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The Responsible Supply Chain Show is a must-hear podcast for insights and strategies on building ethics and sustainability into global supply chains. Each episode delves into the challenges and opportunities businesses face as they strive to create more responsible, transparent, and environmentally friendly supply chains. From innovative sourcing and trade disruptions to reducing carbon footprints and combating modern slavery, we explore the critical issues that define the future of global commerce.
Welcome to the responsible supply chain show where we explore the world of responsible sourcing and resilient supply chains. I'm your host, Justin Dillon. And in each episode, we'll dive into real stories from some of the world's best business, government, and thought leaders protecting people, planet, and province. Let's get it. Alright.
Justin Dillon:Episode 18. Good to be here. I am just back from one of my favorite cities, Chicago. I got to speak last week at a, a conference. I don't I I used to conference hard.
Justin Dillon:I mean, I conferenced. I used to be really good at conferencing. I have very much lost my sea legs at conferencing. I booked my tickets wrong. I literally booked my tickets in reverse.
Justin Dillon:When I went to check-in, my tickets were going the wrong wrong way. I'm not afraid to admit that, but I did. I fixed it. Thank you, United. You take care of me.
Justin Dillon:Fixed that. Just I'm getting back into shape, but figuring it out. Got that worked out a little bit more aware. Got to the conference. Connect House, a very cool procurement group out there that I think is doing conferences well.
Justin Dillon:Connect House with a K. Check them out. They did a tech sourcing conference in Chicago. Good group of people. You didn't go?
Justin Dillon:Really? You weren't there? I didn't see. I I did meet a few people who who listened to the podcast. That's kinda cool to meet people out in the in the real world as it were.
Justin Dillon:Well, my if you if you did go, you'd also see you'd you'd you'd know that I don't have my sea legs because my my slides were screwed up. But you know what? Don't that's alright. It's all good. I spoke here's my title.
Justin Dillon:It was a great title. The New World Order of Hypertransparent Supply Chains. How Supply Chain Transparency is Changing the Chessboard for Business and Governments. That is a great title. What does that mean?
Justin Dillon:Well, listener, it means that yours truly has lived in the greatest era of supply chains the world has ever known, the globalized supply chain. That's right. I've been the beneficiary, and probably you have as well, as in the era of the globalized supply chain. What does that mean? We've lived in the era of fast, cheap, good.
Justin Dillon:We've been able to get anything we want from anywhere we want at just about any time we want, not just Amazon, but just the world has come to our doorstep. And that is, we think we are so entitled, and we think that that is how the world works. And boy, boy, oh boy, oh boy, the last couple years, we've just kind of woken up and gone, what? Tariffs? Snarls?
Justin Dillon:Pandemic? What? Supply chains? Yeah, the world actually doesn't work that way or hasn't worked that way. And now I believe we're entering into a very different world I'm calling the post globalized supply chain.
Justin Dillon:I'm sure I'm not the only one who's come up with that title. And my talk was we are exiting the world of fast, cheap, and good, and we're entering a new world, a post globalized supply chain world, where the rules are quite different. The new rules kind of resemble resilience, control, and sustainability, but not the same sustainability that you're thinking of, the 2023 political football sustainability. The new rules of this post globalized supply chain around where it used to be about cost reduction, now it's about risk reduction. It used to be about being able to get things from anywhere, and now it's about getting things closer.
Justin Dillon:It used to be about burning up as much fuel as you can, now it's about burning as little fuel as you can to control costs. So things are different. The world is working different. And the truth is, the reality is, it might actually be going in the right direction. Sometimes things change and you think of like, Oh my God, it's changing.
Justin Dillon:It must be getting worse. It actually might be getting better. And that's a great transition. To talk about how things might be getting better, we have on our show today Melissa Carher. She is the senior supply senior, emphasis on senior.
Justin Dillon:She is the senior supply chain responsibility and human rights manager at AMD, an American semiconductor company who recently announced a major multiyear deal with OpenAI to power its next generation AI infrastructure to the tune of six megawatts. That sounds like a lot of megawatts. She is here to share how she and her team build responsible sourcing practices into AMD supply chain. I found her to be both intelligent and curious. That's a great combo, especially for the times we are living in.
