I want to share with you today a time where I was called on to go against my authentic self. You know that time when the job or your boss tells you to do something that just does not sit well with you? I am sure some of you can relate, if not with the story, then with the feelings it left you with.
I accepted a contract position at a company who had just been bought by a JV. They had hopes of great things occurring and I bought into this vision whole heartedly. The company looked sound, the Procurement Director, is still today one of the best that I have ever worked with and for, but the company, OY! Rotten!
Once I started working there, the shine quickly wore off. My role was Category Management for a number of direct inputs. We were in manufacturing. On day 2 of me being there, I get a call from the production guy saying that the supplier had failed to deliver the stocks to be used on a job that was scheduled that afternoon. I get on the phone with the supplier representative and he tells me to call his Accounts Department because they made the decision to stop supply. Remember, our whole production line will come to a standstill because if I do not get the stock delivered. I needed to sort out this issue immediately. I get on the call with their Accounts team and they tell me that our account is overdue by 90 days and furthermore the last time they were promised payment, they were only paid half of what they were owed, so if we wanted them to deliver the inputs, we needed to settle the account that day or go look for another supplier. Do you recognize this scenario?
Luckily, the company did have other suppliers, but they did not have enough stock to deliver or they wanted us to pay upfront for the stock because we had defaulted on payments previously. This did not just happen this one time, it happened at least 10 times in the first month I was there. Not only that, but Procurement was managing the whole supply chain and as the production facilities were 24 hours, you had to be on call 24 hours because of continued supplier issues. Over the 3 months of this contract, I had done the following to suppliers: I begged, I cajoled, I pleaded, I incentivizes, I threatened and to top it all, I had to tell half-truths i.e. yes the check is in the mail. Needless to say, this situation went against who I am as a person and when they asked me to continue with the contract, I refused and got out. Too late though, because it still bothers me that I was party to this type of organization.
This is an episode that I am not proud of, but the lessons I learned here propelled me to a) look at the company I am going to contract with more carefully before accepting a position, b) you need to be curious about how the things happen that “do not concern you”. For example, how often do we Procurement people speak to or get to understand our own internal Accounts Teams, do we know that when we are negotiating on payment terms with suppliers whether the Accounts team or our own authorization systems or processes will actually allow them to honour these assurances we have given our suppliers? Do we know that if we do not clear a query on an invoice that they cannot do their job and pay our suppliers in a timely manner? Do we know that if they do not pay the suppliers, then the company’s credit rating gets negatively affected? Same goes for knowing about our Production-, R&D-, Customer Service-, Marketing-departments etc. Be curious about all aspects of your organization and your suppliers’ organizations as this could help you make personal and professional decisions which will not go against your personal ethics. If your organization does ask this of you, RUN, RUN fast in the other direction.
