Trip to Vancouver

This week included a whirlwind trip to Canada (I prefer "Canadia," but I don't think the locals would appreciate it). Over the summer, through a friend of a friend, I heard about a teaching opportunity for the University of British Columbia. UBC was running an executive education program called "Accelerated Leadership Program" and needed someone to teach the Operations portion of it. My friend passed my name on to the program organizer and he told me that they wanted a 3 hour course to address "Operations and Logistics Management in the New Millennium." More specifically, they wanted me to address the 3 or 4 major issues in Operations that someone gunning for a C-Level executive position (CEO, COO, CFO, etc...) would absolutely need to know about as they moved up. I thought that sounded intriguing, as did the pay and the chance to travel not just to Vancouver, but to Whistler - the premier mountain biking and ski resort in Canada (well, at least I think it is). They even said that I could schedule some time for mountain biking after teaching, if I wanted. Woo hoo! Get paid to teach and then go mountain biking!!

Some things didn't work out so nicely; e.g., the mountain was completely closed while I was there - no mountain biking, no skiing/snowboarding, no hiking...nothing! zero...zip...noodle! (Veggies Tales reference) I had planned to take Zach with me to go mountain biking, but with no mountain activities I had to leave him home (yes, he was sad).

So, passport in hand - I jumped on a plane on Tuesday morning for my 2 hour and 40 minute plane ride to Vancouver. Most people will find that somewhat unremarkable, but 2 hours and 40 minutes on an airplane is not good for me with my vertigo issues. I did Ok, however; loaded up my iPhone with episodes of Pushing Daisies, Monk, Colbert Report, Wait Wait Don't tell me, and a rented movie. Once I arrived in Vancouver I stood in line for Canadian customs for about an hour, then rented a car (Lincoln MKX - pretty nice car. Alamo gave me a deal on it because I was a first time renter with them) and went to pick up another faculty member who needed a ride to Whistler. She lives in a beautiful Vancouver neighborhood where the trees have grown over to create a canopy over her street. Everything was in fall colors and just beautiful. It also felt great to get out of the heat! It was 94 degrees when I left Phoenix and about 60 when I arrived in Vancouver. Picture is of the neighborhood with the tree canopy.

It was a nice 2 and a half hour drive to Whistler. Beautiful mountain scenery along the bays and inlets in Vancouver. The funny thing was that I hadn't really paid attention to what hotel was hosting the event. I guess I figured that if the program hadn't really told me, then I would be able to just sort of figure it out when I got there. I was sure lucky to have a rider with me because she remembered vaguely that someone might have said the classes were to be at the Westin, but we didn't know where that was and didn't have directions. Whistler is tucked nicely into the mountains and makes for a very scenic place, but it makes it difficult to find what you're looking for! Hooray for the iPhone - I googled the Westin Whistler and it gave me a map and directions and got us there uneventfully. Tragedy averted (Thanks, Steve)! We also didn't know where in the hotel the classes were held, but the front desk was very helpful and pointed us in the right direction. After meeting our hosts and getting some initial helpful information I headed to the restaurant for dinner (Beef Carpaccio with truffle oil, parmesan and micro greens and a braised lamb shank with mashed sweet potatoes, eggplant and tomatoes. The carpaccio was interesting - didn't think raw beef could be very good, but it was, and the lamb was only ok. But the sweet potatoes were good). (Picture is the view from my balcony)

Next morning I ate breakfast and headed to class. There were only 14 students there (instead of the 20 - 35 they had hoped to have) so it was a nice, cozy sort of atmosphere. They had been there for 3 days already but were eager to learn and were active in discussions and sharing their experiences so the class went very well. I also did a shortened version of my BirdCorp operations/team dynamics hands-on activity (in sum: teams compete to build, decorate and test paper airplanes of a very challenging design) and they got into it and had a lot of fun. I am still waiting for formal feedback, but the informal feedback from the organizer was that all comments were positive. I hope that bodes well and maybe even is worth an invitation for next year.

My 3 hours up, I wandered the ski village (well, in this case, "wet walker" village since there rain instead of snow) and looked at shops and bought souvenirs. I found a great little local soup and bread deli and had some lunch. I really enjoyed this part because it was cool, drizzly, and mountainous. I haven't really missed the Northwest for a long time, but this trip sure made me miss it! I wanted to move back right away (well, except for the whole "job" thing and the fact that Vancouver is insanely expensive - worse than Southern Cal).

