What Seems Impossible, Is Merely Difficult

I am a member of a very unusual book club. Our club members include four published authors including me, plus several Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley graduates, engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. We meet monthly and often chose a difficult book to analyze and examine in depth. We discuss the story, the style, the voice, the historical period, the philosophy, and the author’s life. This month we are reading “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce. This book is written in the Stream of Consciousness style and is quite a challenge to read and appreciate.

That’s the point – the challenge is what makes us better writers, engineers, and scientists. When we stretch our ability in different ways, consider different styles, and points of view, we learn and improve the way we write and solve problems.

As a supply chain professional, this is an excellent lesson for me and for all of us to learn.

Stretching for new ideas

It’s easy to do the same thing or make small iterations of the same thing, in supply chain operations. That’s “small ball.” We might improve a process, add new metrics, or try a different supplier. But these are small, safe gestures that produce small results. To truly make progress in our chosen field, we need to stretch our ability to discover big ideas and challenge the status quo.

Supply chain people often get bogged down in the day-to-day operations of keeping freight moving, keeping pipelines full, and keeping key performance measurements (KPIs) within the boundaries. In today’s global supply chain environment, these things are not enough. We need to learn to be nimbler and more creative and to consider different points of view, and different approaches.

During the pandemic in the U.S., we experienced the typical cycle of denial, dealing with the unknown, using our traditional techniques and processes, then creating new and different responses. The most creative and forward-thinking companies started early to consider their alternatives and create outside-the-box solutions. A tractor manufacturer in the mid-west, set up a war-room as early as the end of January 2020 to prepare responses to the supply chain that was beginning to choke off parts coming from China. By February, this company considered chartering planes to bring in parts from global suppliers, the 3D printing of parts, reengineering their products to work around new shortages, and scouring the U.S. for alternative suppliers at any price. They were thinking outside the box – stretching for creative ideas and ways to respond to shortages.

Think differently

Innovative new ideas come from thinking differently. Consider Malcolm McLean’s invention of the ocean container in the 1950s, Steve Job’s first Apple computers in the 1970s, and Michael Dell’s make-to-order computers in the 1980s. These breakthrough thinkers introduced radical new ideas, not just incremental change.

The US has been the innovator of most breakthrough technologies and processes developed since World War II. With our constant emphasis on generating products that are newer, better, and faster, these innovations have set America apart from other nations. Yet innovation is not just for the super creative types like McLean, Jobs, and Dell, or the most advanced American engineers. Everyone can contribute to innovation in products and supply chains. Your mindset must be set to analyze, reengineer, and take big leaps when solving supply chain issues.

As my colleague, Kimberly Wiefling says, “things that you think are impossible are merely difficult.” You just have to work hard at thinking creatively and be brave about taking big leaps and big risks. There is no room for “small ball” in global supply chains.

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