Navigating Success in Supply Chain: Insights from Glen Wegel

Glen Wegel

[00:00:00] Mike Ogle: Glenn, welcome to the supply chain careers podcast.

[00:00:04] Glen Wegel: Thanks so much for having me on your podcast, Mike and Rodney. I am excited to be here and discuss my career path in the supply chain. And I’ve listened to several of your episodes now, and I really appreciate how you all ask questions that are relevant to anyone who has interest in the supply chain.

[00:00:20] I’m looking forward to the conversation and sharing some insights with your listeners.

[00:00:24] Mike Ogle: All right. Thank you very much for that. And how did you get started in supply chain? And what were some of those biggest influences that got you deeper into a career in supply chain?

[00:00:36] Glen Wegel: Interestingly, and similar to a lot of folks who do work in the supply chain, I had never heard of the supply chain.

[00:00:42] When I was in high school, I knew from the time I was a young kid that I wanted to join the army. So when I was in high school, I joined the army went to boot camp between 11th and 12th grade, came back, finished my 12th grade year, and then went off to school. Anybody who joins the service, you take the ASVAB test and it tells you what jobs you can have.

[00:01:01] And I looked at those results and thought to myself, what do you want to do, and my father was wise enough to whisper in my ear that. Hey, son, you may not be a career military man. So I highly suggest you pick some job that you can use as a training platform. So when you get out of the army.

[00:01:19] You can have work and we talked through that and supply was what I chose because Everybody needs groceries. Everybody needs things at the store. So it sounded like something I would enjoy doing so That’s what I did. I had the opportunity when I joined To go around the world, do a bunch of different things, work in some diverse and challenging environments like Afghanistan.

[00:01:43] I got to work in some not challenging environments like Daytona beach, Florida. So lots of fun. I discovered while I was in the army that I had a passion for developing teams and optimizing complex or broken systems and. I really enjoyed knowing that I was doing something that was useful, like meaningful types of work and, I’ll do my best as I talk a little bit more about the army to not use a lot of army speak because a lot of the listeners probably don’t come from the military, albeit there is a large respect for veterans and our veteran community, which, as a veteran myself, I’m grateful for.

[00:02:18] But I try to practice a little humility and being humble around it because it’s not what makes me who I am. I’m, married man, very proud of the relationship I have with my wife, proud of the relationship with my family and, the different things that I’ve done throughout my career.

[00:02:32] When you work in the army and get to do some of these different types of tasks, you get exposures to different things you get to, whether it’s go overseas or just do your job on a regular basis, you’re able to, you. Work through process constraints, process controls, and just literally have to lift what you’re doing in a domestic environment and shift it over to a different operating environment that could be deploying somewhere Haiti to do humanitarian support.

[00:03:01] It could be going to the big sandbox across the ocean to serve in combat, like in Iraq or Afghanistan, or it could be going somewhere fun like Europe. Or, go to South Korea, I got to do a lot of that stuff. So it really gave me a deeper exposure to what the supply chain was. And I remembered from high school history class that in World War II, the German general Rommel, he had said that they would never win the war because of American logistics.

[00:03:29] And I remember talking through that in different army schools about how that related and how we would Try never to let anyone ever beat us in war because our logistics were supporting victory. That’s what really dug me into the supply chain was my time in the army.

[00:03:46] Rodney Apple: Well, Glenn, we appreciate your service. And I do see a lot of folks coming out of the military and transitioning into, I think it’s just a natural pathway. I go back into my corporate days and Home Depot and, that included the HD supply elements where you landed.

[00:04:00] And we had programs to welcome in veterans and transition them. And so it’s it’s, it tends to be a good match, especially like in that operation side. I know that’s where you’ve, focused your career going into Lowe’s and obviously you’ve just progressively worked your way up into, I’d say bigger buildings and now multi site and so forth, but would love to hear about some of those key roles and transitions. As you move retail, you went into being a more wholesale distribution. And I definitely want to learn on a side note, as I see you are recognized as distribution center of the year for several years out of 44 distribution centers like that’s that’s a huge achievement and I always like to know what was the secret sauce that led you to get that incredible accomplishment.

[00:04:47] So that’s a long question but would love to hear how you progressed to get to that place.

[00:04:52] Glen Wegel: Rodney, let me start with the distribution center of the year. What I tell people still to this day, when they ask me what I do or what my role is with an organization, I always tell them that if something goes wrong, it’s my fault, I’m responsible.

[00:05:06] And if it went right, there’s a cast of men and women that work alongside of me or with me that are the ones that make it happen. Building a team. And making sure you have the right team and you empower them, like thinking about servant leadership, that’s what allowed my teams to win those awards.

[00:05:22] I don’t wear it as a badge of honor for myself personally, even though I’ve been told before Hey, you should own it. And I’m fine with that portion of it, but I do think the glory goes to those folks that help make it happen. I don’t share that, or I don’t take that on my own. I share that with them, but when I think through the first part of your question key transitions in my career I think there’s probably five key points and I would say one of those points is really simultaneous with some of the others.

[00:05:51] Which, we just talked about the army and how that was foundational in my development and developing the interest in the supply chain and going through those processes. What I would say about that is like in the army, you learn how to lead in a diverse or challenging environment. And you don’t have the power of progressive discipline or termination, the same way you do in the corporate sector.

[00:06:12] So you have to learn how to motivate people and find what drives them more so than you do in the civilian world or the corporate world. And I think that was one of the big things I took away from the army was how to lead soldiers and lead people because soldiers are people too. And when you transition into the corporate world, if you forget that you were dealing with people and you treat them like they’re a commodity.

[00:06:34] You’re never going to get the results that you want. So I would say if anything, secret sauce related, it’s, people understanding, learning, and talking to people like they’re people, treat them like humans, treat them with respect, ask their opinions. And that will help you go a long way in anything that you are doing in the workplace, whether it’s in the supply chain field or not.

[00:06:54] But that transition from military to the corporate sector was huge. Thinking about strategic logistics, Planning, managing complex supply chains. And then of course, leading teams in high pressure environments. That’s a huge foundation when you cross over to corporate America. We typically look for a new supervisor to have, some sort of education or experience, and it’s like a degree gets you in the door.

[00:07:16] Some experience gets you in the door, but when you look at that experience, do you know how to lead people? Can you handle a stressful situation? Can you balance all the balls that are in the air? So coming out of the army and going to the corporate sector. I think that was advantageous to me. Although at that point in time, I think there’s a little bit more of a softer approach and accepting veterans into corporate roles.

[00:07:40] Some people have concern that someone coming out of the military may not know how to talk to people with respect. And until they get to know you. They’re cautious about that. And I think for me, that was found out very fast when I transitioned from the army into Lowe’s Home Improvement and it was wonderful.