Justin Dillon:So I do hope you enjoy our conversation. Melissa, thank you for coming on the Responsible Supply Chain Show. It's good to see you.
Melissa Caraher:I'm excited to be here. I am one of your listeners. So when you asked to be a guest, was flattered. So thanks for
Justin Dillon:having me. Wow. It's always been my dream to hear that. You hear that on podcasts and here it is. I'm done.
Justin Dillon:Can quit. Where am I finding you today?
Melissa Caraher:I'm at my home office in Austin, Texas.
Justin Dillon:I think that's number three for me. I think it's number three for me in places I'd be okay with living. I love it, except in July. Is that where the bats when did the bats come out of the bridge?
Melissa Caraher:July. They're pretty active in this summertime. Yeah. Yes.
Justin Dillon:I didn't didn't know that. And I was coming up Congress one day to go eat something downtown and everyone was standing around and nobody warned me. What's about to happen? And listeners, if you've never been to Austin in July, what's that bridge? We should warn everyone.
Melissa Caraher:It's the Congress Avenue Bridge.
Justin Dillon:Congress Avenue Bridge in July around sunset, right?
Melissa Caraher:Yes, around sunset. You'll see the crowd gathering. So know that crowd the vast
Justin Dillon:gathering, beware. You're gonna see something just biblical. It's next level. Alright, we're not here to talk about bats or bridges, we're here to talk about responsible sourcing. So I this is just a chance for our listeners to learn from what I understand, one of the best in the business.
Justin Dillon:I want to hear a little bit about kind of what a little quick overview of your career very quickly, maybe like two minutes, like leading up to your current role. I know roles change quickly. Your current role as supply chain responsibility manager at AMD. Is that your current role? Is there something is it bigger?
Melissa Caraher:I'm the senior manager now, but the task is still task is still the Yeah.
Justin Dillon:Good. Well, let's talk about how you got here.
Melissa Caraher:Yeah. No, I'm happy to. Yeah. So my first career out of college was actually in cultural exchange. So I was helping students come to The US on a variety of different programs actually run through the state department, whether they were going to be an au pair, so a live in nanny for a year or two, or a high school student who wanted to study here or a college student who wanted to work at a great America over the summer and essentially get to experience America, practice or perfect their English and build a resume and have some fun.
Melissa Caraher:That actually led me to being able to travel abroad. And because I was the one working with our business partners who were recruiting those students. And what that did for me was give me a whole eye opener into the developing world and what globalization was doing. I mean, this was back in 2007, 'eight, 'nine, were some of my earlier trips down to Brazil, Colombia, really a lot in Latin America. And it was just an eye opener for me.
Melissa Caraher:Had lived in Europe, but the developing world is a different ballgame. So I quit my job. I packed up my boxes from California, shipped them home to Chicago and put myself on an airplane for about a year and a half where I lived throughout Latin America. Started out teaching English in Santiago, Chile and ultimately ended up in Cochabamba, Bolivia. And it was during that time that I was working with an NGO and working with farmers and I was learning about quinoa actually.
Justin Dillon:And
Melissa Caraher:that was
Justin Dillon:Little rice?
Melissa Caraher:Little rice. Rice. It's like a chennel pot or I always say it wrong, but yeah, quinoa is ultimately what led me to where I am today because I just became fascinated with supply chains. How does this little known crop that's from essentially from the Andes, so Peru and Bolivia, how is it making its way into eventually like a McDonald's or every grocery store shelf? And what did it do to those people?
Melissa Caraher:Ultimately, I wrote my master's thesis on unintended consequences of positives and negatives of entering into a global economy. And that really allowed me to career change into responsible sourcing.
Justin Dillon:Wait, to I worry about quinoa?
Melissa Caraher:You don't need to worry about quinoa. I still have a special place in my heart for the Bolivian farmers who
Justin Dillon:are
Melissa Caraher:protecting that, that's where it's from.
Justin Dillon:All right, gosh.
