Stand Up For What You Believe In. Do Not Be Silent to Idiots or Insanity.

Stand Up For What You Believe In. Do Not Be Silent to Idiots or Insanity. When I was working for a large chemical company I was told to run the numbers to justify an inventory project that would write down inventory and put in place a new inventory software system. I ran the numbers many different ways and presented the best results that I could that were based on accepted accounting and inventory practices. My justification was subsequently presented to my vice-president. He called me up and told me to fudge or inflate the numbers so that the capital committee would approve the project. I told him that I could not inflate the numbers and use unaccepted practices to justify the project. I remarked that that would be dishonest and misleading. I also noted that we would lose all credibility especially if we wanted future projects. He went on a vicious rant and informed me that he was the expert on projects not me. The project was not proposed that year. Next year after the budget was approved, I was called into my boss’s office. He informed me that my position was not in next year’s budget and my position was being eliminated. Off the record, he was honest enough to tell me that the vice-president was responsible for the decision and that the vice president was personally going to re-propose the inventory project in the new budget year. Fortunately two weeks later I landed another positon that was a step advancement that paid me 40% more salary. Stand up for what you believe in. Do not be silent to idiots or insanity. Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

My Worst Boss Story

My Worst Boss Story What to do When Your Leader or Boss Dislikes You Story In the Navy Reserve I once had a boss (leader) who just disliked me and was not shy about reminding me that he disliked me. He also bragged in advance that he was going to give me a poor performance review. Obviously, this was very discouraging, but instead of wallowing in the unfair situation and acting like a victim, I developed a strategy. I decided to identify and complete three projects that no one had ever done before in the history of the Navy Reserve. These were very tough and time-consuming projects. They required enormous amounts of work and analysis. However, I completed them all just before my performance review. For the performance review an individual is always asked to submit their accomplishments. So, I submitted the three projects. At first, my boss did not want to include them, but I said that I would exercise my right to add a supplement to my performance review that would include the projects. He relented and included the projects in my performance review. The word of me completing these projects soon spread all across the command and other parts of the Navy Reserve. I was asked by an Admiral to attend a conference and give a presentation on the projects. My boss wrote the performance review, but his less than stellar words about me, just did not match or align with the accomplishments and first-time-ever ground-breaking projects. The Admiral, who invited me to speak at his conference about the projects, was later the head of the promotion board that promoted me to Captain. I like to think that my presentation on the projects helped clarify his and the board’s judgement about me. By the way my former boss (leader) who disliked me, never got promoted again. When you get a bad leader, never let it discourage you from doing your very best. Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Take Care of Your People. Take Care of Your People. Take Care of Your People

Take Care of Your People. Take Care of Your People. Take Care of Your People The title of this article was the advice my Dad gave to me when I asked him what should I do as a leader just before I became an officer in the US Navy. Take care of your people. (he repeated it three times) People really value little things that you can do for them, but often their bosses or leaders don’t understand what is important to them. I once was in charge of a huge warehouse complex in San Diego for a one-month assignment. It was January, which is the worst weather month in San Diego. None of the ware¬houses were air-conditioned or heated. The temperature would fall to the low forties or upper thirties in the morning, and many of the forklift drivers were not used to this type of chilly weather. I managed to obtain some surplus sweaters for all of the forklift drivers to wear. We set them up in one area of the warehouse so that they could be used by employees when they were cold. I didn’t realize how appreciative the employees were of this gesture until three years later, when I returned in the same month for a similar project. I was told to report early to the conference room in the warehouse. Much to my shock, every warehouse employee was in the warehouse was wearing one of the sweaters, and they all greeted me with a standing ovation and a cake. I didn’t want to let them down, so that year I secured wool watch caps for them. I later wrote a book Broken Windows Management (available on Amazon). The whole one message or premise of the book was this: Prevention of disorder and actually fixing things that employees say are wrong; goes a very long way in establishing trust and credibility with management (also leader). If what they request is reasonable, give it to them. Management and leaders must be vigilant and constantly try to control disorder and fix the things and issues that employees’ value. These actions reduce employee fear of management and actually help gain trust. Trust is enhanced by quickly fixing things that employees want fixed. Unfortunately, many organizations have not figured out this simple axiom yet. Many companies, because their employees do not trust them, will never get enough credibility to execute broken windows management actions. Take care of your people. Author’s Biography Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions (http://www.apollosolutions.us), which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. He founded his organization in 1995. In his career, Dr. Tom was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects included: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, Information technology, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting businesses. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He the author of eleven books. His Amazon author’s page is https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli He has instructed at six universities in numerous roles. For more detailed information about Dr. Tom see his LinkedIn homepage. https://www.linkedin.com/in/drtomdepaoli/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/take-care-your-people-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli-1f Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Praise People Who Do A Good Job Often

Praise People Who Do A Good Job Often By Dr. Tom DePaoli For more leadership stories see his book: Leadership by Storytelling on Amazon I ran a team of eight employees who did supply chain functions. When one of them did an outstanding job, I would reward them with some time off for the accomplishment. This time off reward seems to be the most popular with the team. I decided to expand the praise. I had a background in football coaching and we would put stickers on a player’s helmet when they made a good play. Since we did not wear helmets, I constructed a bulletin board with each individuals name on it. Whenever they did very well, I would put a sticker next to their name and run the stickers horizontally across the board. The prize for ten stickers was me buying them lunch. They all relished in the fact that I had to buy them lunch. I did limit the lunch to a particular local restaurant, but the banter by the whole team as a person was getting closer to a free lunch, was particularly rambunctious and funny. Praise people who do a good job often. Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Listen to Your Followers’ Problems and Help Them.

Listen to Your Followers’ Problems and Help Them. I once had an employee who was initially very upset that I took over as leader of the department. She thought that she deserved to be promoted and become the leader. She had more experience than me. She was very cold to me and resisted any initiatives that I proposed. Shortly thereafter, her mother became very sick and it got to the point that she needed caregivers. I gave her as much time of as I could and was very flexible with her work duties and responsibilities. She finally requested family leave for eight weeks and it was granted. While she was gone, I attempted to do as much of her work as possible and got a very good understanding of her duties, systems and techniques. I stayed late many nights and weekends working at both my job and hers. When she came back from family leave, she expected piles of work awaiting her and very hectic weeks. She was surprised that I had kept up and completed almost all of the work. She came into my office and started to cry and I thought that something had happened to her mother. Instead she was grateful for what I had done and thanked me, informing me that no boss had ever done anything so kind. I then suggested that we make a request to our information technology department to upgrade some for the systems that she used, and I was now familiar with by doing her job. We jointly filled out the request that day and it was installed in three weeks. Her attitude towards me completely turned around. Whenever there was a tough project, she volunteered for it. She became the most loyal employee to me in the department and a friend. As a leader, if someone has a problem and needs help, especially when it is personal or family related, go out of your way to help them. Listen to your followers’ problems and help them. Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Information-Based Negotiations - A Different Approach to Negotiations in Procurement

