The Supply Chain Dialogues started in early 2023 with a simple idea: turn four decades of executive experience into structured conversations about what actually goes wrong in operations, supply chains, procurement, and corporate design — and what to do about it.
Season 1 laid the groundwork. Working with AI co-host Amy, the episodes walked through the core questions that reveal blind spots in any organisation: where value leaks, where processes break down, and where leadership gaps hide in plain sight.
Season 2 opened the door to guests. Practitioners and academics joined the conversation — on sustainability, GHG emissions, digital transformation, leadership, and the harder questions that rarely make it into management meetings.
Season 3 went deeper into sustainability and the path to Net Zero, exploring the human, organisational, and market forces that determine whether companies actually change — or just report change.
Season 4 drew directly on doctoral research into GHG emission reduction in discrete manufacturing. The findings challenged much of the conventional wisdom around regulation, measurement, and organisational size — and pointed toward what actually works.
All episodes are available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, with full transcripts available here.
S02E16 - People - Sharpen the Saw II or: Seven brilliant functional page-turners and one book on dysfunctional teams
Henry Ford once stated: "Anyone who ceases to learn becomes old, whether at twenty or eighty."
During his era, he played a role similar to what Steve Jobs did in recent decades. He had to continuously acquire new knowledge because nothing he embarked upon was predetermined - learning was the only constant he could rely on.
One can even trace this concept further back, as exemplified by Socrates: “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
Or, in the words of the brilliant B.B. King: "The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you."
In this segment, we have curated seven outstanding functional books encompassing IT, operations, quality, and procurement, alongside one book discussing dysfunctional teams.
Enjoy!