The importance of learning and teaching at will in supply chain training
From top-down to self-starters
From your executive’s viewpoint, you’ll recognise that solely top-down chains of command in organisations are, increasingly, a structure of the past. To respond rapidly to market dynamics, you and your organisation need to decentralise thinking. This allows ideas and initiatives to spring from whichever minds are best placed to land on a winning concept. To balance this shift, you also need to hand these minds the resources, opportunities and freedom to continuously upskill and self-develop. In your supply chain context, this is the difference that the right training programme can make. And it’s your role and responsibility to shape and implement it, providing a great opportunity to make your mark on your organisation.
You can lead this evolution beyond the outdated, one-way flow of command, inspiration and training. Instead, your employees with specialist knowledge of supply chain strengths and weaknesses can and should be devising the most efficient ways to meet their objectives. This is an ideal role for employees with talent, drive and vision; for people who can easily (learn to) self-motivate. In other words, it is an ideal role for precisely the team members that you are competing to bring in — and keep on board.
From siloed to cross-functional
The need for cross-organisation thinking will be no stranger to you. As such, supply chain management training is dangerously incomplete without a helicopter view of your whole organisation. How are sales targets for high order volumes, operations targets for high machine utilisation rates and low costs, and supply chain targets for low stock levels interrelating? Are they facilitating each other’s success, or hindering it?
To look outside their primary function for clues as to how to improve, your supply chain employees need motivation to learn, self-develop and advance. You are a vital figure in introducing, structuring and encouraging these factors. Cross-functional understanding and communication, along with a shared, team-based learning culture and growing intuition, are essential to sharpen your organisation’s function and competitive edge. You can make the difference.
Learning in teams, and taking those skills to then teach colleagues and peers, is the most efficient way to see this happen. By implementing supply chain learning programs that are tailored to your organisation and centred around team-based learning, you can ensure continuous collaborative learning and widespread impact.
In addition, teaching is in itself key proof of knowledge, both for those in the teaching role (which can be you and your colleagues) and for those who learn from them. If we are able to clearly and accessibly teach someone a concept, we have to truly understand it ourselves. The ability to take colleagues along on an engaging, coherent learning journey, too, is a skill worthwhile developing for all concerned.