Melissa Caraher:Well, I'm particular about the quinoa I buy, but in general it's healthy and
Justin Dillon:gonna put some notes in the comments section where to buy quinoa. Okay, let's just make sure we'll tell people where to buy quinoa.
Melissa Caraher:Okay. Sure. Yeah. Parlayed that into a company. I was back in San Francisco at this point where a lot of sustainability was and still is kind of taking place.
Melissa Caraher:And there is a company called Laborlink that was partially funded by Fair Trade USA. So they liked my fascination with quinoa over there and hired me on to what I was doing was actually selling, trying to sell, we sold some worker surveys to multinational corporations across tech and apparel and food and ag. And the idea was and still is, is to bring worker voice into audits.
Justin Dillon:How old is or how mature is the role of responsible sourcing at AMD?
Melissa Caraher:The role came up over a decade ago. So I'm not the first person to hold it. It did reside within corporate responsibility, which sits in legal for a number of years. Actually the person who created the role, many of your listeners may know his name, Tim Moen was the corporate responsibility director at AMD. And this was during the Dodd Frank era, conflict minerals, there were all that good stuff.
Melissa Caraher:And so it was also around the time that AMD changed its business model and went fabulous. So no longer manufacturing our own semiconductor chips, but spun that off into a business, a different business entirely and took on the fabless model. So there is a real need there then to monitor compliance to AMD's code of conduct for what was later our contract manufacturers.
Justin Dillon:Okay, okay, that's big. So, all right, so maybe you can give us a little bit of a day in the life of what a senior, let's be clear, senior responsible sourcing as opposed to just a mere junior, a senior responsible sourcing manager, like give us like, what does a week look like? What are you doing?
Melissa Caraher:The overall picture is supply chain due diligence, right? Which is now kind of referred to as human rights and environmental due diligence. And there's where all of us kind of line up to similar, the same international frameworks when we do this work, whether it's UN guiding principles, for example, running a risk assessment on existing supply chain or new suppliers. So putting that into our third party database and looking at what's an inherent risk of this supplier based on what they're going to provide to us, what product, where are they based? How is their workforce comprised?
Melissa Caraher:The next part of that process is looking at, okay, well, just because the supplier is risky doesn't mean we would recommend not doing business with them. In fact, there are times more often than not where we need to do business with them. And so my role becomes even that much more important because you're saying, well, how do we mitigate? How is the supplier mitigating some of that risk? And then for the risk that it's not, okay, let's talk to them about that and support them through that process.
Melissa Caraher:So a lot of my day, which begins in the evening because a lot of our suppliers are based in Asia is communicating with our suppliers, learning more about their programs. Maybe it's, I've looked at an audit report during the day and I've seen that they need help in X, Y, and Z area. So supplier engagement is a big piece, one of my favorite pieces of the job. And then lots of internal media. Why is
Justin Dillon:supply engagement? Why do you love that?
Melissa Caraher:I think it's where it ties into a bit of that international development piece of working with a different business, a different culture. I think it's that question part of my brain where I'm like, there's a challenge here and I want to dig and I want to dig into it and then help them find a solution.
Justin Dillon:Can I push into that a little bit?
Melissa Caraher:Sure.
Justin Dillon:Tell me if you think this is true. Is there, you know, in sourcing world, in the supply chain world, there seems to be a little bit of an Us, them line, Us being the buyers, them being Yes. And I think that's entirely human. That's how we organize safety as human beings is tribal, us, them. They're unsafe, we're safe.
Justin Dillon:We do it right. They do it quite That's how humans organise. And I think that gets in the way sometimes of trust, Especially to your point, someone who's you've never met, maybe in a place you've never been to, does things completely different. So we talk about risk, but I wanna hear how you build trust across without spending a lot of time with someone. I mean, a lot of trust, like really important trust.
Justin Dillon:So maybe you can tell me about how you bridge that us them divide by building trust?
Melissa Caraher:It's a great question. I'm glad that we can talk about this because I think there are different approaches to supplier management. I even feel it sitting in the role I'm in like where AMD sits in the supply chain. We have our customers and so I can feel like I'm the them and I'm getting pushed on. So that makes me, that's one reason why I think I'm just hyper mindful of that going into conversations that I don't I don't want to drive the conversation that way.
