Mastering the Chain: Leadership & Innovation in Supply Chain Management with Scott Luton

Scott Luton [00:00:02]:

One of the most important aspects of what innovation is driving right now is big gains in how we make decisions. Right? Get this. Recent Gartner research has shown that supply chain decisions have become 71% more complex, 52% more frequent, and they need to be made 57% faster. And decision making, timely, confident, accurate, better and better decision making is a core function of supply chain management, right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:00:36]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:00:37]:

When I think of innovation, I think of the gains we're making in enabling our team to make better decisions. I think of the gains we've made in visibility and I would argue, Glenn, you might agree, you might disagree. Visibility across ecosystem, products, trade partners, suppliers is not good enough. We need solutions and answers.

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Glenn Gooding [00:01:03]:

Welcome to Parcel Perspectives, the podcast dedicated to small parcel shippers. I'm Glenn Gooding and each episode we dive into insights, best practices and strategies to help you navigate this complex, costly market. Join me as we explore ways to strengthen your long term partnerships with your chosen carriers and stay competitively aligned. Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode. I'm Glenn Gooding, your host and today we're diving deep into the world of supply chain management with a very special guest, Scott Luton. Scott is not only a leader in the supply chain arena, but also the CEO and founder of Supply Chain Now, a platform dedicated to enhancing supply chain education and sharing industry best practices. We're going to throw some big words at you guys today. Today we're going to be discussing the power of innovation leadership and the impact of strategic fores site on supply chain operations.

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Glenn Gooding [00:02:01]:

My goodness, that could be a 36 hour podcast in itself. But we're going to try to unpack to the best of our ability. Here are some of the elements that transform operations to be more efficient, adaptable and sustainable. Scott, it's truly a pleasure to have you on with me. Let's get started.

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Scott Luton [00:02:18]:

Hey Glenn, sounds great. I appreciate those kind words. I'll try to live up to them, but great to finally meet you in person.

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Glenn Gooding [00:02:25]:

Couldn't agree more. Pleasure to meet you in person. Look forward to getting together over a sweet tea and a barbecue sometime soon.

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Scott Luton [00:02:32]:

Okay, sounds great.

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Glenn Gooding [00:02:33]:

So Scott, if you don't mind, you mind just sharing a little bit about your background and kind of what led you to found Supply Chain now?

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Scott Luton [00:02:41]:

I'd love to. That's one of my favorite parts. We love talking and thinking and reflecting back on our journeys. So I spent over 20 years in Indian supply chain in a wide variety of roles, worked a good bit in the manufacturing industry, which is one of my loves. As I came to find out metal stamping, construction products and a whole bunch more. Been in and out of over 300 plants and sites where my favorite thing to do, Glenn, is to spend time with the wonderful people on the front lines and learn from their experiences. From automotive plants to E commerce fulfillment centers to steel foundries, which can be a bit intimidating to.

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Glenn Gooding [00:03:15]:

Yes, they can be, can't they?

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Scott Luton [00:03:17]:

Oh goodness. Returns processing centers which are have grown in importance for sure to the incredible ports that keep global trade moving, which is fascinating. On the other side, I've really been fortunate to have facilitated tons of in person learning and networking events over the years. Really enjoy those powerful knowledge exchanges and those opportunities to build relationships which we know the value of those right now to the impetus or the beginnings of Supply chain now. About 11, maybe 12 years ago had this eureka moment. Hey, all that stuff we've been doing, going out and seeing and talking and learning and networking and sharing, why don't we try to replicate this digitally? So a few years later, those early and regular experiences grew into webinars and podcasts and the like and supply chain now was born. And the mission, while the look and the feel and what we do and how we deliver on the mission has evolved and changed. Like most businesses, the mission itself has it.

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Scott Luton [00:04:19]:

You know, connecting people with new ideas, proven best practices, intriguing leaders and their stories, benchmarking opportunities, market intel, gathering, exchanging, and of course building relationships which indeed matter.

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Glenn Gooding [00:04:34]:

Couldn't agree more. I love the relationship aspect. Love it, love it, love it. You and I, we've been the benefactor of like the last five, six years of that Black Swan event called Covid, where we went from nobody knowing what supply chain was to everybody being interested to some degree. Right?

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Scott Luton [00:04:49]:

You're absolutely right. And you're reading my mind, I'd argue, and you might agree with me. It sounds like, with what you just said there, that the supply chain world has largely been invisible to your average consumer for maybe not all of human history, but close to it.

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Glenn Gooding [00:05:04]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:05:04]:

I think of my granddad, Dick Rutland, retired as a machine operator at a Kimberly Clark plant way back in the day, and to this day I regret I never sat down and spoke to him about what he did. We spoke about plenty of other things, including infamous bluebird couple in his backyard that couldn't quite agree on where to build their next nest. He was a big bird nerd like I am, but I wish I was more curious about what he did for a living. But be that as it may, we have kind of broken through to some degree the awareness challenge, right? And that's a good thing, because we're all touched. If you're practitioners, if you're consumers, because we're all consumers. We all benefit every single day by what the good people in global supply chain do. Right. And I think that's one of the silver linings that the pandemic delivered to us all.

