Blacklisting healthcare supply chain leadership

By Rick Dana Barlow

If someone were to ask who might be the ideal, if not optimal, supply chain executive or leader, the person cited may not be who you might expect.

Granted, you'd have to overlook his lingering and long-standing ethical and legal problems, but for the most part this character has consistently demonstrated a keen capability of providing customer service effectively, efficiently and quickly. Who is this remarkable person? Alas, he's fictional, but perhaps serves as an end-game expert to emulate. He is covert FBI informant and criminal mastermind-mastermind criminal (or anti-hero?) Raymond "Red" Reddington, played by actor James Spader on NBC's "The Blacklist," which completed its 10th and final season earlier this year.

Yes, you read that right. Perhaps the epitome of supply chain performance "excellence" resides within a fictional character with a dubious origin rooted in the military, but with an unwavering dedication to loyalty and an uncanny ability to deliver ... just about anything and anyone.

Red makes things happen. He's not just the guy who's got a guy. People, by and large, don't like those kinds of guys because they never do anything on their own. They're unreliable. They always got a guy to whom they can pawn you off without recompence and responsibility. They are accountable for nothing, save for a shrug when things go south.

Sure, Red's always got a guy, but Red is THE guy. Any guy he has and relies on simply answers to him. And when that guy fails to deliver, he's not a guy anymore — for anyone. While that doesn't translate well for job security if you fail to be loyal, reliable, trustworthy and truthful, it does reinforce the goal of being an honorable service provider.

Red simply gets things done.

What C-suite executive, department head, doctor/physician/surgeon, nurse, sales representative, etc., wouldn't want to deal with/work with someone like that?

What makes him THE GUY?

1. He's established and grown contacts and professional relationships everywhere, which arguably requires a lot of dedication, devotion, effort, energy, time and travel. And he is/was a relatively healthy, middle-aged man.
2. He knows just enough about seemingly everything — largely based on conversations and personal experiences.
3. He remembers details about everyone — particularly likes and dislikes, preferences, family members, etc. — of his clients, contacts and personal and professional relationships.
4. Fortified with Nos. 2 and 3, he can make small talk with virtually anyone, filling in those awkward gaps and bouts of silence when they emerge during conversational lulls.
5. As we witnessed during the final two seasons of the show, he's fully capable of successfully managing, operating, running — and controlling — his vast business operations globally on digital and analog frameworks. We're all interconnected online now, but when he wanted to go "dark" or "off the grid" he strategically "innovated" by tactically switching his vast global empire over to facsimile machines and telephone lines so that he could party like it was 1979.
6. When crises emerged — or more accurately, erupted — he was able to think with agility and speed, quickly pivoting to any one of multiple alternative solutions, which means he conjured up plenty of backup and contingency plans ahead of time, a credit to his foresight, which could be applied to demand planning.
7. People inherently and innately knew they could rely on him even when things grew desperate, nonsensical or out of control. Red consistently was at least one step ahead — maybe two.
8. During the last two seasons when he decided to "wind down" the businesses that constituted his vast criminal empire, he did it in a way that took care of all of his employees and people who relied on him, numbering in the thousands around the globe.

So am I suggesting that to be a top-notch supply chain executive and leader in healthcare that you have to be a felonious ne-er-do-well? Nopity-nope-nope-nope! Focus on the spirit of the example and not the letter of the example.

First off, Red's story merely represents just that — an entertaining story. It's not reality, nor is it realistically believable unless you have the mental, physical and problem-solving skills of Batman or a host of others on the super-hero circuit.

Secondly, a significant part of that entertaining story involves criminality and abundant access to ill-gotten gains, billions and billions of dollars that snicker at the expense control demands of the modern-day supply chain professional. To Red, money really is no object. If he doesn't like the way you do business, he easily can buy your business, fire you and have his people dispatch you in clever and creative ways.

Thirdly, his resources — beyond cash — seem virtually endless to the point of being absurdly convenient. Not an episode went by without a deus ex machina or McGuffin saving the day. (No, not MacGyver, but that could be useful, too.) Google all three terms, if necessary.

What makes Red work and serve as an example is his attitude, his motivations and his willingness to serve as well as his success in delivering even more reliably than the mailman. Sure, it may be easier for him to perform because of the seemingly bottomless and endless array of resources at his disposal. If even the most marginally skilled, talented and train supply chain pro had similar access, he or she would be able to achieve success but for a short while.

Still, there are plenty in this industry who are not blessed or graced with seemingly bottomless and endless resources, but their willingness to care, to deliver and to serve appears to be boundless. And that is a credit to their character, to the people who serve with (above and under, too) them and to the patients benefiting from their direct and indirect intelligence.

It's one of the few times where being in the Red is as good as being in the black.