Melissa Caraher:I also learned by living abroad was really taught me some invaluable skills. You're vulnerable when you don't know that culture, you don't know the language, and you certainly don't want to be treated as that outsider. So, you know, I bring that perspective of, like, remember when the roles were reversed and I was the one that kind of didn't know anything or, you know, couldn't communicate, like, how would I wanna be treated? And then just trial and error. I did not always operate this way.
Melissa Caraher:You know, bringing a decade's worth of international business experience to this role, I think, also helped me. So helpful. Because I you're working across cultures, whether you're talking about does it really matter the topic so much? I've had to learn that part of responsible sourcing and the industry procurement speak, but the way you speak to people.
Justin Dillon:We have not we're so not self reflective in the supply chain responsibility space because our primary lingua franca is one-sided questions via questionnaires. If you think about it, it's borderline imperialism where this is our primary communication. We're going to ask you questions you're going to answer.
Melissa Caraher:You better answer them in this set timeframe or else.
Justin Dillon:Or else you don't make money. And it has huge consequences for your business, your life, your family, like these are big, right? Yeah, totally. I agree, I think that there's a lot of room to, and I love what you're saying here, there's a lot of room to improve how to be human. After you've built trust, what soft diplomacy skills are you deploying that our listeners can learn from that is helping, assuming they've built trust with suppliers, How are you convincing people to do things that aren't in their top priorities?
Melissa Caraher:I think you have to flip the narratives. One of the things I caught when you said is, oh, this might not kind of help them be profitable. Your comment was along those lines, right? The narrative that I would counter to that and how I would pitch it to suppliers is that neither AMD nor the supplier will maintain our long term business relationship with a customer could be at risk if we don't meet this particular goal. And I think sticking with the emissions reduction is a great one.
Melissa Caraher:There's a lot of really respectable companies who have put out really challenging goals and they're sticking to them and they're pushing the rest of this supply chain. Kudos to them because then that means we then turn around and say to our suppliers, Hey, this isn't actually enough. What more can you do? And there's certainly difficult conversations, but the framing really always comes back to the end buyer is demanding this. And so this really is no longer a nice to have, like this is, we need you to do this.
Melissa Caraher:And so where can we negotiate? Maybe we negotiate on timeline, maybe, you know, sometimes there are so this is the procurement side that has taught me, you know, make that room for negotiation. There's, because again, I'm not a sourcing professional. I know responsible sourcing and business and human rights. And so this is the constant internal learning that I'm like, all right, well, if you were to negotiate price this way, what chips would you hold back?
Melissa Caraher:So maybe what chips do I hold back here knowing there's going to be some leeway moving forward?
Justin Dillon:That's great tip. That bringing negotiating of timelines. Because I think there's a, you know, we hear this a lot of, well, know, does it have teeth? Like you can demand this stuff, but like at the end of the day, if you really need it and the supplier knows that, you know, they don't and it's not a priority. But what you're saying is if you want to maintain a lot what every business wants is long term revenue, like revenue that they can count on over the long term.
Justin Dillon:That it sounds like that's what you're kind of holding over the barrel. Like if we want to have a long term relationship, this is the direction we need to go and we're not negotiating an if we're negotiating a when you hit these. Correct. Am I hearing you correctly? Yeah, exactly.
Justin Dillon:That sounds reasonable.
Melissa Caraher:Makes it sound a little more reasonable. Don't have to give it to me right now or yesterday, which you are going to give it to me. So let's talk about when it makes it less painless for you.
Justin Dillon:Yeah. Does it ever come up in the conversation of like, and by the way, we're not the only ones asking for this. You've got other customers that want that. Isn't a one off. Exactly.
Justin Dillon:Reducing your emissions literally is a bee in every one of your buyers' bonnets.
Melissa Caraher:Yes. Hugely important influencing factor. And there are times when we'll ask for something and we'll say, you know what? You'll see no one else is asking. And I'll say, not yet.