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Scott Luton [00:05:52]:

Heightened awareness. But awareness is important. But education is equally as important. Right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:05:59]:

Agreed.

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Scott Luton [00:05:59]:

And I don't know about you, Glenn, as we're having conversations and connecting with folks all across, really, business, including global supply chain, folks at have just come in the industry or folks that have been in industry for a long time. They're trying to catch up with what's new. They're all searching for solutions and ideas and challenges and what other leading organizations or other sector players, what they're doing to overcome old and new challenges. And that education piece, that. Keeping up with the times and keeping up with the velocity that not just supply chain is operating at, but business. Yeah, well, that's been an important part. And then one last thing, Glenn. You know, we talked about awareness here.

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Scott Luton [00:06:40]:

We talked about education.

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Glenn Gooding [00:06:41]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:06:41]:

But amongst all those folks that tune in or we talk to or we meet out at these plants and sites and these conversations, these practitioners, like my granddad, Dick Rutland, they have fascinating stories to tell, and I love putting the microphone in front of them to get them out. All of it's rocket fuel, for sure.

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Glenn Gooding [00:07:00]:

Kind of like the Mike Rowe of supply chain dirty jobs, right?

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Scott Luton [00:07:02]:

Yeah. Do you like Mike Rowe? He needs to get more airtime. He's got a lot already. I wish more folks were introduced to his way of thinking. Huh.

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Glenn Gooding [00:07:12]:

I couldn't agree more. Love the guy. Great voice, great order. Just another guy I'd love to sit down over a sweet tea with, I think.

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Scott Luton [00:07:21]:

So, Glenn, really quick. This might make your day much better than anything I'll ever share with you. I had an opportunity to spend about an hour remotely interviewing Microsoft, and he is the same individual behind the scenes, behind the tv, behind the camera, whatever you say, as he is out in front, genuine and engaging. He doesn't care if you're the mayor or, you know, the machine operator or some lowly podcast host. He loves to meet and talk with people. And that authenticity, that is a breath.

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Glenn Gooding [00:07:51]:

Of fresh air, man. I get drawn to people like that. It's encouraging to hear that. So, supply chain, you threw a lot out there. It was great. One thing I've concluded, couple absolutes in the supply chain world. One supply chain seems to never get cheaper, and it seems to never get simpler. So I would say the supply chain we live in today is more expensive and more complex than it's ever been.

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Glenn Gooding [00:08:18]:

Right. And so when you talk about education, I think it's more critical now than it's ever been. Wouldn't you agree?

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Scott Luton [00:08:24]:

I do agree. With a twist.

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Glenn Gooding [00:08:26]:

Right.

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Scott Luton [00:08:27]:

I like your, how you put it, it never gets cheaper, it never gets simpler. However, on that ladder, I think supply chain leaders, especially the best ones, can find ways of making certain, maybe not end to end, but certain components, certain processes, certain tasks within day to day operations and making those simpler for their people. It's immensely challenging. It's not simple to make things simpler and everyone can't do it. Because like you said, I agree with you. The normal trend is things get tougher and things get more expensive. But man, those leaders that can make that happen, they're special.

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Glenn Gooding [00:09:01]:

That's perfect. I threw the ball over the rim and you threw it down for me. Great segue into this. So when you think of that visionary leadership, big words, they mean a lot out there. What does that mean to you in relationship to supply chains and the future of supply chains?

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Scott Luton [00:09:21]:

That is a big word. And visionary probably means lots of things to lots of different people. But what I think of are the qualities and especially the key qualities that define a successful and visionary supply chain leader. And if I had a short list, I'm thinking of constantly learning, right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:09:36]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:09:37]:

Just because you earn a title doesn't mean you've hit the finish line.

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Glenn Gooding [00:09:40]:

Amen.

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Scott Luton [00:09:41]:

Highly, highly empathetic, Right? That's one of my favorite, my favorite leaders I've ever worked for. Managers, leaders, no matter. It's those folks that never sleep on their empathy, expectant of change. And they lean into it because the people that work for them and on their teams, they're constantly looking up to leaders and how they react to change. They can't act like their hair's on fire.

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Glenn Gooding [00:10:03]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:10:04]:

Tireless experimentation that's so critical, especially here in the modern era. I'll call it storytelling and kind of its cousin, influencing storytelling in particular. I think it's got such a place and sometimes we're like, well, hey, I'm a production manager. What the heck do I have to worry about storytelling? If you want to convince people of how to lean into change, you got to tell a great story. Including answering the question the wifm, what's in it for me?

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Glenn Gooding [00:10:31]:

Yeah.