Once my rideshare friend finished her teaching, we headed back down the mountain (2 1/2 hours again) to Vancouver where I dropped her off and headed for my hotel. At this point, the travel was getting to me. I was tired, stomach hurting, vertigo was ok but in danger of getting worse, and I had to be at the airport by about 6:00 AM the next morning. Not a good combination. I just ordered some room service, and vegged in front of the TV, ironed my shirt and went to bed (great detail, eh?).

I was late in the morning, of course, by about 45 minutes or so. What I didn't know was that I would be passing through US customs at the Vancouver airport before getting on the plane (unlike going through customs on arrival on the way up). Yikes! It had taken me an hour the first time with the Canadian government and if it took longer than about 30 minutes I was going to miss my flight. Lucky for me, there aren't many people at the Vancouver airport at 7:00 AM on a Thursday and I breezed through customs with about 20 minutes before my flight. The flight home was, well, tolerable and I made it home safe and (somewhat) sound. I've been exhausted the past 2 days so I'm probably still recovering, but it should get better.

one last comment - I'll be getting paid in Canadian dollars. Back in September this was a good thing because the Loony was worth more than the Greenback (1.1 US dollars per Canadian). However, in the interim that relationship has been sadly reversed and it's only about .81 US for a Canadian dollar. :-( Here's cheering the Canadian dollar over the next month (until I cash my check)!

Here's a short summary of what I taught (see, I put it here on the end for those who don't want to read this part):

I created 4 "takeaways" or lessons that I felt they needed to understand. To illustrate these lessons, I gave them two readings dealing with Robert Nardelli's short and stormy tenure as CEO at Home Depot a few years ago.

Takeaway #1: "Back to the Future"

Approaching the next millennium without having learned the lessons of the last millennium is a recipe for operational impairment. There are many companies (Home Depot, included) that were doing well and growing large, but they don't seem to have tried to apply basic operational concepts as taught in an introductory MBA program: Economies of scale, Just-in-time inventory, consistent performance measurement, etc... These are the basics and not having considered them and how they should be performed at your company puts you at a disadvantage with other companies that are using the concepts.

Takeway #2: "Deep Change"

Companies must seek to implement innovative change commensurate with the level of learning and maturity within the organization. “Too much – too fast” or “too little – too late;” both result in unrecognized operational gains. There are tools available to help managers figure out how ready their organization is for implementing operational change (needed to apply the concepts in takeaway #1). If you try too much, too quickly or too little, too late, you will only alienate the employees and hobble your performance. One can consider the changes that Robert Nardelli made at Home Depot as necessary, but were done too quickly and the organization wasn't ready for it; maybe a different approach, but still making necessary changes, would have been more successful.

Takeaway #3: "Culture Clash"
Management style and leadership methods must be tailored to operational approach; a mismatch can result in failure despite independently good leaders and good operations. This is the basic message of my SandCorp (http://www.sandcorp.biz/) and BirdCorp activities. Too much to summarize here.

Takeaway #4: "Knowledge is Power"
Complete knowledge of and accountability for every level of the supply chain will be a necessity to operate in a world of sustainability, social responsibility and consumer awareness. Many recent examples of supply chain problems - salmonella on tomatoes or peppers, melamine in milk in China, lead paint in Mattel toys, toxic metals in Sony Playstation controllers - all arose because there were parts of the supply chain that companies had no knowledge of. They didn't have the control necessary to monitor what was happening at those levels and it came back to bite them in the end. With the world's increased focus on sustainability, toxic ingredients and social responsibility, corporations are going to have to vastly increase their knowledge and control of their whole supply chain to avoid nasty, costly, damaging (to them and others) problems.

So, there you have it. There were students who knew none of this, some who knew some, and a few who knew quite a bit. There were those that had good experiences to relate with the topics discussed, and some who had negative experiences. In all cases, I think it gave us a great chance to discuss it, how those negative experiences could have been positive and how the positive experiences can be built upon. The notion of the course was to get students thinking about these issues and what they can do about them in their organizations as they move up. There were several people who clearly responded to the material and told me afterward that it was going to be something that would help them. You could see in their eyes how their brains were turning thinking about how to use the information when they got back to work and in the future. So, I was happy to see that.