[00:07:57] It was a wonderful experience. I know one of your previous guests, Steve Szilagyi, he was on probably about a year ago or so he was somebody that I didn’t work with directly, but I’ll never forget. When he came into the facility I worked at in North Carolina, he was trying to blend in and hide. He didn’t want anybody to know who he was and I didn’t know who he was.

[00:08:17] I had never met him. I’d never heard his name before. And he was down on the loading docks where I was a shipping supervisor. And I was just told, Hey, this guy’s going to come load some truck doors. And I treated him like I did anybody else. I talked, I called him by the butcher name. How are you doing?

[00:08:31] Welcome. Thanks for coming out. Here’s where we’re going to set you up with when we set you up with a battle buddy, he’s going to help you out, teach you the ropes, show you what you need to know, and then checked up on him and things of that nature, and then all of a sudden he disappeared.

[00:08:45] I was like I guess he walked off the job and then he came back around at the day, introduced himself, said who he was and thanked me for how I treated him. And I was like, I treat you the same way that I would want to be treated. And I want your experience to be good. Whether you were, the senior vice president or director of distribution, or you’re a new temp, that’s just like kicking the tires to learn the business.

[00:09:04] Learning people in the army was the first of the transactions. I think that the second transaction would be the first few roles that I was in after being in the army. I, like I said, I was flown in managing a diverse group of people. I knew how to solve issues because it’s the army.

[00:09:20] What are you doing all the time? You are, you’re looking at high pressure, intense environments, and you’re figuring out how to make things work. So you can take care of forward support units or whoever’s out there. But I was in my corporate roles at second transition. I got the exposure to different types of distribution and fulfillment processes.

[00:09:38] I was able to learn about advanced software systems employing them to enhance efficiencies of the sites that I managed. I got my first set of exposure to automation, like Lowe’s. Moving into the HD supply world, which when I was there, Rodney was not in the Home Depot family, but they were at one point, then they were independent and their private equity.

[00:09:58] And now they’re back in the Home Depot family. So it’s a child leaves the house and, grows on their own and then comes back home type of a scenario. I went to work there and I got to do a lot of fun things, like really getting into the HD supply world. Learning technology like transitioning from Oracle to SAP as an entire E-R-P-M-R-P and WMS system.

[00:10:19] That was huge. Like I started with HD Supply that week, they were transitioning and I was running a facility in North Carolina. And boy, if you’ve ever done a transition with a WMS or an ERP, you know that can be a messy situation. And it put me on a very level playing field with the others in the organization, and I had to learn it fast.

[00:10:39] So I did, and I think about that as a pivotal transition point, because at that point, I didn’t know if I could learn the technology or how I would learn the technology or what that would look like. And I was able to dig in with the people and learn what they learn, pick their brains and then challenge thoughts with the systems to learn it.

[00:10:56] I, when I did that, I was recognized pretty quickly, right? It’s Hey, here’s somebody that’s got high potential high performer. So I ran that facility for probably about a year before it was like, Hey, Glenn, we think you can do bigger things. Do you want to go to Orlando, run that facility?

[00:11:10] And I was like, sure, absolutely. And I was able to go into that facility and do similar things, right? Go in and make sure that they understood how to use the WMS which they were not proficient. They were struggling with it. So it was, finding who those key leaders were bringing them up to speed on what was going on.

[00:11:28] Getting them involved and then watching your group level up, like watching people level up, watching people succeed. To me, that’s getting into the fun zone. And when you’re having fun at work, that’s when it’s not a job anymore. It’s just fun. Going from teaching, training, developing, coaching, mentoring those folks, it was now time to add technology systems, adding in a pick to voice system, adding in some other types of power equipment.

[00:11:53] We just started having a lot of fun. And the next thing, I’m getting a tap on the shoulder from the vice president of ops over there saying, Hey. Do you realize that your DC went from one of the worst in the network to the best in the network? And I’m like, I had no idea. We’re just having fun over here, distributing boxes.

[00:12:09] And then, we’re at a conference and it’s Hey, here’s an award. And then the next year, Hey, here’s an award. And the whole time that I’m working on, in that facility, It’s Hey, would you mind getting on an airplane, going somewhere and helping out? And this is part of that pivotal transition that I talked about, because when you accept assignments that others maybe don’t have a skill set for or afraid to accept, that’s when you start to grow as individual and you hone your leadership abilities or you hone your skills and find out what you’re made up when.

[00:12:37] Do it so I would never turn down an assignment, no matter how scary it sounded or how, if I didn’t know how to do something, or if it was in a location that maybe I didn’t want to travel to, I would say, you know what? I’m your guy. Give me a call. I’ll go. So I did. I would do that. And then next thing you know, it’s Hey, we have opened a new distribution center that went from being under 100, 000 square feet.

[00:13:02] And built it to be over 500, 000 square feet. And we’re having an absolute leadership failure. We’re having an inventory failure, things like that. And I went up there, I said let me go up there for a week. See if I can help coach. And it was beyond that. And they were like, listen, we want you to relocate here.

[00:13:17] Backed up my wife and my dogs. And we went, and that was probably 1 of my most fun assignments that I’ve had in my entire career. I would probably say transitioning out of that to a 3rd point for a key transition. Would be going into manufacturing. So I did the military, I did civilian distribution, I did warehousing fulfillment, but I’d never done manufacturing, studied it, read about it, watched it on TV.

[00:13:44] It’s nothing like what until you actually step your toe into it. The old analogy of you can’t judge someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. You need to spend time in manufacturing. If you’re going to be in the supply chain, in my personal opinion, working in manufacturing, running the plant, running the whole site, coming from a distribution environment, coming from a military environment, leading people is always the easy part.

[00:14:10] Learning the systems, that’s not so hard either, right? You learn the systems, but then understanding how all of the inputs and outputs all work together, that can be a little bit tricky. Understanding the engineering of it, understanding the process controls of it, understanding what happens when you mix different raw materials together and what could happen if somebody makes a mistake, like there’s a lot of different things, whether it’s environmental health and safety.

[00:14:36] Whether it’s people, processes, machinery or whatnot, that was pivotal. And I absolutely loved that experience. It was probably the most stressful experience I ever had. And I’ve served in combat in the army as a logistician. And I think the manufacturing site was a little bit more stressful than that to me, at least, but I learned so much, working with production planners, demand planners, supply chain, buyers, rebuyers.

[00:15:00] Everyone, I was finding myself as the conductor of the orchestra. I was there leading, not doing, you have to understand enough about everything. And that was just, that was a fantastic it was a fantastic experience for me. The fourth one would probably be what I’m doing now, working with kitchen cabinet distributors.

[00:15:20] So I have the manufacturing experience, have the distribution experience. I have the experience working in diverse and intense environments. So distributing kitchen cabinets shouldn’t be too hard, but it was moving into an executive team level role. So it’s not just about moving boxes anymore. Now. It’s about discussing things at a higher level.

