Planning to Win

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the July-August 2011 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

July-August 2011

Winning and winners have a powerful fascination for us. Everyone seems to go crazy when their favorite team wins a championship (think Boston Bruins in the recent Stanley Cup). Individuals bring out the adulation in us, too, whether they are in sports, politics, the community, or religious leaders. And don't forget business. Jack Welch, Bill Gates, and yes, Donald Trump are among the business "winners" who have captivated us. By developing winning ways, supply chain people can put themselves in great position for a long and fulfilling career. We hope that the articles in our July/August issue will accelerate your progress along that…

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Here’s a counterintuitive proposition: in order for a team to perform optimally, some individuals have to intentionally lower their performance. This may seem impossible, but a simple sailing analogy illustrates this point.

When a yacht is racing towards a waypoint, or reference point on its route to the finish, it seems logical for the helmsman to set a course that heads directly towards that waypoint. But usually due to the wind direction, he or she needs to put in a series of tacks (zigzag) in order to sail as close to the wind as possible for maximum speed. You might argue that sailing close to the wind is still optimizing in a sense. Perhaps, but the helmsman is still compromising direction for speed, while the other crew members are making constant adjustments to sail trim and weight distribution to achieve this “compromise.”

Now let’s look at what happens when several yachts are approaching the finish line and there is very little room to maneuver. In this case, where the helmsman is constrained by two factors—space and wind direction—the navigator will often decide to sacrifice speed for the sake of keeping the boat headed on a more direct course to cross the finish line. Putting in a tack could waste too much time, cause a dangerous collision, or run the risk of the yacht missing the finish line altogether. In this case several crew members need to operate the boat intentionally in what would normally be considered sub-optimal. The sail trimmer, for example, “luffs” the sail so it is not so close to the wind and slows the boat right down.

An experienced sailing crew trained in competitive yacht racing can see in real time how its collaborative efforts are contributing to the goal of crossing the finish line. So members intuitively sacrifice their own performance at different times in order to win the race. This is exactly how businesses should operate, particularly when it comes to their planning activities. Yet very few of them actually do.

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