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Scott Luton [00:10:32]:

And then finally, kind of, in my view, when you think of the supply chain ecosystem and you think of all the divides that humans and Organizations and entities within the ecosystem will build up the barriers. I think great visionary leaders find a way to be effective bridge builders. And the good lord knows we need more powerful bridge builders in today's very frictious society.

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Glenn Gooding [00:10:56]:

I love what you're saying. I want to unpack it a bit with you. What I see so often in the supply chain world, you probably bump into it as well. So many folks out there racing to the bottom. Cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, benchmark, benchmark, drive down supply cost, vendor cost, this and that seems to be shortsighted, don't you think?

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Scott Luton [00:11:16]:

I think one of the many, many lessons that the pandemic painfully, in so many ways taught us. I'm hoping lots of those lessons stick around for a very long time. Unfortunately, I'm already seeing some organizations and some leaders, unfortunately, that have forgotten some of those lessons we just learned in very tangible ways just a couple years ago. But to your point, cheap is not best. Right. You get what you pay for. All those old cliches moving everything offshore and losing visibility and not being able to really trust the products and what's going into them or how they've been made. It's come to back the bite industry in so many different ways.

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Scott Luton [00:11:53]:

And you know, when you sign up, everybody wants to save a dollar, right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:11:57]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:11:58]:

But you gotta do it in the right places, the right ways. Cause if you do it the wrong way, it's gonna come back and bite you in very awful ways. That can cost you a whole bunch more dollars than what you saved in the first month of the initial decision.

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Glenn Gooding [00:12:11]:

You bet. You know, another word you threw out there that tickled me a little bit or curious about is experimentation. I'm not sure that's a word you hear a lot in the supply chain world. And I think we should hear more of it. How do you envision, how do you see experimentation specifically kind of in the supply chain? Maybe a story about that or maybe an example of that from your perspective. I'd love to learn more on that.

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Scott Luton [00:12:35]:

Sure. I think we've all heard of the phrase a pilot project. Right. That's one of my favorite things. Right. Especially when you bring trading partners together and you're trying to find new ways of working together. Pilots aren't always going to work. Whether it's maybe shifting production from one area or maybe mapping your network a different way.

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Scott Luton [00:12:52]:

And oftentimes you can do experimentation in a very low risk, if not risk free environment. Of course, using technology here in the golden age of supply chain tech, and because of our ability to do that and leverage tech in real, low risk, no risk ways. I think folks like Jeff Bezos that Amazon has built and continues to this day to benefit from immense experimentation. And I'm hoping that with the prevalence of technology that's at our fingertips in so many different ways, that supply chain leaders will embrace more and more experimentation to find new, powerful ways of doing things and powerful ways of making the days easier and more successful for their people. Because for me, all roads lead back to how we are positioning our people for success. Right. Especially in this day and age of burnout and turnover and pressure and stress.

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Glenn Gooding [00:13:49]:

Yeah, 100%. You're definitely a servant leader. I can tell based off everything you're saying on that makes good sense innovation. Where does that weave into this narrative and story in your mind, Scott?

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Scott Luton [00:14:02]:

Innovation. Innovation, Innovation.

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Glenn Gooding [00:14:04]:

So experimentation and kind of its sister, in my mind, kind of innovation. Right. You have to innovate in order to experiment, right?

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Scott Luton [00:14:11]:

Yeah. So there's so many things that can go into the word like innovation. Right. So many different things. And I think one of the most important aspects of what innovation is driving right now is big gains in how we make decisions. Right. Get this. Recent Gartner research has shown that supply chain decisions have become 71% more complex, 52% more complex, frequent, and they need to be made 57% faster in decision making.

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Scott Luton [00:14:44]:

Timely, confident, accurate, better and better decision making is a core function of supply chain management. Right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:14:52]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:14:52]:

When I think of innovation, I think of the gains we're making in enabling our team to make better decisions. I think of the gains we've made in visibility, and I would argue, Glenn, you might agree, you might disagree. Visibility across the ecosystem, products, trade, partners, suppliers, it's not good enough. We need solutions and answers. Right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:15:14]:

Completely agree, Scott.

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Scott Luton [00:15:15]:

And I think one more thing before I think of some innovation examples that might be a little more specific.

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Glenn Gooding [00:15:20]:

Sure.

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Scott Luton [00:15:21]:

Supply chain leaders as they strive for that innovation. Because there's a plethora of technology tools, insights, platforms, and a whole bunch more out there out in the marketplace. But those successful, visionary, successful supply chain leaders, they've got to be able to serve as that maestro. And they can integrate all of that. The people, the process, technology, the entities involved across the ecosystem in an imperfect but harmonious symphony across a tapestry that is the supply chain. And now when you think of symphony, you decide maybe what the woodwinds and the brass and the strings are, but the percussion, that's gotta be the steady drumbeat of consumer demand. And that's what drives innovation. That's one of the biggest drivers of innovation.

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Scott Luton [00:16:08]:

So erp, so innovation that we've seen. So, Glenn, let's stop there for a second. I'm about to share just a couple examples that I've seen here very recently of supply chain innovation. But do you see that same symphony?

