on people

around you, trust them, and work with them and shape their minds and let them shape

yours. But you don’t have to close people off and just think you can figure it out on your

own.

Rodney Apple: [00:25:13] Brett, I’ll wrap up with my last question. You’ve worked in a

lot of changes, initiatives and projects and transformations, and we’re seeing a pretty

steady acceleration of new technologies, there’s automation, robotics, and a lot of that is

to try to combat this talent shortage, especially in the operations side of the supply

chain. What’s your perspectives were on know, we don’t have crystal balls, but where

do you see things heading?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:25:38] Technology is touching everything we’re doing here. We

are on a virtual platform right here having this conversation whereas maybe three years

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ago, we’d all be sitting together in a room. And this feels natural, right? This isn’t

awkward. This is how we work together in 2022. There is a place for automation, but

there’s always going to be a place for return on investment. At the end of the day, you

have to deliver an outcome. And so, automation for the sake of automation could be a

massive waste. It could be a never-ending escalation of commitment that drains you

and your resources. Automation has to be pragmatic. You’ve got to have the right

automation for the right application. At the end of the day as leaders, we’re all going to

be ultimately judged is how efficient are we at allocating capital. When you got the

money to go after that automation, you have a finite amount of capital, so other projects

didn’t get activated because of this automation. If it doesn’t pay out, then that’s a double

whammy. A, it’s not paying out. B, you prevented perhaps a better project from taking

flight.

Rodney Apple: [00:26:46] Brett, thank you so much for coming on the supply chain

careers podcast. You’ve shared some fascinating insights and perspectives about your

unique career journey. Before we close, is there anything else you’d like to add in terms

of advice or any wisdom that you’d like to share with our audience?

Brett Frankenberg: [00:27:03] The supply chain industry or supply chain as a field

didn’t exist when I came out of college and now I have a room where some of the folks

in the room have supply chain degrees. Most do not. I’ll pick up on that point. Supply

chain is a fabulous field for curious people who like to see things get done. And we have

music majors, psychology majors, business majors, fashion majors, history majors,

chemistry majors. We run the gamut, who successful in supply chain because the

common denominator is they like to solve problems, like to solve puzzles. They’re good

at working with people. They enjoy problems, they enjoy people and they enjoy seeing

outcomes be created. It’s a fulfilling career because you see it. There is a scorecard of

our in-stock percent that’s published to our company every day. My performance, my

team’s performance is graded every day at 9:32 AM. It’s fabulous, right? You either

want to be accountable or you’re done. If you enjoy accountability and like to see the

work you do come to outcomes, I think it’s just a fabulous, fabulous career.

Rodney Apple: [00:28:15] Great perspective, and again, thanks for joining the supply

chain careers podcast. We appreciate your time, Brett.

Brett Frankenberg: [00:28:21] Thank you guys. Thanks so much.