“…we need to be prepared to think the unthinkable, even if we subsequently have no plan to deal with it now, as we may have in the future.” (p. 62) Soft Skills for Hard Business by David Loseby (FCMI,...

“Managing others is not for the faint-hearted or the inattentive.” (P. 147)   The Self Determined Manager: A Manifesto for Exceptional People Managers by David Deacon is exactly the kind of book ...

“Because however brilliant our category strategies or engagement roadmaps, relationships still do matter, and nowhere more so than in how we interact with our critical internal stakeholders.”

Leadership by Storytelling: The Best Way to Learn Good Leadership Skills, by Dr. Tom DePaoli, is the latest in a long line of books that are firmly based in reality and provide advice that is easy to ...

“The advent of new technologies – most notably blockchain – has the potential to radically transform how transactions are recorded, stored and used throughout supply networks. The result: a transparen...

“Customers are the key to any business, the prime reason for a company to exist! In the current digital era, customers are no longer passive buyers of products at the end of the value chain, but activ...

“Naturally, Industry 4.0 requires a new procurement. The factors driving the change are the hyper-competition, globalization, supply chain risks, resource scarcity and many more. But the most importan...

“No industry or country is immune from bad buying; it exists in every nation in the world, and in almost every organization.” - Peter Smith, p. xi Bad Buying: How organisations waste billions through ...

“The funny thing about truth is you cannot change it. When something is true, it is true.”  - Dan Andrew, p. 20 First Trust: Your Guide from Rags to Riches for an Abundant Life and Career by Dani...

“We are rarely totally engaged or present. We are digitally distracted. And, as I said earlier, on an ongoing basis we have tuned out what’s happening around us.”  - Julienne B. Ryan, p. 22  ...

“In many cities of the country there’s a fear of the streets especially if there’s disorder and things are in disarray. In many organizations there is a fear of management. No small part of this is du...

“Business leaders have only so many days in a year, and every action has a clock attached to it.”  - Flow, p. 30   The central premise of Flow by Dr. Robert Handfield and Tom Linton is that ...

“Because technology has become an extension of the knowledge worker’s business and personal life, it has become apparent that to separate the two is not just pointless, it is impossible.” (p. 15) &nbs...

This week’s webinar notes are from an April 9^th event presented by Puridiom and Lunney Advisory group. Dr. Soheila Lunney, the president of Lunney Advisory Group and the primary presenter, addressed a number of topics related to a professional environment that increasingly emphasizes collaboration and partnership over the aggressive winner take all approach.

Dr. Lunney is also the co-author of The Procurement Game Plan with Charles Dominick of the Next Level Purchasing Association. You can read my review of the book here, as well as Part 1 and Part 2 of our interview with Dr. Lunney.

This week’s notes are from an October 16^th Procurement Leaders webinar featuring the results of their latest research into procurement talent. It is not yet available on demand, but it should eventually be listed here.

This absolutely fantastic webinar was presented by PL Research Director Maggie Slowik. We all know talent is an ongoing issue for procurement contributors, managers, and executive leaders. In my recommendation of the event on Blog Talk Radio, I shared two sadly common views of procurement talent taken from the books I have reviewed:

“Some executives used to think of procurement as the place you send staff away in order to never see them again.” – Leading Procurement Strategy, Carlos Mena, Remko van Hoek, and Martin Christopher

“You see, many procurement departments have been staffed in the same manner as the Island of Misfit Toys; when an employee did not perform elsewhere in the organization and the management didn't have the heart to dire him or her, that employee was sent to work in the procurement department” – The Procurement Game Plan, Charles Dominick, Dr. Soehila Lunney