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Glenn Gooding [00:16:18]:

I do sometimes. It's more of a hot mess than a symphony, right?

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Scott Luton [00:16:22]:

No doubt, no doubt.

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Glenn Gooding [00:16:24]:

You missed the kazoo section. Right?

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Scott Luton [00:16:28]:

That's my section. That's about the only instrument I might have a chance of playing.

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Glenn Gooding [00:16:32]:

Yeah, you know, I guess perfect world. Absolutely. A symphony. So many of the supply chain leaders that I interact with, they get so bogged down in putting out fires.

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Scott Luton [00:16:42]:

Right.

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Glenn Gooding [00:16:43]:

Solving the latest problem, the latest crisis, that sometimes I think they get heavily pulled away from being able to have that higher level of thought. And innovation is, I guess, what I see. So do I agree with you? I absolutely agree with you. I think it's sometimes harder for others something than others.

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Scott Luton [00:16:59]:

You know, I'm with you and Glenn, too, what you just shared there, that firefighting culture. I worked for a great individual. His name was Ray Atia. He wrote a book that's somewhere back behind me there Run Improve Growth. And he identified 15, 20, 25 years ago that while we want to reward those incredible people that save the day each and every day for the operation in the system, that's an awful thing to do. What we need to do, recognition's important, timelessly. But what we need to do is fix what is making them put on that cape and fight those fires every day so they can get past it and grow and advance and innovate.

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Glenn Gooding [00:17:38]:

Could not agree more. Could not agree more. We're on the same page. Absolutely.

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Scott Luton [00:17:41]:

We're going to have to get you and Ray together. I bet y'all have fascinating conversation, but recently, when it comes to specific examples, you know, erp, the world of ERP has changed dramatically, Right? It's changed dramatically recently as new and really innovative ERPs have been riding this golden age of supply chain tech. I've seen ERP implementations going from nine months, nine months, painful implementations to two.

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Glenn Gooding [00:18:06]:

Weeks, two weeks crazy.

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Scott Luton [00:18:08]:

And you don't lose what the operation and the team and the ecosystem needs. Right. Scenario planning, network modeling. And we're talking about experimentation and how to find ways of making things simpler, cheaper, mitigating the risks out there, Right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:18:25]:

Yes.

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Scott Luton [00:18:25]:

We've seen situations where companies and technology has enabled organizations do that. Immense millions of scenario planning, millions of network modeling simulations from two months to encapsulate all those types of scenarios. To kind of fill out and vet and kind of see in that vacuum to two minutes, imagine what that unlocks in organizations and teams. And for the no matter the size of your business, whether you're a big time global enterprise or a small family run manufacturer in North Georgia, what that can unlock and how it can protect and help you find the right path forward. And then one final example of innovation. I think this is talk about 36 hour podcast, Glenn. We could be here for at least 36 hours. Right.

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Scott Luton [00:19:12]:

Because there's innovation at every turn.

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Glenn Gooding [00:19:14]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:19:15]:

Some of it is kind of flash in the pan and the good stuff is stuff that's sustainable and sticks around for a long time. And it's not all tech driven. We can't fool ourselves with that. So in that less techie, more what is old is new manner. How about ideal metric identification and how we communicate and how we can transform that. We've seen companies go into warehouse 16, 17 warehouse environments, networks, and implement the right metrics. Right. And communicate them effectively so that team members can be more successful every single day.

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Scott Luton [00:19:50]:

And better yet, new hires, they could be productive in hours rather than weeks because they know, they know what success looks like and how they'll be measured and what the mission is every day. So those are three examples that are real timely that I've been diving in here recently.

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Glenn Gooding [00:20:06]:

Your thoughts for sure? The right metrics. I think a lot about EOS as the entrepreneurial operating system.

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Scott Luton [00:20:14]:

Right. And we love our acronyms, don't we, Glenn?

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Glenn Gooding [00:20:17]:

Yeah, we do. Well, you know, with my UPS background, that was the world of acronyms. I could world death with acronyms. Right. But eos, if you build out the right metrics, you eliminate a ton of frustration, a ton of distraction, but you align the team, everybody's pulling the same direction. Right. It's driving the right behavior toward the right goal. But it can be a massive challenge sometimes to really get consensus or arrive at truly what the right metrics are.

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Glenn Gooding [00:20:45]:

Don't you think?

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Scott Luton [00:20:46]:

Undoubtedly. And Glenn, you being the former UPSer, I can only imagine what it's like in those really big enterprises where you might have pockets or silos. And oftentimes, from what I've seen in my career in these really big, massive organizations, you can have one leader set metrics or incentives one way here and then just next door or department down, they can be set differently. And if not done transparently and in parallel, you can have two teams pulling the rope in different directions. And of course, no one wins. So it probably gets trickier the bigger you get, I reckon.

