There are old sayings about “not making important decisions when you’re angry” and “not driving when you’re angry.” I wonder if this applies to blogging? Maybe … or maybe not.

Right now, I am so disgusted over situations that I have encountered lately that I went back to June’s Harvard Business Review and reread the excellent article “Before You Make That Important Decision” in an attempt to calm me down.

In the article, the authors pose 12 questions to help executives review the quality of the recommendations given to them by their support team and any potential biases that may have distorted the reasoning of the support team (and thus the bad recommendation handed to their leaders).

I highly recommend the article in full, as in this blog I only discuss the three questions that relate to my current state of discontent.

Okay, I am already starting to calm down as I write. In retrospect, I had a great week – landing a handful of new projects and participating in two very successful client presentations. So what then got me so angry that I could chew the heads off of 8-inch anchor bolts?  

I have recently talked with two company leaders who will wind up with clogged shower drains because their hair is full of sand after having it buried in the sand. Now, do not get me wrong, I know I am not going to win every proposal I write and I understand there are some folks who will make key decisions based on factors that I do not understand.

But this boggles my mind:

• Unwise Decision #1: This company leader has a supply chain that does not work. Their organization requested proposals from four consultants, three of which are good companies and one company that I have never heard of and does not have a website. Yep, you guessed it – the support team consisting of the current supply chain leadership recommended to the CEO that they select the “Stealth Consultant” to address the firm’s major supply chain issues because “Stealth” was 30% cheaper than the other three firms.
• Unwise Decision #2: This company has procurement processes and systems that date back to the 1970s. Decentralized administrative buying with little to no aggregation of volume for leveraged spend; limited visibility into direct spend; and no visibility into indirect spend. The potential was for the company to save over $5 million per year.  In the category of “Are you kidding me??” the recommendation of the existing procurement folks to the CEO was to not hire an experienced consultant, but “to do it themselves.” Wow, amazing, considering that they have no culture of training for new skills and no inherent procurement skills other than to “put up enough road blocks and it will go away.”

The Three Questions that Should Have Been Asked:

So what were the three questions from the Harvard Business Review article that the CEO should have asked for both “Unwise Decisions #1 and #2?

• “Were there dissenting opinions within the recommending team?”
• “Have credible alternatives been considered?”
• “Are the people making the recommendation overly attached to past decisions?”

Great questions, right? Unwise decisions, right? Very disappointing to see CEOs making these types of crucial decisions based on bad recommendations from support teams. I believe that leaders should know when to challenge “group think” with important decisions that affect their profitable growth and their customers.

So thanks for letting me rant here and give some honest feedback. Hopefully, I gave you a few beneficial things to ponder when it comes to supply chain decisions.

GO! GO! GO!

Jim

Photo Credit: _gee_