How to Communicate with Your Board of Directors

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the March-April 2013 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

March-April 2013

Inventory needs to be “optimized” to properly match supply and demand. This has become all the more important as competition intensifies globally and supply chains get longer and longer. Learn from a subject matter expert about the benefits of inventory optimization and how to get an IO initiative on track in your organization

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“If you ask me a question I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.”—Yogi Berra
This famous quote from Yogi Berra is indicative of much communication between supply chain professionals and their boards of directors. Many board members do not understand supply chains, and many supply chain people cannot speak the language of their boards. Communication needs
to be improved both ways. This article is intended to assist in this process.

I have studied supply chains and boards of directors from several perspectives and have seen good, bad, and ugly communications between the two groups:

• As a board member for large companies and not-for-profits.

• As a senior consulting partner and head of the supply chain practice for a major consultancy.

• As a professor and dean of executive education in a top-tier business school, providing multiple offerings for boards, senior management, supply chain, and other personnel.

• As a manufacturing project and plant manager, being fortunate to have had many interactions with board members and senior management early in my career.

• As the author of five books and approximately 100 academic and professional articles on various management topics, many having to do with board and supply chain issues.

Looking at boards and supply chains “up close and personal,” one becomes convinced that supply chain people do themselves a significant disservice by not being able adequately to communicate with their boards of directors and senior management.

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