opinion AMHSA l Thinking ahead
In this month’s article in the series from members of the Automated Material Handling Systems Association (AMHSA), Mike Vernon, President of AMHSA, muses on how to think differently to get ahead of the competition.
W
ell, it’s finally here – 2012, the year of the London Olympics. This will be an event that will make us truly
proud to be British. Our success will not just be in the infrastructure and general event management but also, hopefully, in the athletic prowess of team GB. We tend to think of athletics being about ultra-fit bodies locked in physical combat. In reality, however, it is more of a mind game conducted by people with athletic prowess.
“To be successful in business, you have to think like a winner to be a winner.”
Think differently
Possibly the greatest example of this mind game that I can think of took place at the 1991 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. At that event, the USA 4 x 400 metres team was the favourite for the gold medal. They had the previous results and the physiological edge over the silver medal contender, Great Britain. On the eve of the race, the GB team – Roger Black, Derek Redmond, John Regis and Kriss Akabusi – met for a tactics meeting. Up until that time, the natural running order for a relay race was the slowest – if you count a difference of hundredths of a second as slow! – followed by each faster runner, with the last leg being run by the fastest man.
The GB team decided that night to run the race in the opposite order – fastest first to slowest last, thus
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changing the race somewhat from a physical endeavour to a mind game.
Mind games
The first the USA quartet knew of the change was as the teams lined up for the starting gun. The first
psychological advantage was gained. The USA favourites were, you might say, mentally wrong-footed. The race started and team GB went into an immediate lead but, on paper, the Americans should have overhauled them on the last leg.
Now the second psychological advantage came into play. Each runner in the USA team was further behind his UK counterpart than he had ever trained or planned for. At the same time, the British runners were further ahead of their USA rivals than they had ever trained for. The result was a close but clear win – by four hundredths of a second – with the gold medal going to team GB.
The mind game element was a very powerful tool brought into play by the last-minute tactical change in the game plan.
Think like a winner
This story reminds me of a famous poem called ‘Think Big’, the opening line of which is: ‘If you think you are beaten, you are’.
To be successful in business, you have to think like a winner to be a winner. It is not where your company is now that counts but where you want it to be; this vision is what should drive you on.
If you think of your company as a second runner, then it probably will be a second runner. As in the athletics
example, the difference between being the best and second-best can be very small. This means that even minor improvements can make your company a winner.
Key areas in which such competitive advantage can be gained today include customer service and logistics. Automation is a great way to improve customer service and lower handling costs per unit, so logistics professionals need to keep updated on the changing technological possibilities for the warehouse.
Keep informed
If you want to find out what is likely to happen during the next five years in terms of automation and software advances for logistics, I invite you to attend the AMHSA 2012 Symposium – entitled ‘Future Material Handling’ – on 2nd May at Silverstone.
With a keynote speech from Lord Digby Jones, formerly director general of the CBI and Minister of UK Trade & Investment, the event will feature presentations from Tom Hebbert, supply chain system and development director (UK and Ireland) at Tesco; Jason Keegan, head of general merchandise logistics at Marks and Spencer; Brian McDill, solutions and operational director at Norbert Dentressangle; and Professor David Menachof of Hull University Business School.
There will also be the opportunity for company directors, owners and senior managers to debate the issues that affect their businesses. For more details or to book one of the limited number of delegate places, please visit our website. ●
www.amhsa.co.uk
opinion
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