Melissa Caraher:We might be the first someone else is going to come. So let us help you prepare for that second ask.
Justin Dillon:Okay. So you've given everyone some tips on how soft diplomacy skills for the suppliers. You also have to deploy maybe soft and or hard diplomacy internally inside the business to be able to drive decisions with the business, I'm assuming. Bring information to? Is supply chain, procurement, legal?
Justin Dillon:Like, where do you bring intelligence back to the business after you've collected and driven and created some kind of substantive change with your suppliers? Where is that where is it showing up in the business?
Melissa Caraher:All the departments that you mentioned, but I'll start with, I think, a really important one, which is the sourcing manager. Like that person who holds that day to day relationship with the supplier, really try and include them on communications and keep them in the loop and, you know, because they hopefully become an extension of kind of the the responsible sourcing team because there's more of them than there are of our small and mighty team. So they are one of making sure they understand kind of what what came back. Let's just say there's a nonconformance, and then I have to go. We need to go back, and that doesn't meet our requirements or going back to the supplier.
Melissa Caraher:I like that person to know why. I'm gonna give a little bit of, like, the importance of why behind it. Yeah.
Justin Dillon:Can you tell us a little bit the wood behind the arrow? Like, what What empiricism do you have to bring when you're talking about supplier risk? What do sourcing managers truly need to hear? What's the top line information that they need to know?
Melissa Caraher:What are their top risks? Which we've narrowed down in two ways. I mean, one, it's like the corporate wide, and it's led by corporate responsibility, a double materiality analysis. You know? So that is driving our priorities for the next three to five years, you know, those are done on a particular cadence and if there's a big change to your business.
Melissa Caraher:And so and that incorporates multiple stakeholders, including internal executives and our customers. And so what the top things that are top of mind in the electron in our space right now, and you can read more about it in our corporate responsibility report, but it is migrant workers who oftentimes are paying heavy recruitment fees to work in factories, particularly in South And Southeast Asia, and then the amount of emissions at the semiconductor supply chain, particularly the the wafer fabs, you know, contributes to to global warming. But those are you know? So our supply chain our sourcing manager team hears a lot about those two topics. Yeah.
Melissa Caraher:We need people to make our products, and they're going to come from a variety of places. And in order for our products to make it to the market or, you know, the components that are that go into what our customer is gonna bring across the border, it can't have a risk of forced labor in it. You know? So, again, in order to do long term business, we need to be we need to have an ethical recruitment supply chain to maintain literally our our goods being able to to cross borders into The US and then, you know, the EU has a forced labor import ban that's coming into effect soon. So these are this is where it helps to have, you know, not just customer, but also policy and regulation that that sort
Justin Dillon:Yeah. And these are big I don't think people understand how big these laws are and how far they reach. They just sound like an import ban, oh, we just gotta create the correct customs declaration thing to do with that. Has everything to do with the work that you do and traceability and all that, and I think that that is and and and you're tracing a behavior, not an omission. Yes.
Justin Dillon:How do you convince a sourcing manager or the CFO or whatever it is that like, Look, this is how we're managing these things. This is how we're moving it forward. This is how we as a business feel like we're putting our best foot forward on these requirements that are, you know, pretty extensive?
Melissa Caraher:I think part of it is bringing in the other teams. You know? So with Global Trade Compliance, we have a close relationship, you know, with them. So it's multiple departments, and then you have legal. So you have multiple departments and department heads talking about the issues at an executive level.
Melissa Caraher:Now it might not be part of their daily conversation, but because you assuming you've already built the program in place, the processes in place from when these conversations are going to happen at a certain cadence with executives all the way up to the board level, so you know you need to be prepared that you're going to have a report out on this and they're going to want to listen to you at that time to the day to day. So I don't know that I had to do too much convincing for the sourcing managers to incorporate a human right risk in their screening of suppliers. We embedded that into the process. So we made it easy for them. So we tagged on to the behavior that's already there, which is, hey, when we're bringing on a new supplier, I know what checklist to go to.
Melissa Caraher:And then one day, this was incorporated in that. And to get that in there, that's part of the pitch is to say, I can we can make this easy for your team. Because you're right. It's all about changing behavior and collaboration to
Justin Dillon:Yeah.
