Become the Supply Chain GOAT

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the July-August 2021 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

July-August 2021

We all know the old saying: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” It has been repeated so often it’s cliché. I’d like to suggest a variation: “When the going gets tough, leadership matters.” To say that supply chains have had a tough time of it would be an understatement. Despite the positive vaccine news here in the United States, global supply chains are not out of the woods yet.

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GOAT! It’s a little word, but it drives passionate debate in the sports world. Ardent fans argue vehemently over who is their sport’s GOAT—Greatest of All Time. They rely on statistics, point to lifetime achievements and call out head-to-head match ups. Still, the question almost always goes unanswered. How do you compare the greats of any sport across eras—especially as technology, training and everything else (including the rules of the game) continue to change?

You can’t expect any athlete to play, and win, “against ghosts, past, present or future.”

Now, with that disclaimer front and center, we’ll make the case for two GOATs. Let’s start the debate by asking: “Who was the most outstanding player on the best team in professional sports history?” If you are a sports fanatic, you may be disappointed the question is so easy. If you are not an avid sports fan, you may have guessed the right team even if you struggled to identify the player’s name. We’ve given you a moment to think and here’s the answer: Bill Russell is the player, and his team is the Boston Celtics of the 1960s.

Russell led the Celtics to 11 National Basketball Association championships in 13 seasons, including nine of 10 championships in the 1960s. Now consider this: The last two championships came in 1968 and 1969 when Russell didn’t just play as a Celtic but also coached the Celtics—the first black head coach in any U.S. professional sports league. This unprecedented, and never repeated, run of success led Sports Illustrated to name Bill Russell as the “greatest team player on the greatest team ever.”

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