My recent insight on Sustainable Supply Chain Management System design … Lossy vs efficient organizations – how to design a ‘sustainable’ supply chain management (scm) system
sustainability in supply chain management is optimized by measuring the lossiness cause by reflective coefficients at the sources and sinks of each learning node (suppler/vendor) in the chain. This refers to both informational and material flows. Thus, when the reflective coefficients are high, much loss occurs in the transfer of energy (product/services) process.
This generates a highly inefficient system and utilizes more resources, times, and people – thereby money; than a system that has been optimized at each supplier connection point with the goal of minimizing resistance and maximizing flux of information. The higher the flux (meaning bidirectional flow of information so that it is received and absorbed or assimilated), the lower the cost factors in product/service creation, is involved.
In a closed loop supply chain system (for example see the metabolic closed loop system diagram) each point of technology/materials transfer become an increasing way to build sustainability into the supply chain. this generates, not only a cleaner product generator through the network (chain), it also non-linearly reduces the costs involved – after an initial startup cost factor to break through the existing system’s resistance (otherwise known as momentum).
By defining reflective coefficient models as result of source/sink information and materials flow ratios, the evolution of a supply chain can be monitored, measured, and melded into an optimized performance system that directly affects world sustainability.
comments from drew: drew goodwin: just read your piece….. good stuff overall….. devil in the details….. precisely what has to be measured? and how ? ….. cool thing is that if you can figure out a way to measure “inefficiency ” then you have a metric that can be monitored for improvement over time….. providing a benchmark to substantiate claims of gain/loss…. also, would be nice to specify and quantify those data (the “flux”) that are necessary and sufficient for efficient supply chain management……
A story of conflict and healing in human interaction & collaboration
With compassion in his voice, he said (something like) you can be too sensitive. The energy with it was almost as if the conflict was not that big of a deal, and more in your mind; as if it wasn’t real enough. Since there are some similarities between you and me in the area of ‘sensitive’: Do you think we are too sensitive? In what ways? How might we blow things up bigger than they really are? Or how much of this is others projecting the unseen ‘white elephants’ that arise in the room and shoving them onto our backs? Hec, I usually just want to return her to her herd.
It’s hard giving up something that one likes, but I’ve been here before and things don’t change, so I end up alone – either while in the group, or because I feel a need to choose a lesser of two evils, to leave the group. Usually it’s about this white elephant that no one will acknowledge. I love the white elephant. It’s a misunderstood soft but wounded feminine energy that this elephant represents … And it’s a dark feminine energy that rides her. Ahhhh, there’s the conflict.
And this elephant just wants the weight off her back. She just wants to play (participate) and be reclaimed/accepted by her community, but is guided by the reins of her unconscious master. I wonder where her herd is that she longs for? And where does the rider belong; certainly not on this white elephants back.
Somehow she keeps getting lost in the safari, or is it abandoned?, misguided?, forced to leave? (by others, by self?) In that vulnerable place she is bridled. Or when lost on her own, the poor animal gets surrounded by a mash-up of uninitiated bulls that have clustered together from other elephant tribes. Desperate to claim their masculine nature, but un-fathered – their energy is abusive, manipulative, and of war.
If you look closely, you will see a few unusual elephant warriors that seem to be of this turbulent tribe, but are merely seekers who journeyed into the group as they crossed paths. Afraid of this stranger, they know not who the real leader is, and project their dark masculine force in all directions, suppressing the needed insight that arises, seen in reflection through the new one’s presence. Then, when the dark feminine rider smells this musk energy on the rise, she pulls on the reins of her white elephant and leads it into the culminating battle. The pubescent masculine force becomes a gathering of wimps, confused by the intertwined light and dark feminine that overpowers with rage, killing the masculine acts.
In rage, the rider and elephant reach the looking glass. Wonder if the white elephant can see her own reflection in Alice’s mirror? No. She can not see herself. But the rider does. Although it’s too late, as the white elephant stampedes through (rather than step into) the mirror, and shatters it. Too late now for reflection. The rider bleeds to death as the bulls stand silently, and ignorantly helpless; longing and waiting for silence to return.
Ongoing emergent metaphors and questions arise that I’d like to dialog with you about, maybe next time we talk. The story is not clean nor perfectly clear, yet helps me to express my sense of it all better than a summary or review. And it holds its own healing for me, as I weave myth and act into a story to share – a potent potion that helps to return a realm of self and group identity that’s too often hidden – lost within the human psyche.
WHAT COMES UP FOR YOU ABOUT YOUR OWN ‘REAL’ INTERACTIONS WITH OTHERS WHEN YOU READ THIS STORY?
