Interview Story - Received Negative Feedback

When I was working at BlackBerry as Team Lead for Supply Chain Specialists, Celestica came on board as one of the new manufacturing outsourcing partners alongside 3 other partners. My team was assigned to manage Celestica, on everything related to material issues and the supply chain. Many BlackBerry directors were working for Celestica previously, so both companies’ senior management were in close relationships and knew each other well.

There was a problem. The Celestica team in Monterrey, Mexico was not transparent and was trying to hide material supply problems. Every time a critical material issue popped up and impacted production, they didn’t follow the escalation path we agreed to during the initial training. Instead, the problem was communicated directly to BlackBerry senior management to escalate, without informing me about the issue.

Many problems could have been prevented if they came to my team in advance. We could help them with escalations to vendors, allocations, and stock transfers from other partners, which were some of our daily responsibilities. The situation made my team look like we didn’t know what is happening and that BlackBerry was not giving enough support to Celestica to succeed. Celestica was missing production and impacted the delivery schedule to BlackBerry customers.

I decided to correct the problem by sending an email where I emphasized the escalation process again and asking them to follow it. It came across pretty strong, sounding like I was ordering them what to do.

My manager told me I should have approached the situation differently. He agreed that I was right on the point I was trying to make, but with the wrong approach. Since this was a new collaboration, it could damage the relationship with Celestica.

I asked him for advice, what he thought I should have done better. Together we came up with a plan. I invited the Celestica Supply Chain Director for a meeting in our Toronto office, She had a lot of authority with their factories. We explained the problem and the proper escalation process we want them to follow and guidelines. She agreed and promised to help implement it.

We followed up together with a conference call with the team in Mexico and made sure everyone is on the same page on the escalation process. Soon enough the collaboration became much smoother and I built over time a good relationship with Celestica which was very beneficial to both sides. Later on, when Celestica was looking to fill their factory Purchasing Manager position, their Supply Chain Director took my recommendation to promote one of the senior buyers who I thought had a lot of potential. He proved to be one of the people I best collaborated with during my career.

I learned when you start a new collaboration, you need to build trust and can’t expect everyone to know and understand the expectations. Take the time to explain, make sure their expectations are communicated internally to the whole team and understood at all levels, plus accepted and supported by management.