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Glenn Gooding [00:21:21]:

Yeah, it does, it does. You know, back in my operating days, which we're going back a few decades now, I'm dating myself. But back in those legacy UPS days, everything was about production indices. Pieces per hour, stops per onroad hour depending on the operation. And that's fine and dandy. You know, you've got to get an operation done. But I started looking at some of the things that were. Some of the balls get dropped for the sake of this production indices.

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Glenn Gooding [00:21:49]:

For example, great one. When I was out in Seattle, okay, for the sake of production, am I going to pull a TOFC load a trader on freight car that's going to Jacksonville, Florida at 80% so that I can keep my production indices up and get forced into a third tofc to Jacksonville at the cost of $3,000 versus a production indices. Right.

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Scott Luton [00:22:12]:

Oh, Glenn, you just painfully reminded me why it's a whole bunch. My days are a lot easier being in front of a microphone than being at a production line or at a production meeting. And further complicated by the railroad industry. Man, the railroad industry is fascinating. It is absolutely fascinating. So we're going to have to bring you on supply chain now. We're going to have to dive into that past life of yours.

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Glenn Gooding [00:22:36]:

Oh, I'd be happy to. I'll put all the listeners to sleep with that one, I'm sure.

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Scott Luton [00:22:41]:

But can we talk about one other thing, Glenn?

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Glenn Gooding [00:22:44]:

Sure.

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Scott Luton [00:22:44]:

Under this big umbrella of innovation, right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:22:47]:

Yes.

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Scott Luton [00:22:48]:

Sustainability. Right. That's posing. Yeah.

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Glenn Gooding [00:22:51]:

It was going to move you that direction. Yeah.

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Scott Luton [00:22:52]:

Well, hey, you move me anytime. I've talked way too much. I'm not. I don't have a gift for being succinct. So you move me, you move anytime. But you know, sustainability I think for a lot of folks can be seen as more of a burden than innovative blue ocean opportunities. Meeting new demand. Right.

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Scott Luton [00:23:11]:

Because that demand, as we all know, North Star. Right. But at the same time, demand for sustainability has been incredibly real, very palpable and growing for years. And better yet, the willingness of customers to pay for said sustainability continues to increase. Now some folks say, well, the survey says one thing, but when folks break out their wallet, you know, and grabbing stuff off the shelf, there might be a little disparity and probably so. But you can see measure after measure that's getting closer and closer. Organizations can unlock new revenue opportunities up in their sustainability gain. Right.

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Scott Luton [00:23:48]:

Sustainability SLAs can be built into RFPs these days. Right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:23:53]:

They can.

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Scott Luton [00:23:53]:

But to truly embrace the opportunity, sustainability and a willingness to act on this evolving demand, increasing demand, it can't stay relegated to the sustainability department. It's got to permeate from what I've seen across the supply chain organization so that we can make sustainability push into where all decisions can factor it in. Will all decisions break in one way, shape or form? No, but at least we'll be conscious as we bake that into our day to day, hour to hour decision making processes. The good thing is, I think other good news, if you want to see good news, there's always good news. If you go looking for it, you got to look for it hard sometimes, especially some days. You know, last couple of years have been tough for a lot of folks, right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:24:36]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:24:36]:

But when it comes to sustainability, the good news is we're seeing it pushed further and further upstream, you know, product design sourcing a whole bunch more. And I think for companies that may be listening to your podcast, or companies that may be searching for better ways, how can I make more tangible progress when it comes to sustainability? The Boston Consulting group, another acronym, BCG, right?

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Glenn Gooding [00:24:58]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:24:58]:

They conduct a 2024 research piece that was focused on 2,000 organizations and based on their data, two big points here. Companies that measured all scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions comprehensively are 1.6 times more likely to experience significant decarbonization benefits. So let's measure it first. Let's measure where we are first. Right. And then secondly to that, what their research showed is that companies that set validated targets for each of those three scopes are 1.9 times more likely to make big sustainability progress. So what's old is new again. I mean, come on, Glenn, I know in your background measure setting targets, but knowing where we are and measuring the whole way along the way.

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Scott Luton [00:25:48]:

I mean, isn't it funny how we can make gains almost no matter what we're going after? Right. By doing some of the basics.

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Glenn Gooding [00:25:55]:

Oh, absolutely. And you know, sustainability is a in vogue topic right now, but I think it's something that should be front of mind all the time. I would argue if you're really looking at sustainability in a comprehensive manner, you're more than likely improving efficiency. Right. You're more than likely potentially reducing expenses in other ways through sustainability practices. So broad topic in my world. Sustainability, and it can be carbon offset as an example. But you know, carbon offset could be measured as saying, well, wait a minute, why do we have, why are we moving everything from the port of Savannah into five distribution centers when you really don't need to do that? You can do the same in three Distribution centers.

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Glenn Gooding [00:26:41]:

And by doing that you're, you know, there's already a carbon offset because you're not moving it in other parts of the country and you're still achieving certain, you know, so there's just so many ways to look at that, in my opinion.