[00:15:40] It’s about strategy. It’s about being deeper in thought with marketing plans, selling strategies with financial analysis of the organization and what you’re going to do. And I really love my time with what I do now. It’s probably the 2nd most fun I’ve ever had. You’ll have to ask me another time about what the most fun scenario wasn’t.

[00:16:00] I’ll tell you. Share with you guys, but being able to organically take an organization and put your DNA into it was really cool for me. The business was very small when I joined and I was actually skittish about joining because of it. But the convincing factor was when the CEO of the company who’s, who I work for directly was like, Glenn, this is an opportunity for you to put your DNA into it.

[00:16:23] We don’t have what we think we need. We think the recipe isn’t here and we don’t know what to do. And you do. And I was like, let’s do it. So we, I got involved. I started talking to the people, started talking to the team, quickly found out where the gaps were good team, just gaps and processes and procedures.

[00:16:41] So what did we do? We took a look at work processes, workflows, business rules, SOPs, and quickly started getting those under control, documenting those teaching to a similar standard. And that facility, the first one in our organization went from, not performing so well to doing pretty doggone good.

[00:17:00] But the second task I got almost immediately was like, we want to expand. What do you think? So it was leading that expansion, being able to take a look. I’ve relocated facilities before, but I had never built one from the ground up. So now it was time to design a new facility. I’m not an engineer by trade.

[00:17:17] I’m not an industrial engineer, not a construction engineer. So it’s taking a look and say what should this look like? How should this look? And then who do you consult with on your own team, let alone external folks. And it moving forward with that process. And I was able to do that a couple of different times, taking the company from having one small facility to now four facilities, which the fourth one we just completed a few weeks ago, and it is a relocation from our original building into a brand new facility.

[00:17:47] Corporate headquarters and distribution center. So total greenfield bill. So now we have set the whole process of operations up for our organization as very predictable and repeatable. So if you go into one facility, you can work just like you could at any others. And you don’t have to guess what’s going on.

[00:18:05] So that, that has been a lot of fun. And I think that is a key transition, a key valuable experience in my career. I’ve loved that. And the last one is the one that’s interesting. I think about this as simultaneous to any of the other transitions, which is time spent working in volunteer or trade type organizations.

[00:18:24] I’ve been on the, I’m on the board, the advisory council advisory board for the warehouse education research council. I’ve worked on the different conferences for the WERC. I’ve participated in other types of events like the material handling teachers Institute, which that’s where I had the fortune of meeting you, Mike.

[00:18:42] I’ve done other different things with the kick me organization, which is like the college industrial council material handling equipment. That’s been nothing but fun getting out there and seeing. Technology or machinery at trade shows like pro mat or modex getting out to pack expo, some of those different types of events and seeing what exists in the world more than what I already have in my facilities is that’s been instrumental.

[00:19:07] I think that’s pivotal and that aids in these transition points, because when you think about what, what got you here won’t get you there. You have to have the exposure to what can help you level up and what can get you to that next point. And sometimes you need people that you can call and talk to about it, or you need idea inspiration, which can come from the trade shows.

[00:19:28] So the different folks that I’ve met along my path at the WERC. Over at the PMMI organization, or even at these different trade shows have helped influence the way that I’ve put DNA or design into my organization, found many pieces of neat equipment and technology that I never would have known existed because if you don’t know what you’re looking for, a search on the web won’t get you the answers you’re looking for.

[00:19:54] So I think about that as being probably my top five key transitions or experiences that have been valuable to my career.

[00:20:03] Mike Ogle: And that’s very helpful. I think as we talk about the transition side of things and not knowing what you don’t know, you have being such a big deal. I noticed that in your military experience, you’d receive some certifications through the defense acquisition university.

[00:20:21] And I just wanted to be able to get a little bit of an understanding of, how that might have influenced or affected some of your progression. And then, how have you used that, that whole idea of Having credentials and having people continue to improve and continuously improve.

[00:20:43] Can you provide an overview of the values that had for you and then how you apply that for people that work for you?

[00:20:50] Glen Wegel: Sure. I can talk a little bit about that. When you’re in the military, they do a really fantastic job of training, teaching, and developing. And a lot of folks don’t necessarily notice that because you join the military, join the army in my case, and the first thing you do is go to boot camp and you’re like, oh, it’s an indoctrination.

[00:21:08] Yes, but it’s basic training. So you go through all of the training of being a basic soldier. Your next level school is your advanced individual training, right? You learn how to do your job. Or like when I transitioned from being an enlisted men to an officer, you go to the basic officer course, you go to the advanced officer course.

[00:21:28] And each time, whether you’re enlisted or you’re an officer. Which is delineates, like how you manage people or sizes and groups of people, whether you’re more of an individual contributor, or if you’re more of a in a leadership type of influential role, strategic versus tactical thinking every step of the way is some sort of education, right?

[00:21:47] You work when you finish your initial training and you go to work, it’s on the job training. You learn from others around you and that goes both ways and listed their officer. And then when it’s time for you to get promoted, because you’ve done well, right? You’ve done good on your physical fitness.

[00:22:01] You’ve done good on your marksmanship. Your boss likes what you’re doing. You’re producing good work and you have the opportunity to get promoted. A lot of times the promotion becomes conditional. So that condition is you have to go to school. And the army is going to tell you where, and when you’re going to go to school.

[00:22:18] So you make your first promotion or you make your, it would be your fifth promotion in the army. If you started off from the bottom, you become a sergeant. And when you go to become a sergeant, they send you to school, like to be a basic leap, like a, it’s called like a primary leadership development course.

[00:22:34] They call it now the warrior leadership course. And that’s just teaching you, Hey, this is how you’re going to learn to manage a couple troops. But not only are you going to school to learn that portion, you’re going with other folks that have a similar job field as you. So you’re going to learn about leading folks, but in your career field.

[00:22:51] So when I was enlisted, I was a unit supply specialist. When I became a sergeant, I was a supply sergeant. And I went to the primary leadership development course with others who were learning to be a supply sergeant. So you not only learn about, Hey, this is how you lead people, but you learn how to lead people while doing your job, like the responsibilities at the level that you hold and what that means if you do.

[00:23:14] And what it means if you don’t do well to others downstream and as an officer, you do the same type of thing. Maybe you get a little bit of different exposure. You’re doing it more at a strategic level, and when I became a lieutenant, when I became a first lieutenant and so on, it was very similar to that.

[00:23:28] But aside from those structured developmental leadership opportunities, there’s voluntary leadership opportunities. And sometimes that can come with a role that you’re doing where someone encourages you highly to do some sort of extracurricular training. Or you can volunteer for the training. So in the instance of the defense acquisition university question that you were asking, I volunteered for those trainings because what I didn’t know is that I would need anything that they would train for the army.