Information-Based Negotiations - A Different Approach to Negotiations in Procurement An information-based negotiation is a radically different approach to negotiations. It emphasizes deep knowledge of the supplier and their industry. It transgresses from some traditional approaches to negotiations. It is not the adversarial win-lose negotiation style with the emphasis on game playing, theatrics and taking full advantage of a supplier’s weaknesses. An information-based negotiation is not the win-win model either. Information or knowledge is power, but in information-based negotiations the procurement professional gains a deep understanding of the supplier’s industry, their margins and their culture. In essence this is an immersion or empathy with the supplier and their competitive landscape. The best way to describe it is that the procurement professional knows as much or more about the supplier and their industry as they do! In my book Common Sense Supply Management I state, “The very best piece of negotiations advice I ever received was to know the capabilities of your supplier, their industry, their competitors, their cost drivers, their margins and their capabilities better than they do. It requires a lot of homework, digging and flat-out work. You obviously cannot do this with every supplier only the most important and most strategic ones. It is a powerful negotiation tactic based on knowledge not histrionics. There is no glamour in the information-based approach it requires immense research about the industry, the supplier’s financial condition and competitive forces. Understanding their culture and their organization is critical. You are in essence trying your best to put yourself in their shoes, and mimic as best as possible their anxieties and fears about the whole process. The information-based approach is not for the faint hearted or those who do not want to persevere. It should only be exercised for critical materials or services. It requires ongoing market research and it will work better when executives are actually exchanged with the supplier on their site. The resources and commitment to pull off such an information-based approach are significant.” With the Internet the gathering of information for the information-based negotiations approach has been greatly facilitated. There are numerous industry reports, websites and search engines that can help the procurement professional. Nothing beats personal face-to-face contact and dialogue with numerous suppliers in a particular industry. They all have a fairly keen knowledge of their competitors which can rapidly improve your overall knowledge. Since many industries are oligarchic in nature, once you understand the top three or four players in the industry you have a real good foundation from which to start partnerships with your chosen supplier. I suggest the procurement professional consider using the Porter Five Forces analysis. Although this used extensively in marketing and marketing analysis, it can be invaluable to the procurement professional. This will provide a good start for industry understanding. Another good source for information about suppliers and particular industries are distributors. Often they are glad to provide information about suppliers and especially their customer service. Here is a general diagram of the approach to information-based negotiations that I have used: One additional tactic I have successfully used during the initial trust building phase is to mutually do supply chain process mapping of internal processes but with a twist. The supplier comes to your site and maps your processes, then presents it to your cross functional team to check their understanding. Then the procurement professional ventures to the supplier’s site and performs a similar mapping. Often this sparks a new creative exchange of ideas. The information-based approach has tremendous flexibility to cope with market and industry changes. Information drives decisions not emotions or one-upmanship. It requires the procurement professional to become the resident expert on a market and an industry. It yields much more significant long-term gains than traditional or even win-win approaches. Using this approach is one of the best methodologies for transforming your supply chain and developing true breakthroughs with your supplier. Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

A Transaction-Based Lean Six Sigma Success

A Transaction-Based Lean Six Sigma Success When I took over as head of a procurement division for an integrated paper company, there were three plants with over $500 million in purchases per year. I was to transform Purchasing into Supply Management with some Lean Six Sigma tools. Plant senior management decided to downsize my department at the plant where I was located from eight to four, starting from day one. The plant manager was not committed to the transformation attempt and wanted it to fail. I decided to do everything in my power to disappoint him. At the first meeting I had with the department team, two people started to cry. They didn’t know how they were going to keep up with the work. I pledged that within six months, they would have so much spare time; they would be coming to me, asking me what to do to move the business ahead. They all laughed at the statement. I volunteered to take over buying of one of the major components in the plant. Of course, I had no idea about the workload involved in the buying process. The next day, four file drawers of paperwork for the component were moved into my office. I spent a week creating a database to help me manage the component, which had no previous reliable information. Eventually a supplier helped me improve the database and ordering process. I soon found out that purchasing data was scarce or non-existent. Purchasing employees could not give me any good summary statistics and were so caught up in firefighting that confusion reigned supreme. No one could adequately explain the purchase-order process. There were no standard operating procedures. Undaunted, I rolled up my sleeves and typed purchase orders myself just to get an idea of what happened. We did a process map of the purchase-order process. We locked the doors to the department while we had process-mapping meetings. We all went on a data expedition, and since I knew some computer programming and could query from the company databases, we started to compile our data. We discovered that we had approximately forty thousand transactions or buys per year. By using a Pareto chart, we saw that over 80 percent of the purchase orders were under $200. The majority of our purchases were small-dollar items. Additionally, only twenty people made about 90 percent of these buys. They were our superusers or power requisitioners. We decided to concentrate on them and educate them about our efforts to transform the entire process. We designed a short-order purchase form for purchases under $1,000 that they could use. They participated in the design of the form. No interface with purchasing was required for the form. The middleman (purchasing) was eliminated. The only catch was they had to buy from a list of our preferred suppliers. If they wanted to deviate from the list, they needed to get our approval. We did a new process map for the short-order form with the superusers participating. We created a manual and SOP for the superusers that included the preferred-supplier list, contact information, and basic purchasing terms and rules. We posted a process-flow map in the department for everyone to see. Our workload was drastically reduced, and the buyers didn’t have to worry about these small purchase orders. In addition our suppliers remarked that the error rate on these short orders was greatly reduced. We recognized superusers who had error-free months, and who worked well with suppliers. We eventually switched to purchase cards for these twenty superusers, which practically eliminated all paperwork. Finally we had time for supplier rationalization or reduction-and-strategic initiatives. Again, we mined the data and found out that we had over twenty thousand suppliers. With hard work and consolidation of buys, we got that number down to 209. We set up preferred suppliers and greatly simplified the entire process from requisition to payment. We standardized payment terms, which greatly relieved accounts-payable’s workload—and they soon became our allies. In four months (not six), my employees had the confidence and trust in me to come to my office and admit that they had nothing to do that day and ask what could they work on to move the business ahead. Most of this progress was due to using some simple Lean Six Sigma process improvement tools. Lessons Learned 1. Be a hands-on leader in crisis situations. 2. Gather data before making major decisions. 3. Build trust by keeping to your word. 4. Avoid or streamline non-value adding work. Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Leadership Is The Art Of Accomplishing The Impossible. So, What Is No One Has Ever Done It Before