Melissa Caraher:It's impossible.
Justin Dillon:Yeah. You're right. It's impossible to do this without internal and external collaboration with suppliers. I can't Let me ask you this. Maybe there's something that I get the sense that we might be over indexing on, that we might need to be, the collective we, might need to be thinking a little bit more about, you know, we check suppliers as they're coming in, but that's on whatever day they get onboarded.
Justin Dillon:Risk has a way of showing up whenever it wants to in a supply chain. It doesn't just show up the day that someone's onboarded. How does monitoring of suppliers show up for companies? You don't have to talk about it yours, but how is you know, specifically, but, you know, from a role for a role like yours, where does supply risk monitoring, not just risk checking, but risk monitoring fall in?
Melissa Caraher:Some new tools have helped, you know, starting this almost ten years ago. Things like supply chain mapping
Justin Dillon:Yeah.
Melissa Caraher:Tools, you know, weren't there yet. And then now you have yeah. You can everything has its limitations, but like at least, you know, you can look at more, not just your tier one, but kind of get in near tier two as maybe, you know, tier three as much as your suppliers are willing to divulge really. I might
Justin Dillon:know a thing or two about that.
Melissa Caraher:Yes. Yes. I think I think you've got part of it, solution to that. But so let's say we know the suppliers. Right?
Melissa Caraher:Now there's the screening tools that's, hey, they popped up in the news. So media alerts or even, again, coming back to my beginnings and responsible sourcing, hearing from the workers themselves. Is really not that hard to figure out whose product you're making. I mean, come on, our logos are on it. You know, dormitories or wherever folks are living, you know, they've got a smartphone these days or at least access to an Internet or access luckily to an NGO and a support system who can say, hey.
Melissa Caraher:I can help you figure out that website and how to report. So there are tools that, you know, I I thought workers wouldn't use it. It might actually be too kind of hidden for them to find, and that is not the case at all. We we've had workers calling into what would be more of, like, a corporate ethics line, but we can that can certainly take. It's meant really for any stakeholder to provide us feedback, you know, things like that.
Melissa Caraher:But it's it's a question that, you know, I'd love to crowdsource answers to. I think there's probably still tools that maybe I'm not aware of or using, but it's definitely top of mind and something that can kinda keep you up at night of like, oh, what's the risk I I don't know about? But you have to balance that too with is the company ready for you to reveal, you know, to know that because then you have to act. And that's part of the conversation internally too of it is better off to know than to not know.
Justin Dillon:Yeah. You have to get there. And you have to and I agree. Organizations, because that's what we do. You're going look at bright red warning signs on a dashboard and go, Oh my god.
Justin Dillon:It's like six tiers up, I got this, that, that. And it's real. It's evidence based. This is where your supply chain goes. It's real.
Justin Dillon:But what it does, I think, for roles like yours is it puts more intelligence, puts more tools in the hands. I think the new tools that are coming beyond questionnaires, it almost increases the workspace of what can be done. Think that sometimes people get really stuck with just the work, you know, the, well, this is how we do it. When you bring new intelligence, part of what I try to encourage people with is it's not that everything is actionable. It just kind of informs and helps you.
Justin Dillon:It gives you just a different look at what risk looks like and not everything needs to be acted on. The majority of this information, what I'm finding, should be shared with the supplier. We're starting to see that's actually look, supplier. There's some things happening that you're not aware of. That's revolutionary to let go.
Justin Dillon:By the way, anyone can find this information. Right? It's not just us as a buyer. Anyone can find it. I think that we're we're seeing that.
Justin Dillon:The companies have to get ready to be able to absorb this information in their own way. What do you feel like are the primary obstacles to success in a role like this? Like, what gets in the way? What's the thing where you go, oh, that again? And it and it shouldn't be like a person.
Melissa Caraher:Right. Don't name names.
Justin Dillon:Don't don't name names or titles.