[00:23:52] A lot of times the defense acquisition universities aimed at department defense or departmental logistics, civilians, and how to do their jobs better. So I was thinking about those words whispered in my ear by my father about, don’t forget that what, when you get out of the service, you’re going to need a job.

[00:24:08] At that point, I didn’t know I was going to stay in for 15 years, which I did, but I also knew that I was enjoying what I did in the army and I’ve always believed in being a lifelong learner. Like you just, you can’t stop learning new things. Somebody is going to teach you something. Every day, and if you don’t, you probably need to surround yourself with some other folks.

[00:24:27] So you can keep growing intellectually, but the defense acquisition university, I was able to get into some different courseworks and how I broke into that was through like their initial online platform training, learning little snippets of things. Think like micro credentialing. But then ultimately finding my path to be able to attend some courses at the defense acquisition university in person, like learning things about lean and six Sigma or combining lean and six Sigma together and going through different certification with that.

[00:24:57] And that was its own challenge because, to go through a six Sigma or lean six Sigma certification process. You have to do different projects along the way to validate that. You don’t just understand this from theory that you can apply it in reality. And the army, like a lot of corporate jobs, they’re not the best always at wanting to change or transition.

[00:25:18] So this goes back to understanding people, getting involved with people and inspiring others to trust you and believe what you’re saying. So doing different projects when I was going through, like the yellow belt, the green belt, the black belt certifications on the defense acquisition university.

[00:25:33] Is walking through this with people in your warehouse or within your unit to be like, Hey, let’s take a look at this from, a thousand meter perspective. And let’s, how does this map out? How can we be more efficient? And, in the army, you don’t get paid by the hour, they get just paid flat salary.

[00:25:48] So there’s not as much motivation to be like, Hey, what am I going to do? You’re going to just give me more work to do. So it was making the deal with those soldiers to be like, listen, If we can get this done in X amount of time, then I’m going to keep my work as long as I can, that we’ll just go home early, or we won’t work a fifth day, something of that nature.

[00:26:08] And, that was how I was successful using some of those trainings from the defense acquisition university. And of course, certificates and things like Lean Six Sigma, they pay dividends in the civilian world, corporate world. And I’ve benefited from those, even some of the different coursework that I took through the defense acquisition university around like ISO.

[00:26:25] That was handy when I went into manufacturing and understanding like what you’re looking for standardized operations and how to take a look under the hood a little bit differently than maybe I wouldn’t have, if I didn’t know, but I did take some other courses that are irrelevant. I just thought this, the title sounded fun because I wanted to do them.

[00:26:41] I think one was about acquisitions for like space air, like aviation and space materials. And I never knew, I knew I was never going to work in the space program. At least it’s not a passion. So I wouldn’t pursue it, but I was like, that sounds cool. Tell me, teach me about what kind of acquisition tips and tricks and tools and processes I should be looking for when I’m thinking about space type equipment.

[00:27:05] And I thought about that because in the military, I didn’t know if I would ever be in an aviation unit and what if I had to work on logistics acquisitions for components for rotary wing aircraft, I’m not going to have that on my shoulders. If I can prevent it, if a maintenance issue happens, while the helicopters in the air and somebody potentially loses their life.

[00:27:25] I want to make sure that I understand how to look at every aspect of it so that when, at the end of the day, when my role is done, or my team’s roles are done, we know we did everything that we could to make sure the mission or the task was successful. So using the defense acquisition certifications or attending the coursework through the defense acquisition university.

[00:27:45] It was instrumental. One thing I’ll add in there too, about training, since I was talking a lot about that is the Montgomery GI Bill. And I think a lot of people lose focus on the opportunity to take that up outside of work or outside of the military or after their time in service. I grew up, I don’t think I didn’t mention this.

[00:28:04] I grew up in a very working class family. My father and mother worked very hard. My mother’s a German immigrant. My father’s a tradesman, so we never missed a meal, but there wasn’t always a lot of cash going. And when I was in school, I was a good student, but I wasn’t Rhodes scholar genius, and I wasn’t a D one athlete type of athlete.

[00:28:24] Participated in a lot of different things. So I fell into that sector where I could easily wash away. My decision to join the army so that I could go to college at one point was pivotal, right? This was a big influence towards this GI Bill and I used it and I did it while I was in the army. I transitioned from active duty to the reserve.

[00:28:42] I went to the University of Florida almost God knows 20 years ago. I finished my bachelor’s degree. I went back to school a few years later, got a master’s degree, but these are things that I think people forget about is that GI bill exists and not for nothing. You don’t have to use it for university education.

[00:28:59] Cause I know this for a fact, right? College isn’t for everyone. I have a nephew who, he was an electrician in the army, worked on a rotary aircraft in Hawaii. He knew he was never going to college, but he had this big benefit of the GI Bill. So he went and took some electrical trade certifications at his local tech school.

[00:29:18] And now he’s working for Duke Energy. He’s working for them as a, an electrician lineman type of person. So he had, he was able to translate his military service into a civilian job. That pays very well. I was able to do something similar through these education and training and experiences, right? I worked in logistics and supply chain, I was able to translate that when I got out and having certifications like from the DAU, they can open doors for you. If someone’s looking for that at the end of the day, I think that experience is what I look for as a hiring manager, more so than a certification. But if I don’t have the option to recruit a 15, 20 year veteran in the industry, then I’m more inclined to take a look at people who have a certification, because if you know enough about something, I can probably get you the rest of the way there.

[00:30:06] Or even more fortunately for me, I’ve been very successful in building solid teams. The team can help get you there. So good foundations all around.

[00:30:16] Rodney Apple: So Glenn you, in each of these roles you’ve talked about some pretty significant projects. I, looking at your current title, it looks like you’ve got operations and you’ve got it, right? I think where I see leaders struggle when like our clients come to us and they’re asking us to, Hey we need to backfill this leader there.

[00:30:33] It tends to be, they either get stuck in the weeds or they struggle with the The strategic stuff, like we need to put in a new system and balance. It’s really balancing those priorities. And then you throw in learning and development too. So you’ve got those three aspects developing teams, you’re trying to learn and develop yourself.

[00:30:51] You’ve got to get the orders in and you get the boxes out, right? But then they want you to put in this new system or this new voice picking system. So how do you balance all these things and keep up? So you’re hitting the KPIs, the objectives, but you’re also staying on task with some of the more strategic initiatives that are going on, within the business or the facility.

[00:31:11] Glen Wegel: So what I’m hearing you ask Rodney’s you’re asking about what would be like my thoughts on the best approaches to big changes, big projects or bigger tasks.

[00:31:20] Rodney Apple: Yeah, change management projects that are out there on top of leading the the operation, right? You’ve got to lead that, but you’ve also got to get this other task or project or initiative done and balancing those balls in there.

[00:31:35] You mentioned that. analogy earlier. I think a lot of people struggle. They might be able to manage the day to day, but when you ask them to do something that’s more strategic in nature that may take a year or two, they sometimes fail at that aspect. So how do you get it all done and stay on track?