Leadership Is The Art Of Accomplishing The Impossible. So, What Is No One Has Ever Done It Before I worked for a large company that had a large plant. The plant was separated by a major state highway that split the production areas from the distribution warehouse area. The company had put an enclosed tube with a case conveyor over the highway connecting the two highway divided facilities. The cases would right through the tube into the distribution center. The company was expanding and room was needed for two major production lines and more storage space. At first the company went to their local state representative asking for permission for the state to consider closing the highway and rerouting traffic. The plan was to put a new complete building the highway and add more production lines and storage space. Both buildings would now be connected to a new building in the middle. The state representative objected and cited all sorts of hurdles that had to be overcome to close the highway. He stated that it would be impossible and that local opposition might be fierce. We were however undaunted by his pessimism. I was directed to develop a plan for the new building, the layout and estimate the cost. We knew we had a very difficult task ahead of us. We developed blueprints for the building but I suggested that we create an interior model of the building and three-dimensional pictures of how the building would look when finished. We put together a presentation of the building in a small folding three ring binder. We contacted the state governor and office of business development to engender more support. The business development office was enthusiastic. Next, we built the interior model of the building to scale and put it on a large table in a large conference room. Then we invited our own employees to visit the conference room with the scale model, play with the layout and make suggestions. We received many helpful suggestions that we immediately deployed in the model and the building plans. The employees continued to give us unsolicited ideas. We then personally visited each house along the route that the highway was going to be diverted to and explained the concept and what the building was going to look like. We invited them to take a personal tour of the plant and most of them toured the plant. There were no objections from the home owners. Within a month the state business development office informed us that closing the highway had been approved by the state transportation department. Our next step was to get approval from corporate for capital funds. Capital money was tight that year, so we created a plan that only showed half the building and its layout. We did bring the plan of the whole building with us and the cost estimates. The capital committee was so impressed with the building layout and the work that we had done that they asked to see the layout of the entire building. They approved the money for the entire building. Yes, we did invite the state representative who said it would be impossible to reroute the state highway to the ribbon cutting ceremony. Leadership is the art of accomplishing the impossible so what if no one Has ever done it before. Lessons Learned 1. Do not give comfort to naysayers and pessimism. 2. Always involve people who actually do the work. 3. Create models whenever feasible. 4. Visit and personally talk to all the stakeholders. 5. Be prepared for good fortune. 6. Never reject any suggestions or ideas out of hand. Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Always Always Walk the Process

Never neglect details. Walk the process. Do it yourself to learn how to do it. I had just reported into a new organization and was given a huge orientation packet with a three-page checklist. When I asked individuals how long it would take to complete the check-in process the answers varied from 4 hours to two weeks. There were four different types of employee groups but just one check-in process and a single type check list. Each new person had a sponsor. I asked my sponsor if I had to complete all of the checklist items and he replied yes I did. There happened to be another new employee reporting on the same day as I did, so we decided to partner up and do the check-in together. Both of us inquired about certain aspects of the check-in and orientation process and soon discovered that we got different and wildly different answers on the check-in process. As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt I decided to document the check-in process along with my partner and record data on the actual process. We started off both with clipboards and I actually used my smartphone’s pedometer to record our steps and the time spent at each check-in station. We soon discovered that often the person who was supposed to check us in was not present to perform the check-in. We had to then come back when they were present. There was no coordination between check-in spots and much of the check-in requirements were rather unnecessary. Often a department head would just initial our check-in sheet. Some would just hand us documents to read later and sign the sheet. Some would update their databases so we asked to watch them do this process and we observed. Bottom line by walking the process we found out how inefficient it was and soon determined what stops were actually value adding or useful. Much of the check-in process was only relevant to a particular employee group (the organization had four of them). We both completed the check-in process in seven business days and presented our check-in sheets to our boss. We had at least an hour discussion with him about the process and recommended forming a kaizen team, which would have members from all four employee groups, to try and improve the process. He agreed to our suggestion and both me and my partner were appointed Kaizen co-leaders. We did a complicated process map and then greatly simplified it. We had instant credibility with the team because we had just actually walked and completed the check-in process recently. We brainstormed ideas to improve the process and again talked to all the department heads about their needs and concerns. After two weeks of work with the team and other team members walking the check-in process again, we reduced the check-in time to two business days or less for each employee group. In a year after putting much of the check-in process online we reduced it to one business day. More importantly, from a morale and first impression aspect to a new employee the organization appeared well organized and competent. Never neglect details. Walk the process. Do it yourself to learn how to do it. Lessons Learned 1. Always walk the process first hand and verify it personally not on the “word” of other people. 2. Challenge what others see as important and develop a criterion to judge importance. 3. Do not procrastinate kaizens. Implement the new process as quickly as possible. 4. Ask people directly in person about their needs and concerns. 5. Make sure safety items are clearly covered. Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

