8 tips to stop wasting time in meetings

In the corporate world you can drown in meetings. Estimates are, that if you’re a middle manager, you can spend about 35% of your time in meetings. If you’re in upper management, that goes up to 50%. Check out this meeting info-graph. When we spend all this time in meetings, you would think that we run them efficiently and effectively. You might assume that we … Continue reading 8 tips to stop wasting time in meetings

Do you have enough passion to show GRIT?

Grit, according to Angela Duckworth, is ‘perseverance and passion for long term goals’. Duckworth is a former McKinsey consultant who turned professor.  One of her break through insights was that at the elite United States Military Academy, West Point, a cadet’s Grit score was the best predictor of success in the rigorous summer training. Grit mattered more than intelligence, leadership ability or physical fitness. You … Continue reading Do you have enough passion to show GRIT?

14 ways to cope and build Mental Toughness

Mentally Tough individuals show resilience and automatically apply coping mechanisms to reduce or eliminate stressors. These coping mechanisms come natural to some, not to others, but the good news is they can be learned. Coping mechanisms are useful in the workplace when one has to perform and deal with stress. Workplace stress can be severe due to workplace changes, mergers and acquisitions, organizational changes, a … Continue reading 14 ways to cope and build Mental Toughness

How to bring True Health to your Supply Chain

Do you recognize this situation? Something seems to be wrong in your Supply Chain. Customer service isn’t where it should be and customers are complaining. Inventory is too high, consuming too much working capital. Waste levels are rising, eating away straight from your bottom line results. You sit around the boardroom table with your leadership team and you decide to do a Supply Chain Health … Continue reading How to bring True Health to your Supply Chain

Developing Mental Toughness in the Supply Chain

Mental Toughness is a personality trait which is emerging as the key to understanding how people respond to and perform under stress, pressure and challenge. Mental Toughness explains up to 25% in the variation of an individual’s performance.  It is also a significant factor in individual and team well-being. Mental Toughness is a personal trait that can be taught, but also an organizational capability, as I … Continue reading Developing Mental Toughness in the Supply Chain

The dirty little secrets of S&OP

Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) as a business process is just over 30 years old. A lot has been written about why S&OP implementations succeed or fail and why many organization are stuck in their maturity. Recently Supply Chain Insights published a report with the following 5 top challenges on why S&OP is a tough nut to crack. 72% has difficulty getting to the right … Continue reading The dirty little secrets of S&OP

Building the Mentally Tough organization

Mental toughness is a set of attributes that make people perform at their best under any circumstances. It is a personal and organizational capability that can effectively deal with today’s continuous changes and pressures. This article explains the mindset and attributes that make up mental toughness, how mental toughness can be measured and how to build mental tough organizations that increase performance. Practice makes perfect! … Continue reading Building the Mentally Tough organization

The rise and fall of S&OP

There is no doubt that over the years, Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) has brought companies around the world many valuable business improvements. This article argues that after existing for over 30 years, the development of S&OP as an end to end business management process method has come to a standstill. This standstill is threatening the very existence of S&OP. The only way to further … Continue reading The rise and fall of S&OP

The main reason why S&OP implementations fail!

‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there‘, Yogi Berra, a famous baseball player famously said. Berra knew how to achieve and win, appearing in 21 world series and winning 13 of them. He was elected to the baseball hall of fame in 1972 (Wikipedia). If we want to achieve something, we usually define our goals, measurements and targets. We usually … Continue reading The main reason why S&OP implementations fail!

7 S&OP insights from the 2014 S&OP pulse check

A big thanks to all participants who joined in this years pulse check. Attached you can find the results of the 2014 S&OP pulse check, the fourth of its kind. It gives an indication on S&OP maturity status and change drivers. An indication indeed, as one participants said; ‘it is a check up and not an autopsy’. My biggest insights, or shock should I say, … Continue reading 7 S&OP insights from the 2014 S&OP pulse check