[00:31:55] Glen Wegel: Yeah, that is a very interesting question. And before I define my thoughts on it, I’m going to make a statement and you all can agree or disagree with me personal to me, I’ve never accepted a civilian job that didn’t require some sort of change management. And jobs usually do not open up because everything was perfect.

[00:32:15] Someone left cause they didn’t enjoy the stress. Someone was promoted to customer in a business because they weren’t doing a good job. There’s exceptional growth that requires someone to come in and do something that’s never been done. So being able to approach big changes, big projects, things like that is, is pivotal.

[00:32:33] So I think this is a fantastic question, Rodney. I will tell you, I don’t have a secret sauce, but If I could get it as close to a secret sauce as I can, I would tell you the way that I start this is I look at three things. I look at people, process and machines, and I always start with people. It’s been thematic through this whole conversation.

[00:32:53] I think people are the backbone of every organization, business process, business rule, you name it even if you involve robotics and other types of advanced systems. There’s people at play, so to have a successful project, I think people have to be aligned. They have to understand the assignment. They have to understand your intent as the leader in the army.

[00:33:14] We would call this understanding the commander’s intent. You’re not going to go into a corporate world and say, I’m the commander and you need to understand what I want. But there has to be an expectation of communication with people and understanding that people know what you’re saying. So when I’ll have a conversation about what my intentions are, we’re doing some sort of big project or big change management type of event.

[00:33:37] I will ask people to back brief me what we just talked about. Tell me what your responsibilities are run through. It’s similar to a vignette. And then even when it gets further downstream in the project, I will ask people at an individual contributor level on the floor, whether it’s an hourly associate, a lead supervisor, manager, general manager, whatnot.

[00:33:56] Hey, tell me what you’re working on. Tell me what that has to do with the main objective here. And as I say it, and I’ve heard from other people when I’ve given this advice, they always say, Clinton, this sounds crazy. And I’m like, communication. We sustain your own communication can kill on the battlefield.

[00:34:12] The lack thereof is what ends your ability to be successful. If you over communicate, at least it’s understood what you expect. And it gives people the opportunity to ask questions. If you fail to communicate, that’s when you fail to produce some business. And then after people, I think about process business processes are predictable, repeatable.

[00:34:31] It’s what you’ve trained folks to do. And think about it this way, too. These are not only just the 3 ways that I approach a project, they’re also the 3 points you look at when there’s a failure in a business process, right? You look at people, first processes, and then you look at the machines equipment technology.

[00:34:46] Your people understand things, but how are your processes working out? Take a look at the processes follow. Oh, Follow the bouncing ball through the whole thing. Folks that I’ve worked with for years will always say they’ll point a term that I say is I always refer to the baby as being born in the receiving department of awareness.

[00:35:03] If the product is not received correctly, then it will not be put away correctly. It will not be consolidated correctly. It will not be replenished correctly. It won’t be picked correctly. It won’t be packed correctly. It won’t be shipped correctly. And then it’s going to go to the customer and they’re not going to buy from you again.

[00:35:18] Because at the end of the day, we’re in it for our customer because we’re trying to get a paycheck. They’re trying to get a business done, but you have to take a look at those processes. And sometimes you have to peel back the onion into so many layers to look at where the project, where the process is working and where it’s not.

[00:35:33] And you have to remember to go back one step, bring people into that process evaluation and ask questions. What do you think about this process? Mike Rodney, how does this work? When this comes to your work area? Is this the way it needs to be? Does this make your job harder? Could we do something to make this faster, easier, simpler, and always starting with safer?

[00:35:54] Of course, going through that process and ensuring that our processes. Really, truly become business rules that are predictable and repeatable. One thing that I worked with somebody a long time ago, he used to say, his name is Ben McIntosh. He would say if you have a problem, fix your process and let your process fix your problem.

[00:36:14] And that’s never been a truer statement, right? Your process, if people are doing, people are participating and they’re following the process, then they’re doing exactly what you had them do. So sometimes in the third step, getting into the machines or technology, That’s where it can get a little bit dicey.

[00:36:30] You have, big project, you have an intent or whatever. Maybe it is trying to fulfill some operational process where you had a facility come online and you have to expedite product over to that facility. Maybe it’s a major customer that’s got a shortcoming of inventory and they need it now because of a natural disaster or something of the like, and you have to rapidly fulfill this.

[00:36:51] Sometimes you have to take a look at your technology and its capabilities or your machines for output in a factory setting. Can it meet these requirements? And that’s when you will end up going back to the drawing board and saying, okay, my people are aligned. My process is aligned. I’m still not able to meet the goal.

[00:37:04] So let’s take a look at the technology or the mechanized operations and then evaluating. Is there a better solution? And is there a better way to employ what you have? Can you get more out of it? More shifts or whatnot? You exit that process. It’s like we need to take a look at the machinery or the technology.

[00:37:21] You hear this a lot with businesses as they scale. Our WMS doesn’t provide the service or meet the requirements that we have as a business. So then it’s time to evaluate and replace your WMS. And sometimes a constraint in that system that you end up having to accept is that someone tells you it is too expensive or we’re not interested in replacing it because of cost.

[00:37:41] So then, you’re at a loss to say I can only do what I can do then. Yeah. And people will have to accept that, right? It’s, there’s a condition in there and you move forward. But a lot of times with different levels of employers or even organizations, if you go through this entire process in the project, you say, okay, I’ve evaluated people, the process and equipment, and I need to make an equipment change, then you’re going to typically get the support you need.

[00:38:04] As long as you can walk through the cost modeling analysis and turn around and say, there is benefit to this. This is the benefit of it. Okay. Or this is what, what we’ll see as a result. And sometimes it’s even going back after you’ve gone through people processing machines and saying, we simply need more people because it’s more product output.

[00:38:21] And we can’t, we can’t solve this from a mechanized perspective. It may not be. Efficient from a cost economy standpoint, maybe we need different equipment, more equipment. And this is, I’ve talked about talking to friends, talking to other people, I think I was talking about that in the key transitions, where you’ve met people at different trade shows or different trade organizations and asking those questions that kind of help you get through those things.

[00:38:44] What this reminds me of is when I ran a facility, since we were talking about HD supply earlier, I ran a facility in Columbus, Ohio. And it was probably 1 of the more fun experiences I had, but it started off as a struggle from a labor perspective, probably had over 1500 percent turnover. When I first came in, no control of processes, no understanding and knowledge of systems, the machinery in the facility wasn’t being used properly, or it was being underutilized or not utilized at all.

[00:39:10] And it literally started out with the same recipe. I talked about people, process machines, starting with earning the trust and respect of the people, proving you’re a servant leader and accountability comes at all levels, self accountability of your first line leaders.