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Scott Luton [00:26:51]:

Scott Glenn, I agree with you. And you know, the word sustainability itself for some can be a tough word, stigmatized in some circles. But to your point, you just shared there, I would argue supply chain business leaders, they've been after sustainability gains that all of human history, kind of using your example you just talked about, because as we make smarter decisions, a lot of times we can make those sustainability gains. It's just these days, specifically for how can we make the world a better place and reduce the damage that we tend to have in some way, shape or form by not doing the more sustainable thing, I think it's easier to kind of call out and set more specific targets on what protects the environment that we all operate in.

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Glenn Gooding [00:27:39]:

Agreed.

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Scott Luton [00:27:40]:

One other thing, I think as a proud capitalist, because capitalism can, contrary to popular belief or some belief, capitalism can do powerful things, good things for the world. But companies that act on the sustainability imperative, it can lead to big time bottom line gains, top line and bottom line gains. Right. So that's good. And one last point on the sustainability topic is the better, the more efficiencies we gain driving more innovation across our organizations and running a better operation, better highly performing operation, the easier it is to reach bigger sustainability outcomes. And the more we can do that, it goes back to finding those top and bottom line revenue gains. So it can really now might be stretching here, it might be a bridge too far. But I see a circle, I really do.

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Scott Luton [00:28:35]:

I see a circle. Right. We act on those traditional management gains that you were just talking about with the port and how we move it and stuff, and then run a stronger organization, better, more performing organization, and then we deliberately find ways of finding better sustainable outcomes and then it leads to more business and more profit. And it can be a cycle here.

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Glenn Gooding [00:28:57]:

Agreed. And that North Star demand, yes, you want a phenomenal product out there, but the real hook from my perspective is when you get the consumer to feel good about buying your product, now you're onto something.

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Scott Luton [00:29:13]:

Right.

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Glenn Gooding [00:29:13]:

And I think sustainability practices lend a strong hand in that front.

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Scott Luton [00:29:19]:

Excellent point. You know, the rise of brand ambassadors, right. And all the things that go into brands these days, including one of the strongest as we've seen here and as the calendar's flipped to 20, 25, are those brand ambassadors that are all about more sustainable organizations. And I welcome that movement. I think it'll lead to more innovation and more change in our industry, which, you know, change is good. It's tough, but it's good.

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Glenn Gooding [00:29:42]:

It is. Hey, you mind if we shift a little bit, if that's all right?

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Scott Luton [00:29:46]:

Please.

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Glenn Gooding [00:29:46]:

I want to talk about maybe a couple bumps in the road you've experienced when we think about a leader and about constantly learning. I don't know about you, but my most significant learnings have been from the painful moments, the mistakes. Right. The challenges that I've had to overcome, whatever that. What are some of the biggest challenges that you might have some experience with in managing supply chains, Glenn?

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Scott Luton [00:30:09]:

I'll tell you, we might do a little digging. We might be second cousins, because I think we. We view the world very similarly. And I think sometimes lessons can be a lot tougher to reflect on and learn from and eventually, you know, grow from. But it's so critical. Critical in the path forward, to reflect back. So in all transparency, I've played all sorts of roles across Indian supply chain. I've never served as chief supply chain officer, and that's probably a great thing for all those organizations out there.

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Scott Luton [00:30:38]:

But I've held a variety of leadership roles in supply chain for, again, for over 20 years. And I think as I was assembling my thoughts here and thinking of challenges and mistakes, one core recurring challenge that I've seen in my career that comes up time and time again, especially in supply chain. Right. Is it can be best illustrated by a scene in the great baseball economics movie Moneyball. Have you seen Moneyball, Glenn?

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Glenn Gooding [00:31:04]:

Oh, 100%. See Moneyball. Loved it.

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Scott Luton [00:31:06]:

Okay. I've watched it movie seven times, maybe 17, I don't know. But do you remember the scene where Billy Bean, the general manager of the Oakland A's, as depicted. And what's a based on a true story? At least he's being played by Brad Pitt. I bet that made Billy Bean's day. Right? Brad Pitt's gonna play in a movie anyway. So Billy Beane in that movie is around this table, and he's got all these experts that have been in the game of baseball for decades. I bet there's, let's say all of them had 30 years experience, some of more.

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Scott Luton [00:31:35]:

There were eight of them in the room. We're talking almost 250 years of baseball experience.

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Glenn Gooding [00:31:41]:

Yep.

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Scott Luton [00:31:42]:

And times were changing the game of baseball, much like they are now in the game of supply chain management. And they were trying to figure out how to get better. Right. What does next season look like? And so Billy Beans, listen to them all, you know, share observations and what the team needs, this and the other. But then he poses the question, he's like, what's our problem? And they all take a shot at it. He goes, nope, nope, no, that's right. He goes, quote, the problem we're trying to solve is that there's rich teams, there's poor teams, and there's 50ft of crap, and then there's us. And it's an unfair game right now, folks.

