All the live-long day, if you would believe the old song. Not many of us in today's world of supply chain management actually worked on a railroad, but many of us worked somewhere around trucks. And, another large population of us worked in warehouses and distribution centers. The point is, we worked in the execution of basic physical distribution and that's how we learned about logistics and supply chain. Later in our careers, we gravitated toward planning and strategic issues related to our functional specialties. We became bosses if we lived long enough, or managed to dance through the minefields of corporate politics. The overwhelming majority of us were - and still are - auto-didacts, self-taught, learning-by-doing professionals. As succeeding generations of educated practitioners entered the field, we were simultaneously encouraged, jealous, and a little frightened.
The New Breed
A slowly growing army of fresh-faced naifs began to enter the supply chain arena armed with diplomas from an exponentially larger and larger number of institutions of both higher and lower learning. The bastions of research and education had been around for quite a while. Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, and others. They produced some top-flight practitioners; they also populated the next generations of academia with teachers and researchers. In later years, supply chain and logistics curricula have multiplied like rabbits. They exist ? and are heavily promoted - at mainstream universities and at obscure community colleges alike. Faculty come from among traditional academia, from among retired practitioners, and from among former consultants whose knees can?t take the pounding any longer. Quality is, let's say, uneven, ranging from high-grade vocational education to more traditional research and case-based learning with underpinnings of organized and quantitative problem-solving.
Reactions
The Old Guard that's us, folks were, and are, encouraged. This development meant that we were for real that management, and the entire business community, was ready to take us seriously. Our team could now go in and do battle on a more even playing field with the financial and marketing types, and we didn?t have to be subservient to manufacturing. This was a huge deal for a group of associates and managers who by and large weren't Harvard MBA\'s, and tended to be general business types or history majors if they had attended a university at all. We were jealous at the same time, because these new kids on the block had learned tools that we didn?t understand, and weren?t afraid to use them. They elevated the analyses that went into making our programs, processes, and performance better, and that was a good thing. But, we became dependent on them to do the things that we weren't quite as good at. And that is where the fear factor entered the room. They were better than we were or seemed to be. We were in danger of becoming relics, maybe even redundant. They were smart and didn't hesitate to show it. And, they didn't always regard the past with awe.
Where The Work Part Comes In
We got better acquainted with the new breed, and discovered that their idea of a career path centered on an answer to the burning question of When will I be a Vice President?? We resisted the equally burning desire to respond, ?Never!? And we began to quietly ask ourselves whether all their book larnin? was a useful substitute for having worked in a warehouse or somewhere in transportation along the way. All the case studies in the world don't prepare a young person for the galvanizing experience of staring down a three-hundred pound Teamster. Nor does the ability to run routing software help when it comes to assigning a driver a route he doesn't want to take. There are invaluable life lessons embedded in learning early how to discipline even terminate people whose second job is to find a good place to sleep in the DC. And, the process of hiring ? both successfully and not so successfully is a learned skill that can be useful for an entire career. It seems that there ought to be a balance point at which education tempered with real-world experience is immensely valuable. Or, at which a lifetime of working experience becomes amazingly powerful when augmented with the analytic and technology skills the new generations are bringing into the workplace with them.
Answers?
So, where do we go from here? Should all the old codgers get up-to-date with the latest tools? Probably, at least to some degree. Note: Having technology that only your secretary can figure out is not the same thing. Should management learn how to team the generations so that the best of both can be applied to operating problems and the development of solutions? Certainly, and that solution is not limited to supply chain management in a universe of multi-generational and multi-cultural - workforces. Should all generations get sensitized to the peculiarities - and potential value - of each? You bet!
From Where We Stand
We confess. There's too much new to keep up with completely; we need to learn to accept input from the newer knowledge base. As good as we might get with Excel and Access, we?ll never match the facility with which younger generations who?ve grown up with them display day to day as a matter of course. Know what? It's invigorating to be around the kids, to watch what they can do, and to mentor those who are open to input from the walking archives of the profession.,
On the flip side, we know stuff tricks, techniques, history, relationships ? that they?ll never figure out on their own, at least not quickly. We can teach them, as well as learn from them. One of the greatest things we can teach them is that not everything being promoted and written about is for real, and/or likely to become a reality anytime soon. Another is that two years is not a lifetime. They can teach us, in addition to how to leverage tools and analytics, that the old ways of serial processing for systems and program development don?t work any longer that we don't have the luxury of unlimited time to implement change. But, we can make a powerful team, these several generations. For our companies, for our customers, for our suppliers, and for our colleagues.
The critical success factors? Openness to the idea, commitment to the possibilities, and the patience to overcome an occasional stumble on the journey on all sides. It wouldn't hurt if the newbies came to the table with something more relevant than waiting tables under their belts, too. Those who do will have a serious head start over the rest of the mob.