[00:39:23] And in the case of this facility, it was, I had to hold supervisors accountable that ultimately led to the hourly floor trusting me because they knew that I wasn’t just. Going to support leadership. I’m going to support what’s right and what’s in the best interest of the business. Going through that process, building the trust, and then, working on the individual levels with smaller groups, teaching systems, process controls, things like that to stakeholders.

[00:39:47] And in this instance, example, going to the people was trying to find a common like a common bond or a common ground. And it was creating what I called an employer choice team. So it was bringing people from every department together once every couple weeks and talking about what’s going on, like, how are things working?

[00:40:05] How do you feel about this? And then ultimately evolving this team into an engagement team where it was like, cool, what do we want to do now to have fun? So it ended up becoming a scenario where we did community service. We, the very first thing we did was a clothing drive and it was like, I forget, it was like, 1800 pounds of clothing that people donated out of this facility.

[00:40:26] We did penny voting where people would put change in a five gallon jug. And if your department that week got the most silver, then you got a, they took a toilet out of inventory, spray painted it pink. It was in your department. It just created that, that bond amongst people and that commonality. It gave them, common things to focus on.

[00:40:43] And then we can start going into the technology evolution. So similar, like I talked about Orlando and Columbus, we launched a pick to voice system. We’re able to take that facility and improve its efficiency and performances by almost 78 percent within the course of six months. You go through the different approaches and you start with the people.

[00:41:01] The people are always a consistent part of it. Evaluating the processes. Look, there’s always things as you evaluate change management. I’ve talked about it enough about you start with people and really listen to them. What I will say is you do have to comb past the consistent. I don’t get paid enough or I want more money.

[00:41:19] You look for the consistency in other places and to steal a phrase from my friend, Brian Devine, he talks about, you’re looking for the voice of the blue collar worker, which Brian Devine is the one who created that whole study probably 15, 20 years ago for employee bridge. If you’ve ever read it, if not, and you’re in the supply chain, I would highly encourage you to go out and look for that report.

[00:41:38] It’ll give you a lot of insights. You start asking questions to your team, but bringing people into the solution to me is the biggest part. In three words, people process machine. That’s where you got to approach it from.

[00:41:53] Mike Ogle: Yeah, that’s a great combination. And you’ve also been active, very active in associations.

[00:42:01] And, we’ve both been on the work board do you have some tips for the audience to be able to get the most out of the types of things that you’re engaging in, whether it’s associations and other kinds of groups?

[00:42:16] Glen Wegel: Yeah, I’ve got a couple of thoughts there for you. One I want to say is that there’s never enough time in the day of the week, the year, the month, whatever.

[00:42:24] If you want to benefit from something, you have to make the time you have to prioritize it. And if you’re listening, and as I talk through this resonates with you, then I would encourage you to evaluate your time and take the risk. And choose whatever organization that you want to be a part of, whether it’s a personal volunteering type thing, because that’s important to you, or if you want to look at trade organizations, which I would encourage you to do also, you can’t prioritize everything.

[00:42:49] You just, you get what you. You get out of them, what you put into them. So like a story of what I’ll tell you about that is change a couple of names to protect the innocent, avoid casting a negative shadow. So Mike, you mentioned, like I said, on the advisory council for the warehouse education and research council.

[00:43:07] And through that process, I’ve been interconnected with folks that are highly involved in MHI, the material handling Institute, and have had exposure to many senior leaders, CEOs, executives for. Manufacturer, like manufacturers of products, goods, services. So in this process of building this new distribution center in North Carolina to replace our existing corporate headquarters, we’re on a timeline.

[00:43:31] So we ordered power equipment years in advance. Just to make sure we were prepared, but the manufacturer, they continue to push lead time out. I wouldn’t have the equipment now. And I’ve been operating out of this new building for a while now. So I would still not have this. So being a member of work, even without being on the advisory council, I would have had exposure to this individual already.

[00:43:56] And I had this conversation with him and told him, I’m like, I’m really. In the pickle and I don’t know what to do. Can you help me? So he’s I don’t know if I can help you plan, but let me make some phone calls. So he gets on the phone. He calls the president of that division and says, I got a problem.

[00:44:16] And then that guy calls over to the factory, they realign some things and I got my equipment on time. What became interesting in it is. The local supplier that I used had no idea what my influence was or my involvement in the community. And they found out really fast when they started getting emails from folks at their corporate headquarters or the manufacturer’s headquarters.

[00:44:39] Like, why is this happening? Why aren’t you honoring commitments? Why are you doing this? And we all know the truth of the matter is I’m tired of talking about COVID. But coming out of that period of time, there was such a reprioritization of people competing to get equipment that it rearranged production schedules a lot.

[00:44:59] So people got bumped when somebody said something, and I had to utilize this connection to make sure that I was not the one that continued to get bumped. Another good one I’ll give you, if that doesn’t resonate. Mike, I think a mutual friend. We have Rick Fox. I’ve known him over the years and we’ve become good friends.

[00:45:15] And something he told me years ago, why he continues to work with so many associations or serve on their boards or being committees or, just being useful for them is the people you meet when you participate, not only become your friends. But they become your personal unofficial advisory. Like these are the folks that you are going to call when you need advice.

[00:45:35] If you need connections to somebody or you just need a sanity check for someone to validate your thoughts. And he’s not wrong, through my time at kitchen cabinet distributors, I sit on the executive team. I work regularly with our board of directors as we’re talking about different strategies for the business.

[00:45:51] Do we want to do a, do we want to do B, do we want to consider F? If I don’t have the experience firsthand, like sure, I’m going to go research it online a little bit, but I always remember I have a phone full of contacts of people that I’ve met through the years that would be happy to, which also comes in handy because as you talk to them, you find out who has used the services of these different vendors and you get a first person validation instead of just trusting what a potential supplier or vendor will say.

[00:46:21] And I look, I think he’s right associations, their vehicle that help you along your path. They don’t give you the answer key to the test. You’re going to get out what you put in them. It’s a two way street. But having that exposure through participating in different organizations. Has been huge. And if it sounds intimidating to say Glenn or Mike, how am I going to go from being Joe’s supply chain professional to being on an advisory board, I’m going to tell you to take a TV time out and restate the problem, take a look at how you get there.

[00:46:53] If that’s where you want to go. Start small. The WERC is always looking for people that have fun stuff going on at work that can pretend that can present at their annual conference this year. It’s or in this upcoming year, it’s going to be in new Orleans next summer. If you have something going on, go check out the website, put something together, put a speaking proposal together.

[00:47:13] That’s a great way to get in front of, your peers or other professionals in the organs that are in the industry. And if you’re not comfortable with public speaking, start going to some of these different events, whether it’s a trade show, like ProMAD or MODX, or it’s a conference like the WERC or CSCMP’s EDGE, which is coming up soon.

