A recent LinkedIn discussion addressed the question of the best strategy for dealing with poor supplier performance. A lot of the respondents seemed to advocate a punitive approach, either threatening the loss of future business if performance doesn’t improve, or combing through the terms & conditions in the contract for enforcement language. I’ve always thought that there’s a lot of similarity between managing suppliers and managing subordinates, and I wonder if some of these same people threaten their teams with punitive actions when individual performance doesn’t meet expectations. Continue reading →