The Billion-Dollar Boys and Mega-Negotiations Story By Dr. Tom DePaoli

The Billion-Dollar Boys and Mega-Negotiations Story By Dr. Tom DePaoli I and a supply management colleague had been working diligently for a year to try and standardize MRO (Maintenance Repair and Operating) parts to include pumps, pipes and valves, electrical and operating supplies. We divided the storeroom parts into these four bucket areas. These were storeroom related parts for a major process chemical company. We used a market basket sourcing approach. We had conducted numerous strategic sourcing cross-functional teams and had worked hard to get our engineers to select standardized parts for our plants. These sessions were long and arduous. We had reduced the number of suppliers or OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) in many categories to one or two. Our goal was to gradually replace the existing parts as they wore out with the new OEMs and strive for standardization in the MRO arena. We had a systematic well thought out plan for doing this and had negotiated contracts with the OEMs and distributers. We were approximately 80% complete which was quite an accomplishment for the fifty North American plants. Then the company suddenly announced that they were in the initial stages of planning a five-billion-dollar expansion in the United States. The winning five plants had already been selected. Some of the expansion was to be entirely new plants and the others were major rebuilds. The capital expansion was to start in six months. We were faced with managing a major capital expansion and a significant spend in the MRO area. We met with the Vice-President of engineering and decided to have a strategy session with him and the five selected plant engineers. We decided to have a one-shot bidding meeting with our preferred suppliers in Louisiana. We had a very good idea about the dollar amount of spend in the various buckets for the expansion. The capital job estimates had already been done and approved. We had four bucket areas in MRO: mechanical, electrical, piping and valves and operating supplies. We already had cost plus pricing contracts for 80% of our MRO. We did however still have at least two preferred suppliers in almost every major component MRO area like pumps. I suggested that we leverage the hard work that we had already accomplished. We would announce the capital expansion at a preferred supplier meeting and give an approximate future dollar spend in each of the four buckets (areas). We obviously had a lot of leverage and many of the bucket dollar numbers were huge. We had fairly accurate data from recent expansions and the capital job estimates. We then established these ground rules for the bidding process: 1. There would be only one round of bids. We urged the suppliers to give the bid their best shot. There would be no second bid rounds. We did not have the time to manage multiple bids. 2. We announced that we would in many cases narrow down the areas where we had two preferred suppliers to one, unless we had a good business reason for keeping two. 3. Although we had negotiated some significant total cost of ownership savings in the current contracts, we were open to enhancements from the suppliers and distributers. 4. We told the suppliers that we would not accept their standard spare parts packages like we had in the past. We would challenge their typical spares packages but would be especially open to creative ways of them controlling and managing the spares at minimal or no cost to us. 5. OEMs could work with distributers to propose any additional creative services to provide us. Quite frankly we had no idea how this mega-negotiation process would work. Fortunately, we had done a lot of supplier consolidation before this process. We had not had the time to even predict cost savings or eventual outcomes. We just did it. As the bids rolled back in, it was obvious that our suppliers had done their homework. All told the cost and other savings amounted to 20% of the 5 billion dollars or 1 billion dollars! We were stunned. For the next year, I and my supply management colleague, had to endure the “handle” or nickname of “the billion-dollar boys”, whenever we entered a meeting. Yes, we were good and worked hard, but we were also very lucky. The fact that the company was spending that much capital at one time when we were transforming to supply management really helped our leverage and savings potential. Lessons to share: 1. Hard work and building relationships are sometimes more important than analytics. 2. Engineers do not like to be proven wrong on a decision 3. Luck also helps savings. 4. Pre-work is always better than afterwards cleanup work. 5. Endurance and persistence count.

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More Broken Windows Management Tips

More Broken Windows Management Tips (3) By Dr. Tom DePaoli See my book Broken Windows Management on Amazon for more tips. Find Out What Really Bothers Employees. One of the things that bothered my employees was the fact that many of the meetings they attended were totally disorganized and useless. Teach basic meeting protocol to people. Make sure meeting leaders have an agenda, take minutes and conduct the meeting in a professional manner. Have clear deliverables and explain the expectations of the meeting. Then enforce your parameters. Fix It the Right Way. Too often management takes the ideas of the employees to make jobs better and does a slipshod job of fixing them or just appeasing the employees. Why not fix it in the very best way possible the first time. Make sure that it never comes back or reemerges as an irritant to the employees. This tells the employees that management actually listens to them and wants to fix things permanently. Fix Parking Space Story. One of my stories that illustrate what's important to employees is a project that I did on employee parking. I had a project to reconfigure the employee parking areas and to see if I could get more parking spaces in the plant area. I managed to get 250 more parking spaces and the spaces were auctioned off and the money donated to charity. The employees were very grateful for the additional parking spaces which obviously made their walk to where they work much shorter and much more enjoyable. They also avoided paying for off-site parking. Do not underestimate employee concerns about parking and other issues. Solve them quickly. Fix Things in Real-time. Do not spend an inordinate amount of time designing systems and paperwork to fix things that can be fixed immediately. Cut through the bureaucracy and make sure that when the employee voices a complaint it is answered as soon as possible and in real time. Systems don't impress people, getting things done does. No one gets really impressed with a fancy work order system. Fluffy Recognition Doesn't Work. Employees know when praise is really shallow and not worthwhile. Stop praising peoples' tasks that are supposed to be part of their job. You would be better off fixing something in their job and making it easier for them to cope with. Praise certainly has its place. However, do not overdo it. It soon becomes discounted. Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = more information on Dr. Tom’s books http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/more-broken-windows-management-tips-3-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Some Tips for Process-Improvement Meetings

The most common and most egregious mistake that the various process-improvement team leaders make is not hav¬ing a meeting agenda. The agenda must be published before the meeting and distributed to team members. Team members need to anticipate what to expect in the meeting and what the intended results are—by this, I mean the deliverables. Minutes of each meeting must be taken and published before the next meeting. Minutes must be approved and/or corrected at each subsequent meeting. Always try to have a facilitator and a per¬son taking minutes. Maximize the visibility in the meeting; make sure all pro¬cess maps are visible to everyone. Insist that team members get at least introductory training in the methodology. Trying to train team members on process-improvement tools at the same time that you’re trying to improve the process is very difficult. If meetings last more than two hours, the leader is not organized, and the members won’t be able to function very well. Always set a goal of finishing at least two deliverables or mile¬stones for each meeting, and push to have them get completed. End the meeting with asking the members what went right and what went wrong. For more tips check out my book on Amazon: Kaizen Kreativity. https://amzn.to/33beOS3 Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Two New Leadership Books Available on Amazon. Dark Side and Authentic Side. Interview with Dr. Tom DePaoli Author of Two New Leadership Books