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Scott Luton [00:32:18]:

If you haven't seen the movie, go out and check it out, especially if you're a baseball fan, because there's a couple of parallels there. All organizations don't have the same thing, same resources, same leadership and supply. The game of supply chain management, the craft of supply chain management is also very unfair in that regard and others. But one of the biggest challenges, that's where we'll bring it back to kind of your question is ensuring that the team and the organization, the ecosystem, knows the problem, the plan, the solution, and working in an aligned fashion to make things happen, to improve what we do, the performance day in and day out. And oftentimes that calls for silo busting on a very regular basis. And you would think that in this day and age of the golden technology revolution that it'd be easier to bust down silos and also not enact them. But I find kind of the reverse is true. I think it's easier these days to kind of isolate ourselves in digital silos, and that doesn't help this long recurring challenge of protecting organizational alignment.

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Scott Luton [00:33:25]:

So hope that makes sense, Glenn. But I love Moneyball, and that is such a great scene in that movie.

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Glenn Gooding [00:33:30]:

It's a fabulous scene. It's like an iconic scene for that, for sure. Great story. And I definitely see the correlation. What about triumphs? What have you been witness to or been a part of throughout your extensive supply chain career and all the people you've touched that you'd love to share? As far as a story with our.

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Scott Luton [00:33:48]:

Listeners, I appreciate this question and there are a lot of different things I would love to share and people I'd love to mention and aspects you mentioned the eos, the entrepreneurial operating system. I think I got that right. And as an entrepreneur, I think you think back on your mistakes and it's important to learn from those. And you think back on the successes. It's important to learn from those. And then all those days in between, that's not quite a failure. It's not quite a success. But you gotta learn a lot from those days as well.

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Scott Luton [00:34:17]:

But when it comes to learning, there was one interaction earlier in my supply chain career when I was in manufacturing and feeling the pressure day in and day out, and I don't want to give way, I don't want to. I don't call anybody out, right? But it was a very powerful eureka moment. So I'll kind of protect the innocent and the guilty here, right? So tough sector, working for a privately held manufacturer. Tuesday morning we had a cross functional meeting with 12 folks or so from different departments all around the organization. And they were all sitting around the table, you know, usual suspects. Production, quality control, customer service, of course, supply chain, warehousing, sales, you name it, right? And we were arguing over how we had arrived at a late parts report that grew to 20 pages plus long. Despite my best efforts in that chaos, no progress got made, which. And by the way, folks, tons of late parts.

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Scott Luton [00:35:08]:

If you're new to manufacturing or supply chain, it ain't a good thing. It ain't a good thing.

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Glenn Gooding [00:35:14]:

Nope.

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Scott Luton [00:35:14]:

So as I left that Tuesday morning fruitless, fruitless, painful meeting, the president of the company pulled me aside. He said, I always remember this, hey, Scott. And he was in pain. He was in pain. What in the world do you think is the problem here? And I thought about it for a second and it dawned on me in that meeting, and it dawned on me in that moment I was going to let the president know what was wrong with his company, which is not always a good thing to do. But nobody in that room trusted each other. And it was so evident. I wish I had a video of it back in the day.

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Scott Luton [00:35:45]:

And if you want to move mountains in our industry and global supply chain, or in any industry, no matter where you live in this beautiful world, it starts, I would argue, with building trust one person, one department, one supplier, one customer at a time. And as we've learned painfully, again learning from what we've experienced in recent years, trust is that powerful global currency that can change the world in so many different ways, right? But man, once you lose it, it's tough to gain, but it's far more tougher to regain once it's been lost. So that power of trust is one of the most powerful lessons I've learned in this career that I revert back on a weekly, if not daily basis.

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Glenn Gooding [00:36:32]:

Couldn't agree more, Scott. I'm just too darn old and grouchy anymore to be in an environment where trust isn't there.

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Scott Luton [00:36:39]:

That's a blessing, Glenn. That is A blessing. So let me flip the script back on you. Operating in a high trust environment, which clearly you do and you value that. And as a leader, it seems you make sure it's there. How can other business leaders, you know, what's one thing they should do to help implement more trust deliberately in their culture? What will be your advice?

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Glenn Gooding [00:37:00]:

Great question. Number one, you have to be authentic. You have to be authentic and I think you have to be vulnerable. I think you have to be publicly vulnerable. It's always interesting to me when I see a leader in a room of direct reports. You learn a lot about that leader. Some leaders I've seen really want everybody to know they're the smartest person in that room.

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Scott Luton [00:37:24]:

I bet when you said that, I bet all of your listeners, instant people's faces came into their brain. I bet I know mine. It did for me.

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Glenn Gooding [00:37:33]:

Yep. And without question, when that dynamic exists, trust is low. Trust is low. Those reports, man, they don't want to challenge that. Right. And so you don't get innovation, you don't get good discussion, good collaboration. The leaders that really impress me are the ones that come to the realization, hey, I want to surround myself with the smartest, most capable, diverse individuals I can find. And I want to create an environment in these meetings and our working relationship where I'm encouraging them to challenge the status quo.