Melissa Caraher:I'm just following the thread we're talking about visibility. I think and sometimes actually it's overwhelming as a practitioner, the amount of tools that are actually out there saying, hey, we can solve this for you. And what we're really looking for is, no, this is actually in your supply chain. Not like, hey, it might be. But this actually is because there are so many hours in a day that you do want the data to be actionable.
Melissa Caraher:I think the I'll call it now a perceived resistance to change. You know, it feels like if a responsible sourcing or any wear your compliance hat, you know, you walk in to the business unit, you walk into that, you know, different department and I'm like, oh no, please don't sigh that, you know, Melissa has showed up, you know, I'm constantly like, no, I got to bring, you know, I'm the one who's going to help enable business, not like put a blocker in front of you. But there is that, you know, whether certain people are definitely resistant to change. Others, it might just be they just don't have the time. And so how do you make it, you know, easy for for them?
Melissa Caraher:You know? So getting over that, whether it's actually in the person's mind and needing to kinda win win them over, or flipping it in your own head yourself and saying, oh, they might actually not be resistant. I don't need to go in, you know, with my boxing gloves on. I just need to show them, hey. Here's two options of what we could do.
Melissa Caraher:Yep. Which one do you which one do you want? And be the problem solver, you know, and Is
Justin Dillon:that soft diplomacy again?
Melissa Caraher:Yeah. Soft diplomacy.
Justin Dillon:You've built it up? Yeah. So what's a win look like? Like what's, you know, when you shut your laptop at the end of the day and go, that was awesome. What does that look like?
Justin Dillon:Give me an example.
Melissa Caraher:Yeah, so I think hearing from the suppliers, hey. You know, they if they want to tell me what their, you know, score is on a benchmark or an audit or what you know, and they just unsolicited. They're like, hey. I wanna share this with you. You know?
Melissa Caraher:I'm like, wow. That's great. You know? And occasionally, they might say, hey. Thanks for your support along the way when I may have thought I just sent, you know, a few good documents or gave them an e learning or something, but it it stuck for them, and there there is evidence of that.
Melissa Caraher:So who doesn't like to get a thank you?
Justin Dillon:Especially when you feel like you're just on people all the time to get a thank That's that's awesome. You know, just wrapping up, what can you give one piece for anyone who's coming into this space, which, you know, you are you you know, let's be clear. You're a senior supply chain. So you must have some wisdom to share with those who are coming into this space.
Melissa Caraher:I, you know, I would say remember your passion. I think people are speaking from my own experience. I came in with a passion of of learning, like, how the heck do supply chains even work, you know, which I'm still kind of trying to figure out every day. Keep that curiosity and then the passion to to help. And it may help the world or help someone, you know, across the globe have a better day, you know, at work.
Melissa Caraher:So I may not have, you know, solved someone's issue, but I may have heard about it. And because it got to the responsible sourcing department, there's at least hope that it can be acted on. And so that kind of validates the work. It keeps you going. Yes, what needs to happen is a big structural change around really helping that person and those people factory or in that region, but but thinking about that little win of at least it got to the right person Yeah.
Melissa Caraher:Or department who can try. And, you know, that's what that's what we're here for. And so you can't lose that. Otherwise, you're gonna get lost in the news of the day and the overwhelmingness of it all, and it's certainly, I I do that, but I'm I'm honing in on your last question there about those small wins because I think you really do have to keep those in mind to to keep going in what can be some grim conversations where you talk about forced labor and, you know, global warming on a daily, if not, you know, hourly basis. Yeah.
Melissa Caraher:So,
Justin Dillon:yeah. I am so glad you are there. AMD is richer for having you. The world is richer for having you in the position you are in. Congrats on all the success in your role and every the the wind that's behind your company right now.
Justin Dillon:Thank you for taking time with everything that's going on with you guys, that you would take time and come on and talk about this. It's just a testimony to who you are. So thank you for coming on.
Melissa Caraher:Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Thanks.
Justin Dillon:All right. We're good. Thank you. This is the one thing, the part of our show where we dig into one idea from our discussion. Melissa talked a bit about this idea of getting everyone on your team or your organization to move forward on your agenda.