Two New Leadership Books Available on Amazon. Dark Side and Authentic Side. Interview with Dr. Tom DePaoli Author of Two New Leadership Books Dr. Tom the titles of your new leadership books intrigue me, how did you pick them? I wanted two leadership books. One would explore the dark side of leadership and the other the authentic or good side. Unfortunately, I had more stories about the dark side and many were just awful. The authentic side stories are not as numerous. The stories are all authentic and real life based for both books. I myself or my colleagues actually experienced them. They are only slightly changed to protect the identity of some of the leaders. The dark side was maybe a little too dramatic. It does have some redundant and repetitious stories. This is not my fault or an editing fault. Dark leaders are not very creative. Many use the same tired and sorry tactics. However, the situations were even more dramatic and uncomfortable for the followers. Boogeyman Leadership: How to Turn Your Employees into Listless Zombies describes all too common leadership tactics that numb employees into becoming animated drones. I urge the reader to not read it from start to end but to jump around in the book. The other book Leadership by Storytelling: The Best Way to Learn Good Leadership Principles is peppered with uplifting and inspirational leadership action. Good leaders, who care, will learn much from the authentic stories. Both are available on Amazon. Why did you author the two books at once? I have been on the receiving end of much poor leadership in my careers. I worked in various organizations such as business, non-profit, the military and academia. Unfortunately, I experienced many more poor leaders than good. Much of the leadership training I experienced was ineffective. I learned leadership principles by observing good leaders. There was no shortage of leadership stories that I experienced. I decided on the storytelling method to give the reader true examples of leadership tactics. Knowing a leadership theory and executing it are two entirely different missions. Why the storytelling approach? It is the best way of learning and has many good attributes. Readers can relate to stories much better than prose on leadership theories. From my perspective, stories are also easier for me to write about because I and my colleagues lived and experienced them. Talk to me about Bogeyman Leadership: How to Turn Your Employees into Listless Zombies. The book showcases poor leaders and their tactics that inevitably failed. I strongly believe you should know what does not work first, so that an aspiring good leader does not waste time on such approaches. I really do not pretend to offer any silver bullet solutions to these poor policies. I define boogeyman leadership as the use of poor and intimidating leadership tactics whose purpose is to terrify employees and instill distrust, apathy and fear. The result is a zombie-like listless state. The book recounts many bad leadership ideas and illustrative stories to make sure the reader crosses these schemes off their leadership list. It is not a solemn academic book or a guide to great leadership success. Its purpose is to give examples of terrible leadership and management tactics, that I and others have experienced in their careers. I suggest the reader re-visualize their own bad personal leaders, that they have had, who have used the very same or similar defective devices. Unfortunately, these failed leadership ploys are becoming even more common, destructive and hurtful. I urge the reader to avoid these methods at all costs. Talk to me about Leadership by Storytelling: The Best Way to Learn Good Leadership Principles. The book provides some excellent principles of good leadership. The principles are illustrated with compelling leadership stories that reinforce the principles. I provide twenty-six principles of good leadership. It should be noted that one of the oldest methods of passing down knowledge is oral storytelling. Usually an ancient sage would be the keeper of the stories and passed them down to other tribe members. I highly recommend the storytelling method for leaders. The stories in the book are authentic. Each principle has a story to clarify the principle. The book has cogent illustrations for the stories. I urge the reader to gather leadership stories to share with fellow leaders and followers. I believe the growth in leadership abilities will be much stronger via the use of leadership storytelling. Why are there more poor or dark leaders? Much of leadership training is poorly organized and not very practical. Knowing all the theories of leadership is commendable but not useful in real life. Leadership training must be real life based, use role playing and scenarios to prepare a leader for leadership decisions. One of the biggest areas overlooked is integrity and honesty. Many would be leaders ignore it or downplay it. People will not respect or follow a leader with no integrity. Most dark leaders rationalize their dishonest behavior. Trust me, their followers will always remember even the slightest dishonest action. It is hard to teach an authentic caring for your followers. Many bad leaders put themselves on a pedestal and do not even make an effort to really know and respect their followers. My experiences in the military in leadership roles taught me to always take care of your followers first and never lie to them. I asked my father, who had spent eight years in the Navy for advice when I was about to become an officer. He said, “Take care of your people. Take care of your people. Take care of your people.” Your people can quickly tell if you are a phony. What distinguishes good or authentic leaders They get followers to trust them and keep building that trust. There is no one methodology to get a follower to trust you. Each person has a different lock to get them to trust you, and you have to find the right key. Honesty and integrity help the most. Selflessness also cements their trust. Many followers can forgive a leader who is not totally competent, but they rarely forgive a lack of integrity. I wrote another book Broken Windows Management (available on Amazon). The whole one message or premise of the book was this: Prevention of disorder and actually fixing things that employees say are wrong; goes a very long way in establishing trust and credibility with management (also leader). Management (leaders) must be vigilant and constantly try to control disorder and fix the things and issues that employees’ value. These actions reduce employee fear of management and actually help gain trust. Trust is enhanced by quickly fixing things that employees want fixed. Unfortunately, many organizations have not figured out this simple axiom yet. Many companies, because their employees do not trust them, will never get enough credibility to execute broken windows management actions. What is Your Favorite Boogeyman Leadership Story? Remember the book is organized in a manner that gives you a Boogeyman Leadership tactic or tip first that should be avoided if you want to be a good leader. Then the story shows the futility of the tactic. Here it is: Make Sure You Destroy Trust Do not keep your word. When you break your word make the lamest excuse you can think of and insist that you were misunderstood. Berate employees who do not keep their word and tell them it is not acceptable. Constantly praise your honesty and integrity as beyond reproach even though it is the exact opposite. Openly lie to your superiors whenever you can and blame your employees for any shortfalls or the missing of goals. Take credit for all of your employee’s good ideas and claim them as the result of your own brilliancy. Brag about how good you are with employees and customers to everyone and never be completely honest ever, in fact be evasive. Lie and exaggerate often. Story The department that I worked in did not receive a raise for three years. In the beginning of the fourth year, our leader promised that management has informed him that the average raise for this year would be five percent. The caveat was that instead of working ten Saturdays we would have to work twenty. Near the end of the year he announced at a meeting that “management” had decided that once again there would not be any raises this year after we worked the twenty Saturdays. I and most of the other people in the company left within the next six months. I then discovered from an upper level manager, who had also left the company, that management decided to use dishonesty, the five percent raise ploy, to help lower turnover and all the department managers knew about this ploy in the beginning of the year. What is Your Favorite Leadership by Storytelling Story? The book is organized to first state the good leadership principle. Then the story shows the result of using the good principle. Here it is: Listen to Your Followers’ Problems and Help Them. I once had an employee who was initially very upset that I took over as leader of the department. She thought that she deserved to be promoted and become the leader. She had more experience than me. She was very cold to me and resisted any initiatives that I proposed. Shortly thereafter, her mother became very sick and it got to the point that she needed caregivers. I gave her as much time of as I could and was very flexible with her work duties and responsibilities. She finally requested family leave for eight weeks and it was granted. While she was gone, I attempted to do as much of her work as possible and got a very good understanding of her duties, systems and techniques. I stayed late many nights and weekends working at both my job and hers. When she came back from family leave, she expected piles of work awaiting her and very hectic weeks. She was surprised that I had kept up and completed almost all of the work. She came into my office and started to cry and I thought that something had happened to her mother. Instead she was grateful for what I had done and thanked me, informing me that no boss had ever done anything so kind. I then suggested that we make a request to our information technology department to upgrade some of the systems that she used, which I was now familiar with by doing her job. We jointly filled out the request that day and it was installed in three weeks. Her attitude towards me completely turned around. Whenever there was a tough project, she volunteered for it. She became the most loyal employee to me in the department and a friend. As a leader, if someone has a problem and needs help, especially when it is personal or family related, go out of your way to help them. Listen to your followers’ problems and help them. Summary Leadership by telling stories is highly effective and much more practical. Understanding leadership theories is certainly important, but relating leadership stories to real world events and role-playing exercises based on the stories creates better leaders. Dr. Tom DePaoli Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = more information on Dr. Tom’s books http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-new-leadership-books-available-amazon-dark-side-depaoli/ Learn to lead by storytelling #leadership #leadershipadvice https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-new-leadership-books-available-amazon-dark-side-depaoli-1f Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