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Glenn Gooding [00:38:12]:

I'm encouraging them to challenge me and my ideas. I'm encouraging them to challenge each other in a collaborative way. That's what in my mind really, really develops strong, productive trust to grow there.

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Scott Luton [00:38:30]:

Glenn, I wholeheartedly agree with you. And if business leaders took your advice, we wouldn't have 20 plus pages of late part reports that would be creating so much stress for team members and kind of using it also as an analogy trust between trading partners amongst the ecosystem. Some of the coolest, most forward looking, innovative ecosystems I've seen in my lifetime are when trading partners and suppliers and customers can really open up the kimono, so to speak, and share numbers and share data and share strengths and weaknesses. And building that trust can unlock all kinds of new opportunities, revenue producing and otherwise. And that's not for everybody. You and I may, I know I've worked in some old fashioned industries where none of that happened and that's, hey, you know, different strokes, different folks, but the opportunities are there for sure.

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Glenn Gooding [00:39:22]:

Well, Scott, I've thoroughly enjoyed this. We could easily wrap another 35 hours on this if we chose to for our listeners. From your perspective of everything we've talked about today, are there two or three takeaways from our discussion that you think our listeners should remember and what we talked about here.

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Scott Luton [00:39:41]:

Absolutely. And I'll try not to add a, if I heard you right, 35 hours, I'll try not to add a 36 hour to our conversation. But there's so much, right? There's so much. That's why I love what I do to be able to interact and learn from. And I'm sure you do too, because we do same thing. Learn from all these incredible leaders and practitioners and professionals that are really not only delivering on the world as it exists today for all of us consumers, but, but they're changing and changing how business is done for tomorrow and next week and then some. So all of that, we've got lots of challenges, no shortage of challenges. It comes with territory and some of them are going to grow.

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Scott Luton [00:40:19]:

You know, we all know the cyber world, bad actors have access to new innovative technologies just like the good actors do. Right. But all of that and many other challenges, sustainability or any others, it's okay. I take heart in this truth that one of my guests shared me the other day, mover and shaker out there moving freight around the world. And he said that trade will always prevail. And I took heart in that truth because trade is that powerful force that will help to repair and build and protect and change. The beautiful and massive tapestry that I was talking about earlier, that is global supply chain. So three things that we I've referenced I don't know about 17 times this golden age of technology.

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Scott Luton [00:41:04]:

So when it comes to the continued tech explosion that we're going to continue to see, there's remarkable things here and more coming down the pipeline. Supply chain, leaders, professionals or other business leaders, we've got to stay focused on what's the problem and then find the best solution. Working backwards. Number two, people is my passion. And we talked about this Glenn a couple of times here. Whether I like it or not, I wear my emotions on my sleeve and, and I try to lead with that empathy we were talking about. But for so many people across global supply chain and various sectors there within burnout is real. And so leaders and professionals out there, it's always a good time to find new ways of taking care of your people.

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Scott Luton [00:41:43]:

And then lastly, trust going back to trust. I hope folks take this away. Trust is difficult to establish as it should be, but it's infinitely more difficult to regain once it is lost. And that should help guide service North Star as you navigate all the big and small partnerships and all partnerships in between that we all have in our own ecosystems.

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Glenn Gooding [00:42:08]:

Thank you. I agree and I've really enjoyed this. As our listeners kind of embark on their learning in the supply chain, they want to take a deeper dive into best practices. What's the best way for them to find more information or connect with you and supply chain now? Scott I want to give you that opportunity to connect with them.

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Scott Luton [00:42:27]:

Glenn I appreciate that. It'll be my most succinct answer. Supply chain now.com and of course obligatorily you can find us wherever you get your podcast. And I don't know if obligatorily is a word, but I just used it.

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Glenn Gooding [00:42:41]:

I liked it. Worked for me. Worked for me. Scott an absolute pleasure. I want to thank all our listeners for another episode of Parcel Perspectives. Glenn Gooding I look forward to being a guest on yours at some point.

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Scott Luton [00:42:55]:

Let's do it Glenn. Really appreciate the chat.

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Glenn Gooding [00:42:57]:

Boring your listeners to death at some point.

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Scott Luton [00:43:01]:

Thank you so much Glenn. Really appreciate what you do.

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Glenn Gooding [00:43:03]:

Hey, take care my friend. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to Parcel Perspectives hosted by me. Glenn Guiding I've been in the small parcel space for 37 years, starting with a deep and broad background working for one of the major carriers as an operator and industrial engineer, later managing pricing at the highest level for the largest, most complex shippers in the world. Since then, I've been a national thought leader and worked to help drive strategy for clients from Fortune 50 companies to startup e commerce businesses, helping them more competitively align in this complex and expensive market. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and share with friends. Join us next time for more expert advice and strategies to stay ahead of the shipping game.

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