[00:47:30] Go, you can network with people and see if it’s something that is. In your future, if you get a good feel for it, keep going with it. If you don’t, then don’t, there’s plenty of time and places for you to do everything. You want to grow at work. You want to grow through your work and through professional organizations.

[00:47:48] And if you enjoy it, they’re always looking for different volunteers to be on committees, the education committee, maybe the conference committee, maybe a local like council, like the WRC does a lot of things regionally. And so people don’t have to travel all over the country, but Hey, we’ll do something in your hometown give us a call or send an email.

[00:48:06] But yeah, I think you get, get out what you put into it. And I would encourage anybody. Who is interested in continuing to grow within our field to take a look at those things, because it’s not always about what you achieve in your career or in your life. It’s thinking back about how did you contribute to our career field for the next generation?

[00:48:27] Rodney Apple: Well said and that is an important aspect of these associations. It’s not just taking, it’s giving back and that’s what keeps everything evolving. And that leads into the next question, Glenn. Trends, it’s a, the associations are a great place to learn what your peers are doing maybe competitors and others in the field.

[00:48:46] But what about you, from your perspective, you’ve been involved with a lot of technology advancements, and you talked about automation. We know that robotics automation is the hottest thing right now. And machine learning and AI is in that category as well as there. Implementing that into the robots, right?

[00:49:02] And what are some of the trends that you’re seeing within your space, Glenn, and, how to, how would you advise folks to to be prepared for these I would say coming, but I would use the word maybe ongoing advancements within our, within this broad supply chain and, Logistics world that we’re in.

[00:49:22] Glen Wegel: I love that question because everybody’s got a little bit of a different opinion. And when I ask people the same thing that I run in circles with, they tend to be, similar things, just maybe titled differently. And what I hear and what I see. tend to be a little bit of different, a little bit different, but I’ll give you three that continue to come up in every circle I run it.

[00:49:44] One is generative AI, one is ESG. And the third one is more recent as I’m hearing a lot more about low code platforms. Breaking that down, like I’m hearing a lot of interest in generative AI for supply chain operations. I understand that it has the potential to revolutionize supply chain management, logistics, demand planning, procurement, but look, people I’m connected to.

[00:50:05] They’re not employing it yet. Quite a few are in larger, funded organization experimenting with it, but a lot of the smaller medium players in the field they’re not employing it yet. They’re fast followers. They’re not going to be first to market. And similar to my earlier comments, I won’t share names of the businesses out of respect for them, but two different groups.

[00:50:24] That I know people within one is a retail distributor and the other is a 3PL. They’ve shared that they’re feeding generative AI mountains of data to analyze in their organizations. And the results have come out a bit nuanced. So it has a lot of potential, but it’s requiring a bit of manual intervention to refine and sharpen its analysis capabilities.

[00:50:44] So both of the people, look, they’re confident. That in due time, generative AI will be fruitful for them. My hope and expectation with generative AI is my personal part is that S and O P and integrated business planning applications will be able to use this data to eliminate the gap between planning and execution.

[00:51:02] That’s always been a pain point for me in any organization that I work in, right? You can have an intent and you can have an assignment and they don’t always come together, but leveraging analytics. Advanced analytics, especially to answer deeper questions with minimal human intervention has so much upside to me.

[00:51:19] It’s ridiculous. My hope there is that there’s a way to maintain an even playing field for smaller organizations comparatively to those of scale. That worries me a little bit, right? If you’re well funded, you have the money. You can do what you need to do. If you’re a smaller business, you may not have the capital or access to capital to invest the time in building out like a generative AI type scenario.

[00:51:41] When I talk about low code platforms here in a minute, that may be a little bit more tied in where as you’re looking for different you’re looking for different solutions in that remark, maybe you find some sort of application that has built in generative AI that’s at an economical price point and still gives you what you’re looking for as an output, but moving over to ESG.

[00:52:00] Look, ESG remains on the radar. Consumers nowadays, look, they’re more conscious than they’ve ever been. They make influence purchasing decisions. And I think there will always be a division based on the economics of things when it comes to ESG, do ASG type principles or ingrain them in your business or don’t.

[00:52:19] I think it’s always going to come down to economics, but generationally speaking, I hear more questions around and seeing purchase patterns that are shifting towards companies and products that are good stewards. So I don’t think ESG is going away. But with continued focus in the marketplace on ESG, and of course, supply chain resilience, coupled with the expansion of distribution centers, the way the products flow globally, different partners that you’ll work with pressures on the supply chain planning process, like these are all increasing pressures.

[00:52:48] They’re not going away. So meeting the demands that come with ESG. They create another burden, which is time consumption. And they’re costly finding people that understand what rocks to look in, what countries to go to, to find things that are done in an ESG type of applicable manner. I don’t know how that will work for everybody, but.

[00:53:07] Like I said, I don’t see ESG going away. In fact, I think it’s going to be the opposite. I think people entering and working in the supply chain now should be prepared for this, especially if they’re working for larger companies or organizations that conduct business outside of the U S. I think that’s just going to be a way of the future.

[00:53:25] And I talked a little bit about low code platforms, which is the final trend that I’ll share. I’m hearing this more in the supply chain technology circles that I run in. Look, the supply chain is a dynamic and complex process the whole way through. We all know that thinking about provisioning, thinking about raw material, supply, warehousing, distributions, logistics of products, getting things to the consumer.

[00:53:47] Those are just like a few touch points. Everything when you open the hood, you peel back the layers. There’s just so many more working parts. And historically to work in many of these spaces it results in multiple systems and data sources being used within an organization.

[00:54:01] And these systems look, they don’t always play well together. I’ve never, I’m raising my hand for those you can’t see because this is a podcast, but I’m raising my hand saying I’ve never worked in an organization like that. Yes, I have. It happens all the time where these systems don’t play well together.

[00:54:16] They can’t necessarily be interconnected or even worse. You work in an organization, maybe where the technology or the system is obsolete and there’s just not. There’s just not the continued evolution within your business that somebody can support that obsolescent equipment or that obsolescent technology.

[00:54:33] So looking at implementing software changes in these environments, look, that’s time consuming and it comes with a high probability of error. So it’s a little bit of a double edged sword here. I believe that most supply chain tasks can be fully or partially automated through low code platforms, primarily through the use of APIs and prepackaged integrations that link systems together.

[00:54:53] And this is where I think it comes back to SMBs where it’s hey, you can buy a SAS modeled. System to help you through something that comes with some of that generative AI capability. That’s just where some of these different businesses are going to have to inject that into the application that they’re selling, whether it’s to SMBs or to big box and major companies like fortune, like 50 or Fortune 100 companies.

[00:55:14] But when you have this out there, when you have these other low code solutions, like that cuts development time. For the technology systems, it helps with, business rules. It helps just, just in general with your labor or your dev team. If you have a dev team, it’ll enable companies to react quicker, adapt to new market conditions quicker.

