Logistics Leadership Quotes

Going forward, Panama should expand on the canal business in new ways. That means not only widening the physical canal, but investing more broadly in global logistics and supply chains. So Panamanian leadership should ask, how can we extract more value from the canal by adding more value to it. Or how can we create or plug into new platforms which facilitate global trade. As a citizen of Panama, I'd like to see this happen.

Adam Lashinsky explained how Amazon. com had gone on a “military hiring spree” because Jeff was impressed with veterans’ logistical know-how and bias for action.3 In fact, Amazon.com has a dedicated military recruiting website and a highly consistent hiring and retention record for ex-military personnel. This practice of hiring veterans isn’t about expressing gratitude for ex-soldiers’ service to our country. Veterans fit Jeff’s business model. As a result, Amazon.com has not bothered to launch a huge PR campaign about its military employment program. Jeff just realized it was good business.

During the nineteenth century, corps commander was the highest level of command to still require skills of an operator for success. A corps commander was still able to see a problem develop and to dispatch soldiers or artillery to solve it on the spot. But at the army level of command the dynamics were for the first time different. The army commander was much more distant from the battle and consequently had no ability to act immediately or to control soldiers he could not see. The distance of the army commander from the action slowed responses to orders and created friction such that the commander was obliged to make decisions before the enemy’s actions were observed. Civil War army commanders were now suddenly required to exhibit a different set of skills. For the first time, they had to think in time and to command the formation by inculcating their intent in the minds of subordinates with whom they could not communicate directly. Very few of the generals were able to make the transition from direct to indirect leadership, particularly in the heat of combat. Most were very talented men who simply were never given the opportunity to learn to lead indirectly. Some, like Generals Meade and Burnside, found themselves forced to make the transition in the midst of battle. General Lee succeeded in part because, as military advisor to Jefferson Davis, he had been able to watch the war firsthand and to form his leadership style before he took command. General Grant was particularly fortunate to have the luck of learning his craft in the Western theater, where the press and the politicians were more distant, and their absence allowed him more time to learn from his mistakes. From the battle of Shiloh to that of Vicksburg, Grant as largely left alone to learn the art of indirect leadership through trial and error and periodic failure without getting fired for his mistakes. The implications of this phase of military history for the future development of close-combat leaders are at once simple, and self-evident. As the battlefield of the future expands and the battle becomes more chaotic and complex, the line that divides the indirect leader from the direct leader will continue to shift lower down the levels of command. The circumstances of future wars will demand that much younger and less experienced officers be able to practice indirect command. The space that held two Civil War armies of 200,000 men in 1863 would have been controlled by fewer than 1,000 in Desert Storm, and it may well be only a company or platoon position occupied by fewer than 100 soldiers in a decade or two. This means younger commanders will have to command soldiers they cannot see and make decisions without the senior leader’s hand directly on their shoulders. Distance between all the elements that provide support, such as fires and logistics, will demand that young commanders develop the skill to anticipate and think in time. Tomorrow’s tacticians will have to think at the operational level of war. They will have to make the transition from “doers” to thinkers, from commanders who react to what they see to leaders who anticipate what they will see. To do all this to the exacting standard imposed by future wars, the new leaders must learn the art of commanding by intent very early in their stewardship. The concept of “intent” forms the very essence of decentralized command.

Teams need both leadership and management. Popular author Stephen R. Covey explains: Leadership deals with direction—with making sure that the ladder is leaning against the right wall. Management deals with speed. To double one’s speed in the wrong direction, however, is the very definition of foolishness. Leadership deals with vision—with keeping the mission in sight—and with effectiveness and results. Management deals with establishing structure and systems to get those results. It focuses on efficiency, cost-benefit analyses, logistics, methods, procedures, and policies.[6]

Many ‘experts’ don’t possess the imagination or vision or any of the logistical expertise required to achieve malaria eradication. Their opinions shouldn’t be allowed to hold back men and women who do possess these qualities from achieving the ‘impossible.

Wars are lost or won by possession of three keys: morale, logistics, leadership.

While you might outsource your supply chain, your logistics, or your investments, you do not outsource your responsibility for them. It's getting harder every day to externalize environmental and social costs that your business imposes on society

manipulation through the tactic of mass assignation. Silvia, a CIO for a logistics agency, described the tactic in the following manner. “Behind closed doors I assemble the team and we plan how to best maneuver the multitude of stakeholders we have to influence to get large-scale change done. We create a highly detailed power map that includes their priorities, relationships, likes, dislikes — even their hobbies and favorite foods. This power map file is encrypted and kept only on my personal laptop, which no one may access but me.” Then she explains, “We continuously analyze their communication styles and who they relate to both on and off the team to determine the best person, channel and information to sway them. If they need to meet with Paul on a project, but they dislike Paul but like Mary, for example, we have Mary set up the meeting and Paul just shows up with her. If they like golf, the information we provide them includes golf analogies. If they like seafood, I take them out for lunch at the local oyster bar. I learned to do this when I worked for a consumer products company. This is how we analyzed the relationships between multiple target customers at the same time to determine how to sell more, and it made sense to apply it internally here.” As noted, mass