If you remember Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (Ret.) from the Katrina disaster, you might also remember his admonition to the press swarm of that time – “You’re stuck on stupid”. You can of course watch that video here.

Well, no point letting that well worn phrase go to waste, here he is again talking about a rather related issue in Leaders stuck on stupid.

Are you a-buck-stops-here leader? Do you secretly look forward to making the call when a crisis has stakeholders demanding action? If so, then please be advised that some of the world’s toughest leaders are not at all impressed. In fact, as far as Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (Ret.) is concerned, you don’t have the right stuff to lead any organization in today’s complex world.

and

He thinks, for example, that most organizations need to tear up their crisis plans. Simply put, if you are not prepared for a total loss of power and communications, not to mention a scenario that involves body bags and the need to break a few laws, then you are not thinking bad enough. To really prepare for a crisis, Honoré, who recalls having to order airline authorities to forget about screening procedures while evacuating New Orleans, insists you must seriously imagine your worst nightmare. And then you must prepare for your plan to fail, “because the first casualty in any emergency is the disaster plan.”

Having been part of a few Disaster Recovery Plans which were nothing short of disasters in and of themselves, I can say this that we do pay excessive lip service to “disasteration” or disaster preparation. However, what I took away from all of this was – do we need a disaster plan to be able and willing to do the following.

According to Gerard Seijts, executive director of Ivey’s Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership, the general’s message is simple. “The U.S. Army revolutionized how it makes decisions because technology-enabled collaboration is superior to centralized decision making in today’s complex world of interconnected risks, opportunities and challenges. And other organizations, including corporations, should do the same because collaboration across boundaries leads to bottom-up information flow, which may have saved a few U.S. banks during the financial crisis.”

Why not make it the norm?

Oh yes, today is Friday. Not TGIF but TGIWTF – Thank God It’s Wishful Thinking Friday.

Related posts:

1. The Credit problem – What is it? I’m sure that you’re drowning in the much bandied about...
2. RFID and Logistics: Four Trends You Need to Know Manufacturing.net has an article about RFID and logistics trends that...
3. Multinational CEOs Say Outsourcing Has Gone Too Far That’s probably a rather safe thing to say as long...

Awakening today in a rather satori-al mood – the title of this blog post is what popped into my mind. Don’t ask me why or how but that’s what happened. I’m a stickler for etymological cleanliness – not in the sense that I’m always cleaning up my words after myself but that I like clear and clean concepts.

However, as I alluded previously about my satori-al disposition at waking time, I find myself essentially in the midst of a paradox – the paradox of Clean Play. There is no such thing as ‘Clean Play’ except perhaps in the mind. And it is to that mindful playfulness that I invite you.

If anything Kaizen is the putting on of a mindful attitude to one’s surroundings and systematically and continually improving specific streams of work and information flow all around you. And therein is the rub – It all sounds so booooring!!!

Clean Play…, remember Clean Play. A curious thing happens when one is attuned to the systematic tick tock – discontinuities begin to appear.

The way I see it, the truth of the matter is quite different – like true false. Or false true if you insist. One would think that – Systematics brings order out of chaos. It does no such thing. I think of Systematics as laying a thin sheet of knowing on a rippling chaotic ocean of unknowing. The knowing is only maintained by expending energy.

This thin sheet – the Systematic, is for us – a map through the unknowing, a steadying hand in the Chaotic. But my intuition tells me that we have the basic ingredients to be Chaotic riders rather than Systematic riders. That is if we learn the ropes of the Systematic correctly, you’d do much better setting it aside and riding the Chaotic. As you may well surmise, this transition is also vectored i.e. you can go from the Systematic to the Chaotic but there’s little of value in going from Chaotic to Systematic.

Clean Play folks… you’ve got to get to Clean Play.

Enjoy!!!

No related posts.

WTG is hosting a free webinar : Plan for profit in real time with Supply Chain Optimisation (sic) which is presented by Shaun Phillips from Infor.

Hopefully it’s as interesting as it sounds… Check it out.

Real-time anything is really hard to achieve – so it would be interesting to see whether it is really real-time or near real-time or as real-time as you should expect it to be and no more.

Related posts:

1. APICS Webinar to Answer the Question: Is your Inventory a Competitive Advantage? Logility Inc is hosting a Webinar on September 28th on...
2. Archived webinar on Inventory Optimization in Electronics An archived version of the recent webinar on Dynamic Inventory...
3. Surviving the China Rip Tide – How to profit from the Supply Chain Bottleneck The only hope for these companies is that all their...

First Ms. Lagarde and now Mr. Bernanke (in the recent testimony on Capitol Hill) assure us that there is no currency war happening. Well, that’s true on the face of it.

However, why do currency wars begin? Because they work. Initially. Unless you’re willing to say the following that the populace of an advanced economy is going to sit back and watch their exports and by implication their jobs affected. But you might say – China has been manipulating their currency for at least a decade.

However, I think the issue with China is that it serves primarily as a low cost manufacturer by default for most of the advanced economies. While each developed economy didn’t particularly like the idea of currency manipulation by China, it affected each equally, more or less. This is quite different when each developed economy is trying to jumpstart their economies and boost exports by devaluing their currencies. The first few actors will benefit from this practice and the longer that these activities persist, the effects die down.

But please be under no illusions – these are desperate measures that have pricing volatility effects on every supply chain.

Related posts:

1. Amending the Supply Chain Prediction… NOT!!! However, here’s Ms. Lagarde of IMF : Lagarde sees...
2. Predictions for the Supply Chain in 2013 SC Digest has posted a round up of Supply Chain...
3. Smarter Manufacturing? In an earlier post, I blogged about the Baltic Dry...

NOT!!!

However, here’s Ms. Lagarde of IMF : Lagarde sees Currency Worries, Not ‘War’.

"There’s been lots of talk of currency wars, and we have not seen any such thing as a currency war. We’ve heard currency worries, not currency wars," said Lagarde. "We’ve not seen confrontation but deliberation, dialogue, discussions and clearly this G-20 meeting has been extremely helpful and productive."

Lagarde’s comments echoed those of the G-20 nations on Saturday, who declared that there would be no currency war. This has taken the heat off Japan, which has been criticized for its expansive policies that have driven down the yen following the election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

We’re all diplomats for now. Like I said in my prediction, we’ll first take the time to get this wrong to the fullest extent possible before we admit to the possibility that it was a war all along. So far we have no confrontations but deliberation, dialogue and discussions only. But confrontations arise from accusations – so until we see all sorts of accusations thrown about, it’s quite alright to be in the mode of Supply Chain worries.

Like this kind:

Bank of Korea Governor Kim Choong-soo told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that he was concerned over the weakening yen’s impact on his country’s economy. The governor stressed the importance of strengthening financial safety nets to give smaller nations the confidence to not have to stockpile currency reserves.

However, be not alarmed when such protestations erupt from the smaller economies. When you sniff the first wave of accusations between the larger economies, you’d do well to have already taken a long hard look at every and any extended supply chain and start diversifying options – especially options that have a strong currency component to it.

Related posts:

1. Predictions for the Supply Chain in 2013 SC Digest has posted a round up of Supply Chain...
2. A glimmer of sense… A glimmer of sense starts filtering through… Banks still tightening...
3. Using Prediction Markets for Collaboration Prediction Markets Blog talks about Using Prediction Markets for Collaboration...