Justin Dillon:I I found this idea as much about timing as it is about presentation. Everyone who's ever been on a team has needed to get someone in the organization on board, that might not be a part of your team, and you need to convince them to either sign off on something or approve something. And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And sometimes it's it's very easy to feel like, well, they just don't get it or they're just not ready or they're not like us and all that may be true. But it isn't always about someone not understanding or or just not getting it.
Justin Dillon:Sometimes it really is about timing. The sustainability movement has experienced this a lot. As a matter of fact, I believe it's this week, COP thirty is happening, I believe, in Brazil it is maybe. And I'm I'm sure there's a lot of consternation, happening in this conference about how the world is just not getting it or just not listening. But, you know, I I'd like to offer, you know, an alternative message that sometimes it's not just about what you're saying, but how it's being delivered.
Justin Dillon:I for a lot of my life, I was a professional songwriter. I spent a lot of my life learning how to put together songs. I know a lot about songs. I love songs. I there's a song literally in my head at all times of the day, all the time.
Justin Dillon:I just that's just the way my brain was made, and it's kind of how I operate. So as my son was growing up, when he started getting into music, I knew the day was coming. I just knew that he'd become a teenager and I was going to have an opinion and I would want to share that opinion with my son. And I knew that it would be difficult. When he's young, you can kind of play him stuff, but when he actually starts to have taste, it's like, ugh, will he like the kind of music I like?
Justin Dillon:Will he like terrible music? Oh my god. And as he's become gotten older and as a teenager, I'd I'd start to suggest songs and, you know, you know that you're just gonna get you're just gonna get brushed off. And so I would text songs across our Spotify playlist like, hey. Check this one out.
Justin Dillon:Check that one out. And there's an artist that, was really influential in me, this artist named Jeff Buckley. Go check him out. He's kinda having a moment because he's a documentary just came out about his life. And and I think he had a moment because kids were playing on TikTok.
Justin Dillon:Well, I I I said a Jeff Buckley song to my son and said, yeah. You you should check the song out, and I never heard anything about it. And that was months and months and months ago, and I just kind of, you know, my tail between my legs going, darn it. He's not gonna love one of my favorite artists ever. We were driving home from LA, and I said, okay.
Justin Dillon:Now I've got a captive audience. I'm gonna make him love one of my favorite artists. And I said, alright. It's it's time to listen to Jeff Buckley. And I pulled out the most important Jeff Buckley song, one most people have heard, which is Hallelujah, a cover by Leonard Cohen.
Justin Dillon:I start playing it for my son, and we get about halfway through, and I just hear him go, yeah. It's just not for me, which I don't know if anyone's ever done that in the history of the world. I'm pretty much sacrilegious. And I said, okay. Alright.
Justin Dillon:Okay. Not for you. Got it. Wow. Okay.
Justin Dillon:So we turned that one off. And, I said, well, you know, let me let me let me play another song. And we start another song, and he listens to it. He's like, yeah. Alright.
Justin Dillon:Alright. Yeah. That's that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah.
Justin Dillon:I can listen to that. That reminds me of a song I heard on TikTok. I'm all, And then he starts singing the melody of a song he heard on TikTok, and I'm like, oh my goodness. That melody of the song you're playing on TikTok is the one I sent you four months ago. Would you like to hear it again?
Justin Dillon:I play him the song. He listens to it in his entirety, and then he says, that's the greatest song I've ever heard in my life. Okay. I sent him the greatest song he ever heard in his life four months ago, but he had to hear it from another origin, from somewhere else. And my point being, sometimes people need to hear what they need to hear from another direction.
Justin Dillon:And if you're trying to get something across in your organization, if you're trying to make something happen, sometimes you just need to get it across in a new direction. You need to push it from another direction or just sometimes people just need to find it in their own time, in their own way. It doesn't mean that what you are trying to get done isn't important. It just might mean that they just need to find it in their own way. So just keep pushing whatever it is you're pushing.
Justin Dillon:Thank you so much for listening. What you're doing is important. I believe in what you're doing, and thank you for listening. If you believe in what we're doing, please share our podcast, please subscribe, and please show up next time. Thank you so much.