In 1971, Judah Folkman, a doctor working in Boston, developed a new approach to treat cancer – essentially by stopping the blood vessels supplying the tumors. Blocking the flow, he concluded, would halt the growth of the tumors.
At the time, the only accepted and endorsed approach to treating cancer was chemotherapy. Dr Folkman’s idea was scorned and ridiculed by the medical establishment consisting of a group of PhD insiders – mostly from the field of biology.
According to Dr Folkman, when he attempted to share his idea and thinking to the scientific community, the entire room would get up and leave – as if, collectively, they all had to take a piss at the exact same time. Over time, the criticism got so bad that special committees were developed to review his ideas and not only judged his idea to be of little value, they also threatened to revoke his medical license if he did not cease – in one letter, writing to him to reject his ideas and calling him a ‘clown’.
Folkman, however, was undaunted and pressed on. Painstakingly, his ideas were slowly starting to be accepted by more “open” thinkers and eventually morphed into drugs available for cancer trials. To his credit, in the summer of 2003, at a major medical conference, the results from a large trial for patients with advanced colon cancer validated Dr. Folkman’s thinking.
The way to treat cancer had been transformed. At the event, the crowd rose in a standing ovation. The presenter, at the time, said, to the effect, “it’s a shame that Dr. Folkman couldn’t be here to experience this” – little did he know that, sitting in a back row, Dr. Folkman had just smiled.
Eventually he couldn’t hide his fame and was asked about his achievement – which had taken the better part of 32 years. Most folks wanted to know how he felt and why he continued on his journey in light of all the criticism and personal attacks.
His answers were and still are very insightful.
First, in terms of the ridicule he proclaimed, “You can always tell the leader of new thinking from all the arrows in their ass”.
And even more profound about why he never gave up: “There are no experts of the future.”
Presently we’re living through an unprecedented time and there are a lot of questions about the future – how will the world look after the virus is subdued and what will the new normal look like? Some of these questions are focused on retail and supply chain management.
How will consumers change their behaviors? How much sales will be transacted online? Will home delivery become even more significant? Will supply chain networks become more diverse and less susceptible to a single country’s supply disruption? What other customer delivery methods will emerge?
All good questions for which my answer is the same as yours, “I really don’t know”. In my opinion, a lot will change, I’m just not sure where, when, how much and how fast.
Remember, “There are no experts of the future”.
What I do know is that human behavior will not change. We are social animals and like and need to acquire stuff. We just might shift, perhaps dramatically over time, how we go about this.
For us supply chain planners – especially retailers – that means having the supply chain driven by and connected to consumer demand will be crucial. As consumer demand shifts and evolves having a complete model of the business and providing longer term visibility to all stakeholders will be a core capability – both in the short to medium term but also longer term to proactively plan for and respond to the next disruption.
Wait a minute…that sounds like Flowcasting, doesn’t it?