May 2014 be the year when the men and women of ‘the arena’ (see below) come together to share our triumphs and struggles, and to celebrate the making of a world that works for all. I wish a to extend to each of you who stand in this very special place, a joyful and transformative New Year.
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THE MAN IN THE ARENA by Theodore Roosevelt
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Preparing Your Enterprise for an Emerging Global Ethic
Email Vic To Learn More About Onsite and Online Workshops at Your Company
From Ethics To Innovation
I have been been training businesses and educational institutions using a unique approach to ethics management. Our ‘Right vs Right’ workshop has been taught at UC Santa Cruz’s Leadership and Management Programs. By incorporating our workshop managers gain a deeper understanding of ethics’ role in their workplace. They also gain essential leadership tools for creating and sustaining a healthy company.
Organizational Ethics – A Conceptual Overview
Today’s troubling business climate requires that organizations have a thorough understanding of ethics so that appropriate decisions can be made when dilemmas arise. But ethics management consists of more than knowing what to do once a problem arises. Appropriate ethical action can only be applied when company managers are committed to leading from an ethical rightness based on values, not just the law. A broader education on ethics can help to reduce legal action by teaching managers how to make clear decisions early in the process.
These ethical concepts for company managers to comprehend:
Know why doing the right thing is important as a principle.
Know how to incorporate ethics as part of a daily decision-making practice.
Know what the legal responsibilities of corporate and government policy.
Knowing the ‘why, ‘how’, and ‘what’ of ethics allows managers to:
Intuitively respond to principle needs of involved stakeholders [the why].
Rationally apply legal policy-correctness to ethical circumstances [the what].
Exercise ethics as part of making quality day-to-day decisions, such as hiring employees, or determining the appropriateness of new technologies [the how].
Ever find yourself choosing between corporate and personal values? What process do you employ to approach ethical problems? This interactive workshop will explore ethical decision-making through the views of Joseph Badaracco’s book “Defining Moments”. Multiple perspectives from great thinkers including Aristotle, Machiavelli, and William James will be considered. Participants will learn to make ethical decisions by asking a series of ‘right-versus-right’ (rather than right vs wrong) questions aimed at clarifying ethical dilemmas and making better strategic decisions.
This workshop will help you determine what can be done when ethical activity is in question.
Managers will learn how to:
Explore what can be done when confronted with an ethical dilemma.
Determine how to make ethical decisions using a non-judgmental, collaborative process.
View ethical decision-making from multiple perspectives.
This ‘Right vs Right’ workshop will help your organization be more successful by helping its people make better day-to-day. Whether you are part of a large or small organization, the success of your business now requires that decisions be made based on a larger perspective.
The ‘Right vs. Right’ concept for decision-making will help to:
REVEAL basic values and ethical beliefs held by managers that may be keeping your organization from realizing its optimal place within the global market.
STRENGTHEN managers commitments to the organization and to doing the right thing.
SHAPE their personal character to better match the needs of company stakeholders. As the character of management shifts, so will the character of your organization.
‘Right vs. Right’ practices will help to define a more strategic enterprise that is aligned with today’s global society.
The Ethical Onion
Ethics are based in personal and collective values, which are buried at the center of the organization.
Outer Skin: Ethical Policy of the Organization relating to Customer and Supply Chain Relations
Inner Layers: Manager Awareness of Values and Applied Practices
At the Core: Underlying Cultural Belief Systems & Mythical Assumptions.
Corporate Ethics – A Company Conversation
Workshop 2
Description:
I also offer facilitated cafe conversations and other collaborative design solutions relating to ethics through DiscoveryColabs.com. Shift your company’s orientation from ‘passively listening to a presentation’ to ‘actively engaging in a conversation. An organization’s commitment to ethics provides value beyond simply getting employees to do the right thing. By engaging in ethical conversations, a company actually opens doors to new forms of innovation at all levels of the enterprise – from hiring quality staff, to producing better products and services.
The conversation will be focused on three primary influences upon organizational ethics: principles, practices, and policies. We will discuss personal understandings of these terms, how they relate to ethical activity within companies, and how both corporate and individual values play a role in building a balanced ethical practice within enterprise and its implications on innovation.
Ask me for a copy of my ethics conversation slides and conversation table cards.
How to shift innovation’s intent from creating intellectual widgets to forming intelligent societies.
I want to share that last week I applied for the Bucky Fuller Challenge Award. Hoping you will wish the inGENuity team and me lots of luck. Learn more at links to the story below. Vic 🙂