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A Counter-Culture Contribution To Supply Chain Management

By Art van Bodegraven | 10/15/2010 | 1:18 PM

Just this week, I experienced one of those pesky teachable moments, in which a straightforward and dispassionate  document was misinterpreted as a personal attack.  The incident was revealing in displaying how, in a low-trust and fear-driven set of relationships, those who try to read between the lines can easily find things that aren't actually there.

Disruptive on a good day; catastrophic when other things are simultaneously going South.  Nasty in any relationship; career-limiting when long-term supply chain performance is at risk.

Hermann Hesse, the novelist, poet, hero of the '60's counter-culture, and all-around wack job, once said, "Assumptions are the termites of relationships."  He hit that one dead on.  It's tempting and easy to extract assumptions from misreadings, particularly when the assumption can fit a pre-determined set of misconceptions.

In the end, the intiial event could be rescued by a direct conversation that established context for the offending language, and reinforced the foundation for the more positive and productive working relationship.

And, the moral of the story?  Arm's-length communications, emails, texts, tweets, memos, and bulletin board announcements, despite their ease and ubiquity can never substitute for real communications among real people, especially in the delicate and complex relationships - internal and external - that make supply chains work - or not.

PS: Confessing fallibility in a public setting (my starring role in the teachable moment) isn't always comfortable, but is good for both the soul and prospects for doing better in the future.

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