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How do you break a brick with your palm?
I am amazed to see Karate practitioners break a solid brick with a single stroke of their palm. It is a skill which takes consistent and deliberate practice to master it.
I was surprised when an instructor in a training program encouraged the participants to try it out. Since all of us were new to Karate, we thought it was impossible. The only saving grace was that the brick in this case was thinner. We were, nevertheless, scared to even try it out.
The instructor gave us two specific instructions. Firstly, focus on the energy in your palm before striking. Secondly, aim not at the brick, but at a point below it. Most of us could break it!
What do we learn from it in managing supply chains?
Firstly, focus is extremely important. If we want to improve customer service levels, we must focus our energy on this improvement instead of spreading it out thin across multiple smaller improvement initiatives.
Secondly, aim to overachieve the specific objective. If your current OTIF is 90% and you want to improve it to 95%, aim for say 97%. Processes and actions should be designed for 97%. OTIF of 95% will then be just an intermediate objective to cross!