How to Save a Billion Dollars in Your Supply Chain Or “the Billion-Dollar Boys” and Mega-Negotiations Story By Dr. Tom DePaoli

How to Save a Billion Dollars in Your Supply Chain Or “the Billion-Dollar Boys” and Mega-Negotiations Story By Dr. Tom DePaoli For more Supply Chain stories see my books on Amazon; Common Sense Supply Management or Common Sense Purchasing. I and a supply management colleague had been working diligently for a year to try and standardize MRO (Maintenance Repair and Operating) parts to include pumps, pipes and valves, electrical and operating supplies. We divided the storeroom parts into these four bucket areas. These were storeroom related parts for a major process chemical company. We used a market basket sourcing approach. We had conducted numerous strategic sourcing cross-functional teams and had worked hard to get our engineers to select standardized parts for our plants. These sessions were long and arduous. We had reduced the number of suppliers or OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) in many categories to one or two. Our goal was to gradually replace the existing parts as they wore out with the new OEMs and strive for standardization in the MRO arena. We had a systematic well thought out plan for doing this and had negotiated contracts with the OEMs and distributers. We were approximately 80% complete which was quite an accomplishment for the fifty North American plants. Then the company suddenly announced that they were in the initial stages of planning a five-billion-dollar expansion in the United States. The winning five plants had already been selected. Some of the expansion was to be entirely new plants and the others were major rebuilds. The capital expansion was to start in six months. We were faced with managing a major capital expansion and a significant spend in the MRO area. We met with the Vice-President of engineering and decided to have a strategy session with him and the five selected plant engineers. We decided to have a one-shot bidding meeting with our preferred suppliers in Louisiana. We had a very good idea about the dollar amount of spend in the various buckets for the expansion. The capital job estimates had already been done and approved. We had four bucket areas in MRO: mechanical, electrical, piping and valves and operating supplies. We already had cost plus pricing contracts for 80% of our MRO. We did however still have at least two preferred suppliers in almost every major component MRO area like pumps. I suggested that we leverage the hard work that we had already accomplished. We would announce the capital expansion at a preferred supplier meeting and give an approximate future dollar spend in each of the four buckets (areas). We obviously had a lot of leverage and many of the bucket dollar numbers were huge. We had fairly accurate data from recent expansions and the capital job estimates. We then established these ground rules for the bidding process: 1. There would be only one round of bids. We urged the suppliers to give the bid their best shot. There would be no second bid rounds. We did not have the time to manage multiple bids. 2. We announced that we would in many cases narrow down the areas where we had two preferred suppliers to one, unless we had a good business reason for keeping two. 3. Although we had negotiated some significant total cost of ownership savings in the current contracts, we were open to enhancements from the suppliers and distributers. 4. We told the suppliers that we would not accept their standard spare parts packages like we had in the past. We would challenge their typical spares packages but would be especially open to creative ways of them controlling and managing the spares at minimal or no cost to us. 5. OEMs could work with distributers to propose any additional creative services to provide us. Quite frankly we had no idea how this mega-negotiation process would work. Fortunately, we had done a lot of supplier consolidation before this process. We had not had the time to even predict cost savings or eventual outcomes. We just did it. As the bids rolled back in, it was obvious that our suppliers had done their homework. All told the cost and other savings amounted to 20% of the 5 billion dollars or 1 billion dollars! We were stunned. For the next year, I and my supply management colleague, had to endure the “handle” or nickname of “the billion-dollar boys”, whenever we entered a meeting. Yes, we were good and worked hard, but we were also very lucky. The fact that the company was spending that much capital at one time when we were transforming to supply management really helped our leverage and savings potential. Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = more information on Dr. Tom’s books Learn how to save a billion dollars in your supply chain. #supplychain #costsavings #procurement #negotiations https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-save-billion-dollars-your-supply-chain-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Growing Up Italian in the Fifties by Dr. Tom DePaoli. Available on Amazon

Growing Up Italian in the Fifties by Dr. Tom DePaoli. Available on Amazon In our neighborhood almost all of the houses had good-sized lots where we could play baseball. The homes were modest but well kept. Baseball skills take a long time to learn, but just about everyone in our neighborhood mastered the basic skills of catching a pop fly and fielding a grounder. Many people can’t understand how we played baseball for hours and hours in the 1950s. After all, baseball is labeled a boring game. We had a neighborhood team and played in a lot across the street from my house. Our parents could look out the window and see us playing. If we were lucky, we had enough equipment for everyone or at least a glove for everyone. We played literally all day. We chose up sides and got the games started. We stopped playing only for lunch, supper, or rain. Our brand of baseball was not boring because of the way we modified the rules. There were no coaches, spectators, umpires, or adults to slow down the game. Each batter would get three swings or strikes. There were no called balls or called strikes because there was no umpire. A batter had to swing at a pitch, so there was even less delay. Batters were not allowed to go through a routine in the batter’s box. You got up to the plate, dug in, and got ready to swing. Often when we were in the field, we yelled out to our own pitcher to get the ball over the plate and let the batter hit it. There was no stealing base, usually because someone from the other team played catcher when they were up. Time outs were not allowed. Disputes over whether a player was out or safe at a base were argued with the skill of a Philadelphia lawyer with much drama and terrific action. If both sides couldn’t come to an agreement, a coin flip settled the call. Innings went by quickly, and so did the games. “Back in the day.” This saying is a popular one now and could not fit more aptly than with the honest, homespun tradition of sandlot baseball. Before there were PC’s and Apple computers, before Xboxes, Wii’s and satellite TV, before multiplexes and malls, there were pick-up games of baseball, football, basketball—any game that could be played outside, with minimal cash investment, and could last all day or even into the night if all that was required was a garage light to illuminate the playing field. But that was not the only thing whose joys and fulfillment came from simplicity. Life itself flowed from the simple things, from family, friends, and a sense of richness that comes only from the feeling of connection and community. Today our children are surrounded by video games, iPods, and personal computers, devices that remove them from our world and isolate them from friends and family. For the author, his family, and his friends, the only gadget they really had growing up was their enthusiasm for sports and the limitless terrain of their imagination—and the feeling of family. It was about people and the bonds those relationships formed. From his mother’s gifts for cooking, organizing, and giving, to his Aunt Bert’s gift for arguing (the only one to out-argue his mother), to his father’s extraordinary mechanical abilities to his grandmother’s legendary bingo talents, DePaoli’s memories of growing up in the 1950’s is a loving remembrance of an era where relatives and the neighborhood were the focal points of life. And in our era of disconnection and entitlement, his stories are a reminder that the years of his childhood really did fit the moniker “the good old days” and that there is more to life than material possessions. A homage to a bygone era, when brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents—everyone lived in the same neighborhood and were indeed a village raising the children, Growing Up Italian in the 50’s or How Most of Us Became Good Wise Guys: A Growing Up Memories Book is an engrossing ode whose life and spirit is nothing short of revelatory. Available on Amazon. Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = more information on Dr. Tom’s books http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/growing-up-italian-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Good Review Business Consulting Wows! Answers to Life and Business Issues Dr. Tom DePaoli’s Advice, Adventures, Career Tips.