[00:55:33] Think about unplanned disruptions because we haven’t been through any of that in the past several years, or even the evolution of your business strategy and how you go to market, what you want to do and how you want to do it. I don’t think of a low code platform just as a technological upgrade. They represent to me a paradigm shift in how organizations approach their operations.

[00:55:51] They provide a new pathway to more agile and adaptable futures. So to prepare for the future, I believe in this case, like supply chain professionals need to start by defining and documenting these cross functional processes, taking a look at tasks, timelines, identifying suitable cases for low code platforms, or how would they introduce a low code technology solution in their workplace, just to moderate modernize.

[00:56:16] And compliment legacy existing systems, automating processes, connecting previously disconnected systems, like bringing the way that data comes together. So that when we get into the phase where generative AI is huge, like these are going to be tools that get your data more combined faster.

[00:56:33] And when you think about the way that tables interconnect, like in an ERP or something that can be a limiting factor and having interconnection through low code platforms can offer like a gap, like a cover gap for that. One of my friends, Mike Hamill, he’s the managing director of our Keystone dedicated logistics.

[00:56:49] He’s a data guy. He loves data. He always says the answer is in the data, he says, but you have to connect the puzzle pieces to find what you’re looking for. And I think that’s a good analogy for low code systems like this. Do you, you have all the puzzle pieces on the table? How do you put the puzzle together so that you can have the data in front of you?

[00:57:07] The clip the picture of the puzzle may not be clear, but at least you have the data there. So when the evolution of generative AI comes around, if you don’t see it right away, Okay. You have a system or a tool that can help you analyze it and take a look.

[00:57:23] Mike Ogle: Yeah, I think there’s a big emphasis on being able to understand how to go through the the prompt engineering side of things, being able to clearly state what you want. That’s always been important with people and the interaction. You get the same kind of thing now with with these generative AI tools and the low code kind of environments. Can you really spell out your process?

[00:57:45] Do you know what you really need? Do you know who needs it when they need it under what conditions? So it’s going to be a really interesting few years here. While the everything keeps changing faster and faster,

[00:58:00] Glen Wegel: I’m enjoying it in my environment, like without, without opening up, let you know what we’re doing confidentially within my organization, working in all of those spaces and understanding what’s going on and how we’re employing, like our dev team or what types of software packages we’re looking at and how we manage data, Mike Rodney, guys.

[00:58:21] It is crazy what we can do with this and even now with tools like Power BI has a different visual output for it and just, using an integrator to, to connect the data as it comes together to put it in a visual, like a visually stimulating just a something to look at and then how you can take action even faster.

[00:58:39] I’ve never calculated the reaction time from how fast we can look at data to producing a result. But I’ve got to imagine just the efficiency that comes with that on a scale could be worth a lot of money to organizations.

[00:58:51] Mike Ogle: Absolutely. Hey, and I wanted to go from the trends side of things to closing with advice.

[00:59:00] We usually like to talk about trends and definitely love to talk about the advice side of things. Some of the best advice that you’ve received. That you’ve been able to use in your career, some of those that you’ve of course pass on to others, but are there some things as well that you’ve learned that ha has become your advice to others?

[00:59:19] And if you could share a few of those.

[00:59:22] Glen Wegel: So one piece of advice that I give to people that I don’t know if I ever heard it somewhere before I came up with it on my own, but it’s that every one of us, you, me, any colleague, we all have a cash to BS ratio. We will deal with so much BS for so much cash.

[00:59:38] So it should never be a surprise when you have turnover and somebody left your organization because they were paid more. That’s where it goes back to the common theme I spoke of a people and understanding what’s going on in the culture of your business, because the reality of 25 cents more an hour is not material enough, somebody’s leaving for other reasons. So thinking about that cash to BS ratio, you may never remember my name, but you’ll probably remember that statement. Some of the advice that I’ve gotten along the years, whether it was aimed at me or just generally pontificated one of my friends, Dan McInerney, he’s the chief supply chain officer over at Johnstone.

[01:00:13] He used to remind me when we worked together, something Marshall Goldsmith always says it has a great book on it, which is what got you here. Won’t get you there. And if you’re listening today and you’ve not read this book, please add it to your reading list. I highly encourage it. Another good one comes from Tim Kincer.

[01:00:28] He is the vice president of operations over at RPM international, and he talks about there’s literally four priorities when you manage your business, especially in the world of operations, but there’s only four priorities, safety, quality, service, and cost. And they’re always in that order. And they’re in that order for that reason, without the safety of your people or your customers, you’ll have no one to work with without a product that meets all quality specs and standards.

[01:00:53] No one will buy it and you’ve got to get that product to your customer when you say you will, or someone else will steal and service your customer and cost comes last because without the first three requirements being met, cost won’t matter. You can mark it down to the lowest price. Nobody’s going to buy it.

[01:01:09] So that’s always resonated with me and I. I brought that up in different board meetings for like different boards that I sit on and people tend to steal that one. So kudos to Tim Kintzer is a great mentor in that regard. And then the final one comes from a former colleague who was the president and CEO of HD supply.

[01:01:27] He used to stand up in front of different meetings, large, small, and he would ask everyone in the room. He says, if you’re in this, if you’re in sales, stand up and people would say seated. And I didn’t understand it at first, but his point was that everyone within the organization is on the sales team, even if you don’t call on customers.

[01:01:47] Even if you’re not in the field, everything you do affects how product comes into the organization, leaves the organization and affects how our customers are serviced. So be useful and remember that you’re in sales, have pride in what you do. Those are probably the three or four biggest. Those are the three biggest things that I can think of off the top of my head that others have passed on to me.

[01:02:07] And then I would encourage any of the listeners to just think about those things. Good stuff.

[01:02:15] Rodney Apple: I love the cash to BS. I have not heard that before. So I wrote that one down. I will probably repurpose that at some point. I’ll send you a check Glenn.

[01:02:25] Glen Wegel: No royalties need just, keep contributing to our industry as a whole for the future and that’ll be good enough credit for me.

[01:02:33] Rodney Apple: So Glenn, I really do appreciate you sharing your incredible career journey. You just gave a huge lecture on what it takes to be successful, especially in an operations oriented career.

[01:02:45] And we appreciate your advice and contributions to the program. So thank you for joining the Supply Chain Careers Podcast, Glenn.

[01:02:54] Glen Wegel: Thank you so much for having me on the Supply Chain Careers Podcast today. It’s been a pleasure sharing my career journey and discussing the benefits of association memberships and trends that are impacting our industry.

[01:03:05] I hope the insights that we covered today offer value and inspiration to those of you tuning in, whether you’re navigating your own career path or seeking ways to drive engagement in your current workplace. If you’d like to connect to continue the conversation, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.

[01:03:19] I’m always open to connecting with fellow professionals and discussing new ideas. But Mike Rodney, until next time I’m grateful that I had this chance to be a part of the conversation.