Wishing family, friends, clients, and colleagues a Happy Thanksgiving!

Of course, I’d like to start by giving thanks! It is hard to believe that LMA Consulting’s 20th anniversary will be in May 2025. Clearly, there is NO way I could give thanks to everyone that has contributed to our success along the way without droning on for at least 20 pages. With that said, we wouldn’t be successful without the valued contributions and interactions with our clients, colleagues, and team (obviously our family and friends go without saying). I’d also like to give a shout out to a few special groups:

• Manufacturers: Thank you for contributing value to our society and economy while ensuring we have critical products such as medical devices, defense, and critical infrastructure.
• Supply chain professionals: Thank you for contributing to our future by engaging in an often-times underappreciated profession that ensures we have what we need (and want) at the right place at the right time. Hard to believe, but Amazon-like next day delivery and free two-day shipping with Prime was unheard of 20 years ago.

Technology professionals: Thank you for helping us speed up results, automate mundane tasks, provide helpful information with early AI (such as Amazon Alexa), optimize inventory and improve processes with ERP and advanced technologies, and think into the future with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence.

Appreciate Your Talent

You should always appreciate your talent. Our most successful clients have leaders that appreciate talent. They recognize achievements, provide corrective feedback while celebrating failure (so long as learning occurs even if it negatively impacts the organization), encourage training and development, and push for maximum potential. Although these items sound simple, they are not easy. Our estimate is that only 20% of executives and leaders fit the bill. However, any leader can learn to appreciate talent and achieve success. It isn’t rocket science although it requires a steadfast commitment.

As VUCA (volatility, complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity) accelerates, appreciating talent couldn’t be more important. As we’ve said in our article, “What the Election Means for Manufacturing and Supply Chain” about the current business environment, the strong will separate from the weak in the next several years to a larger degree than ever before in history as they take advantage of opportunities. To achieve success, you must retain top talent even during turbulent times while building future talent so that you will be prepared as the opportunities arise.

Keep in mind that the successful zig when everyone else zags. For example, a custom manufacturing client surged to #1 in their industry because they invested in talent when the competition cut back, developed talent when the competition cut costs, and listened to their talent by vertically integrating when the competition outsourced and investing in new technologies when the competition delayed cash outlays. The bottom line is that they were vigilant on keeping an eye on profitable growth while focusing attention on appreciating talent. Results followed. To gain additional forward-thinking insights on talent, download our complimentary special report, “FutureScape: Crafting Tomorrow’s Supply Chain Today“.

If you are interested in reading more on this topic:
The Leadership Opportunity in Supply Chain