Good Review Business Consulting Wows! Answers to Life and Business Issues Dr. Tom DePaoli’s Advice, Adventures, Career Tips. View on Amazon. This book presents practical strategies and tips organized in an easy-to-follow format. Every section is worth reading. A wealth of information is presented on procurement, the supply chain, process improvement, and organizational transformation. My favorite sections include leadership principles and stories. Storytelling as a powerful teaching method has been used effectively for centuries, and Dr. Tom's writings on leadership by storytelling exemplify this. His leadership principles are inspiring. For example, here are his top five principles: 1. Never lie to your followers or your superiors. Keep your word always. 2. Listen to your followers' problems and help them. 3. Don't believe what you hear from the media or so-called experts. Be skeptical. 4. Stand up for what you believe in. Do not be silent to idiots or insanity. 5. Never neglect details. Walk the process. Do it yourself to learn how to do it. And leadership principles are only a small portion of this book. Each section of this book has great information useful in many aspects of business consulting. I highly recommend this book! Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom or Captain Tom), is currently an independent management consultant, the CEO of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, organizational transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, leadership training, creativity improvement, global sourcing and negotiating, especially information-based negotiations. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, DOD, pharmaceutical, IT, startup, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, business services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of twelve books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = Website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = More information on Dr. Tom’s books and writings http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page https://apollosolutionsbooksandconsulting.blogspot.com/ = Dr. Tom’s blog @DrTomDePaoli = Twitter https://twitter.com/DrTomDePaoli https://www.facebook.com/ApolloSolutionsConsulting = Facebook of Apollo Solutions Great new business book with exceptional business, career and life advice. #businessbooks #leadershipadvice #career https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/good-review-business-consulting-wows-answers-life-issues-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Avoiding a Supply Chain Apocalypse Book Review

Avoiding a Supply Chain Apocalypse Book Review By Kelly Barner Dr. Tom DePaoli recently released Avoiding a Supply Chain Apocalypse. It is a collection of the best advice he has to give on topics ranging from relationships to negotiation to Kaizens and storytelling. Since I’ve read all of Dr. Tom’s books, I consider it something of a personal challenge to uncover the material he has added – either because the focus of the book is different or because professional priorities continue to change over time. Like Dr. Tom’s other books, this is for professionals that don’t have the time (or desire) to lose themselves in a 300-400-page book of polished academic theory. His sections are short and to the point and draw in material from third party sites as well as his other writing. You can read one or two sections as time allows and not have any trouble picking up in a different place the next time you sit down. My favorite new idea from the book is ‘appreciative inquiry’ defined by Dr. Tom as “a systematic discovery process to search for what is best in an organization or its strengths.” (p. 27) The value of this to procurement and supply chain professionals is in the alteration is can lead to in how we are perceived and the expanded scope of what we can accomplish. Procurement often goes out into the organization to understand the inner workings of a category or process. We have as our goal the desire to improve how spend is managed or how execution takes place. With appreciative inquiry, we still evaluate categories and processes, but with a focus on finding what is good about them and emphasizing that. The difference is subtle; we still identify opportunities for improvement, but the focus is on positive change. The end result is that the people participating in such evaluations feel like they are being recognized for their accomplishments rather than audited for their errors. Dovetailing with the concept of appreciative inquiry is the notion that procurement and supply chain organizations need to invest in internal marketing and communications. We joke, but squirrels really do benefit from having that fluffy tail. (See: A squirrel is just a rat with a PR agent.) Procurement can discount marketing efforts as ‘soft’ all we like, but they work – and not just externally. A little bit of investment in purposeful communication can go a long way towards improving cooperation. Two other topics where Dr. Tom is worth reading: Lean/Six Sigma Kaizens make a re-appearance in this book (read Kaizen Kreativity (Oops!) for more from Dr. Tom on that topic). Although Kaizens are just systems emphasizing efficiency and continuous process improvement, they haven’t really caught on outside of manufacturing. In this book, Dr. Tom applies the concept to less traditional areas of business, such as marketing, employee orientation, and data collection. Storytelling A personal favorite for me, Dr. Tom is a master at applying the art of storytelling in a business context. People focus longer, retain more information, and come away with a more positive impression when they are given information in a more artful way. Just like applying marketing internally, storytelling requires advance planning and creative energy, but the additional effort is worthwhile. Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = more information on Dr. Tom’s books https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/avoiding-supply-chain-apocalypse-book-review-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Lead by Storytelling

About Leadership by Storytelling by Dr. Tom DePaoli Can you become a great leader by storytelling? Unequivocally! Dr. Tom DePaoli wrote a book to prove it. With his book Leadership by Storytelling: The Best Way to Learn Good Leadership Principles, he reveals some authentic principles of great leadership. The principles are demonstrated with compelling leadership stories that support the beliefs. Dr. Tom provides twenty-six principles of successful leadership. He notes that the oldest methods of passing down knowledge was storytelling. A tribe storyteller would be the keeper of the stories and then pass them down to other tribe members. He recommends the storytelling method for leaders. The stories are original from his and others careers. Each principle has a story to help illuminate the principle. The book has cogent and humorous illustrations for the stories. He urges the reader to gather and share their leadership stories. He believes the growth in leadership abilities will be stronger and quicker via the use of leadership storytelling. Buy the book, and follow the author on social media: Learn more about the writer. Visit the Author’s Website. Buy the Book On Amazon. Learn to lead by stories. #leadership https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leadership-storytelling-dr-tom-depaoli-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

