The Consensus Builder: Elijah Ray

By John Kerr -- Supply Chain Management Review, 11/1/2005

Racing toward the end zone, high school tight end Elijah Ray hadn't been able to contain his exuberance. Just before he slammed the football down, he'd raised his hands high in a victory flourish. Then came the abrupt flag; Ray was back on the bench in seconds. "Never ever do that!" scowled his coach.

One of the country's best high school football coaches had just reminded the freshman that he would not tolerate solo showmanship. "He would tell you that if you didn't play with a good attitude, you couldn't play on his team," recalls Ray. "It didn't matter how fast you could run the ball or make tackles—if you didn't have humility, you didn't have a good team."

It's a lesson that has served Ray well all through his professional life. As the senior vice president of customer solutions for UTi Integrated Logistics (formerly Standard Corp.), he uses every opportunity to advance other peoples' ideas and to collaborate across organizational boundaries. Ray applied the same principles recently when, as president of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), he helped drive the organization's change of name from the Council of Logistics Management.

"Elijah is a consensus builder—he works for group understanding and buy-in," confirms CSCMP executive director Maria McIntyre. "He made sure the group understood the vision and the goals of the organization, and he ensured that everyone on the executive committee was part of the discussion so all viewpoints were heard and understood. Once the decision to change our name was made, Elijah was the leader in disseminating the information to the membership."

At UTi, Ray's role as leader of the Customer Solutions Group is to develop customized offerings that make clients more competitive. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the company operates a contract logistics network that comprises more than 110 centers throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Africa. Ray is particularly proud of UTi's accomplishments. "We've doubled the size of the company in the last four or five years," he says. The company has brought on many new customers and won more business with existing customers, evolving from a small regional warehousing company into a global supply chain management operation with more than 12,000 employees. A prime example of its activities today: UTi operates a 4 million square-foot distribution center near Houston for Wal-Mart.

Not long ago, Ray and his team helped a major client cut costs by implementing cross-docking procedures at one of its facilities. The project allowed UTi to reduce its rates to the client, engendering significant loyalty. The payoff came recently when that client awarded UTi a project worth nearly half a million dollars to run its large Chicago-area facility. "You want to be able to forge that kind of relationship with clients so that they say you're an A-player in their network," explains Ray.

Ray's responsibilities at UTi include spearheading the company's efforts around quality programs, Six Sigma, and the Baldrige National Quality Program leadership model. In 2003, the company received the Governor's Quality Award, a prestigious benchmark in UTi's home state of South Carolina. "Having Elijah as part of the senior team very early in the company's development contributed greatly to developing a high-performance culture—one that will outlast us all," says Bill Gates, chief executive of UTi Integrated Logistics and leader of the company's Contract Logistics Council.

Continues Gates: "Elijah is just one of those quality individuals that people enjoy working with. He is committed to personal growth and takes the time to nurture and develop people. His character is impeccable; he has a very strong work ethic. And he's the epitome of a collaborative leader, able to work across functional silos and work effectively at all levels of the organization."

Gates and Ray have known each other for 20 years, working together for much of that time. Ray was an area manager for Gates at Wal-Mart, where his obvious potential led to a rapid promotion to operations manager of a new million-square-foot distribution facility. Later, he went to work for Bausch & Lomb, inheriting a large shipping operation in which overtime work was endemic, shipping errors were rife, and morale was sagging. Observing that employees were "siloed" in order-picking and receiving functions, Ray began to bring together workers from both groups to swap notes and propose solutions.

Not surprisingly, the "new guy with all these ideas" met with early resistance. So he started small, cleaning up the messy order-processing area by equipping workers with pocketed aprons so that they had a place to collect discarded packing slips and label backing rather than dropping the waste paper on the floor. Small changes became bigger steps forward as more and more employees saw value in Ray's cross-functional team approach. Suggestions came thick and fast; the group even took down a wall—literally—that had acted as a productivity barrier within the department. The timing of order processing was changed to better suit the department's workflow. And the team built a new partially automated pick line, achieving big productivity gains. It was not long before picking accuracy began to climb, the need for overtime dropped off, and morale improved dramatically. "The workers solved it," Ray says simply.

Ray is convinced that since most people sincerely want to do a good job, management's role is to create the environment and provide the tools and resources that allow them to succeed. He's quick to quote quality guru W. Edwards Deming, who noted that most operational problems are due to flawed systems or processes—not to people. "As a servant leader, that idea really influenced me," says Ray.

That concept of "servant leadership" comes up often in conversation with the UTi customer solutions leader. He points out that its principles are embedded in the "Level 5" leadership practiced by the executives cited in the influential book Good to Great by management consultant Jim Collins. Great leaders not only embody servant leadership themselves but they expect it of others. Ray explains: "You've got to have leaders who talk integrity and discipline and being on time and being positive and getting through adversity. All those basic concepts and basic values are a big part of the foundation of building great leaders."

Ray is deeply interested in and committed to improving leadership in the supply chain community as a whole. As a member and past president of CSCMP's executive committee, he is involved in a range of professional development initiatives. His contributions at CSCMP win plaudits from other committee members. "Elijah paints a picture of what needs to be accomplished without being controlling or directional," says Kate Vitasek, managing partner of consultancy Supply Chain Visions. "It really sparks an interest because you see that vision and you want to work to define it and make it reality."

In Ray's opinion, many supply chain managers could benefit themselves and their profession by honing their skills in logical reasoning and analytical problem-solving. But he reserves his strongest argument for upgrades to their softer skills—skills in communication, collaboration, and an ability to look at issues from the customer's perspective. He is a proponent of what's called "emotional intelligence"—the idea that those who have high emotional intelligence are able to empathize readily with others and are very aware of their impact and influence on those around them. "It's part of what universities should be teaching," he believes.

Ray also presses the case for true commitment to collaboration—not just one-off team projects or occasional joint ventures but lasting initiatives that lead to, and are reinforced by, an end-to-end approach to the supply chain. To Ray's way of thinking, that calls for setting joint goals, for voice-of-the-customer meetings, and for periodic planning sessions to take stock of progress to date and to map out subsequent steps. True collaboration also requires a systematic approach, he points out, with agreed-upon processes and procedures in writing, with diagnostics and monitoring to gauge compliance, and with training in how to collaborate effectively. Put another way, it takes more that one person to score a touchdown.