A Guided Tour of the Book Kaizen Kreativity (Oops!) Available on Amazon By Dr. Tom DePaoli Tour From the Author This book can be useful to both people who are very familiar with the Kaizen process and those entirely new to the process. Experienced readers should just review Chapter Four: Tools and Descriptions, first. Then they should look at the following chapters: · Chapter Six: Make Kaizens Creative and Fun · Chapter Seven: Amazon Fun Training Exercise · Chapter Eight: Starbucks Fun Training Exercise · Chapter Nine: Oil Change Fun Exercise · Chapter Seventeen: Common Kaizen Mistakes · Chapter Five: Kaizen Success Stories Inexperienced readers are going to have to try to read through the book in roughly chapter order. Do not try to read the book in one sitting. Take your time to absorb and understand the Kaizen process. I recommend that you pay special attention to Chapter Five: Kaizen Success Stories. The Kaizen tools have been around for years. As I stated in the introduction, this book may not be exactly what you are looking for, but it does reflect my opinion of what can work when using the Kaizen process. Change is always a tough path for many people. The Kaizen process encourages small changes but often it can produce even more spec¬tacular results. I have repeated some points that I believe are important. Brief Summary In his new creative book Kaizen Kreativity (Oops) or Don't Be Afraid of Looking Stupid. I'm an Expert at It! author Dr. Tom DePaoli offers an entertaining and creative approach to improving work processes. He uses a variety of techniques including story-telling, imaginative training exercises and ready to go outlines of PowerPoints on Kaizens. He uses self-deprecating humor to recall the many times when he stumbled, when trying to implement Kaizen events. The book also serves as a good desktop guide to Kaizens with a wealth of information on how to organize for Kaizen events. Dr. DePaoli shows that just using a few Kaizen tools can often result in significant gains. The book will help both the novice and experienced Kaizen leader. He shows real life examples of teams that made great gains. By following these stories the reader can gain a career's worth of experience in Kaizen events. Like many good business leaders, the author places getting the trust of the Kaizen work team first and foremost in his book. He emphasizes the intense preparations for the Kaizen event. His book tackles common mistakes in the Kaizen event, dealing with team bad actors and building a strong relationship with the Kaizen champion. It provides elements of a desktop guide along with suggestions on how to make the Kaizen tools exciting. This is a novel guide to a Kaizen event. "Above all don't be afraid of looking stupid! I'm an expert at it! And it has served me very well." Book Dedication This book is dedicated to all the people whom I have worked with and for in my career. The book is a summary of many of the Kaizen lessons that I learned in my career. I have used a very different approach in this book. It is an eclectic style, so be warned in advance. Readers will find serious sec¬tions, humorous areas, and creativity-nudging attempts. I believe in the Kaizen process and I have seen tremendous results from its application. One never knows if the changes created will be slight or colossal! This is part of the excitement of the Kaizen voyage. I have woven together many of the lessons learned in this book to help you avoid the numerous mistakes that I have made. I do hope the reader will gain valuable insights from my Kaizen adventures. In order to protect some clients and colleagues, I had to keep the Kaizen tools and results somewhat disguised. I strongly believe in the Kaizen process so I hope the reader is not offended by my fervor. I do realize that the Kaizen is not always the right tool for process improvement and often fails when misapplied. The book does serve as a fundamental field manual guide to Kaizens, but it can't meet every need of every reader. Most of my Kaizen experience has been with large and medium-sized corporations. However, the principles do apply to small businesses. I sometimes repeat what I consider important points about process improvement principles for the reader. Be patient with this approach; rein¬forcement does work. I really believe that Kaizens are a fine instrument for creativity in organizations and should not be underestimated. The journey of Kaizen discovery, although many times tedious and frustrating, can be great fun. Some of this book is my attempt to make it fun for you. I hope that the reader enjoys the Kaizen adventure as much as I did. I will start with reinterpreting the definition. Kaizen (ka-ee_sen) means a change for the better. This is a philosophy of reducing waste while constantly improving the process. Small changes are powerful. My Kaizen definition is a creative but structured approach to improve a process, or to eliminate anything of nonvalue, by the people who actually do the work. This book is definitely my way of doing a Kaizen with my preferences. I have found that using this approach has been the most successful for me and my clients. This does not mean that other methods will not work. This approach has been tested by me and seems to work well. I do urge you to adjust your approach based on the culture of your organization! Chapter two gives you various ideas on how to read this book depending on your skill level and familiarity with the Kaizen concept. Please vary your Kaizen approach based on your experiences and your organization. Above all, don't be afraid of looking stupid! I'm an expert at it! And it has served me very well. Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom or Captain Tom), is currently an independent management consultant, the CEO of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, organizational transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, leadership training, creativity improvement, global sourcing and negotiating, especially information based negotiations. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, DOD, pharmaceutical, IT, startup, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, business services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = Website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = More information on Dr. Tom’s books and writings http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page https://apollosolutionsbooksandconsulting.blogspot.com/ = Dr. Tom’s blog @DrTomDePaoli = Twitter https://twitter.com/DrTomDePaoli https://www.facebook.com/ApolloSolutionsConsulting = Facebook of Apollo Solutions Learn how to run a process improvement event. #leadershipadvice #lean #kaizen #processimprovement https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/guided-tour-book-kaizen-kreativity-oops-available-amazon-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

My Must Read Procurement Book

5 Must Read Procurement Books to Get to the Top of Your Field Nick Boariu These five books are our favorites for procurement managers looking to increase their skills or stay on top of procurement trends. Now that you’ve got your book list, we hope you enjoy your reading and maybe even learn some new procurement tips and tricks. Common Sense Purchasing: Hard Knock Lessons Learned From A Purchasing Pro by Dr. Tom DePaoli If purchasing and negotiation keep you up at night, this is the book for you. Combining expert insights, practical examples, and tons of advice, Common Sense Purchasing can help any purchasing manager. The author shares his tales of woe from the purchasing department and explains why relationships are the foundation of a good purchasing program. The Procurement and Supply Manager’s Desk Reference by Fred Sollish and John Semanik This book is an authoritative guide on everything you need to know about being a procurement manager. Filled with information about trends in sourcing, avoiding specification traps, and best practices in supplier diversity. This book answers many of the important questions facing procurement managers. This book was written by experts in supply chain management and well worth the cost. It even offers suggestions on legal issues. The Procurement Game Plan by Charles Dominck and Soheila R. Lunney New and seasoned procurement managers will gain a great deal from this read. This book covers everything involved in setting up and running a procurement division, including choosing the right people, contingency planning, and social responsibility. It’s not a dry business read either. The Procurement Game Plan is loaded with meaningful and easily understandable procurement strategies. Essentials of Supply Chain Management by Michael H. Hugos You have a supply chain, but do you know how to measure its performance? Do you know how to use information technology in your supply chain? Is your supply chain coordinated or are there gaps? For anyone dealing with supply chain issues, Essentials of Supply Chain Management has the answers and even references supply chain games. At fewer than 350 pages this is an easy book to read and gain valuable insights. Proactive Purchasing in the Supply Chain by David Burt, Sheila Petcavage and Richard Pinkerton Purchasing plays an important role in a company’s success. It’s also one of the least understood divisions in an organization. Proactive Purchasing in the Supply Chain explains how an efficient purchasing process can increase returns on investment, reduce costs, and improve quality. It even includes purchasing checklists, to make the process easier. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-5-purchasing-book-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli/ Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