As a supply chain professional, it’s incredibly easy to fall into the “they vs. we” trap. “They” are the internal customer, the engineer, the end user, the operations team. “We” are the procurement, supply chain, or logistics team. While there are many ways to start shifting this mentality and start healing the rift between supply chain team and their internal counterparts, one of the first steps involves showing up. Showing up to internal customer staff meetings helps build communication between the teams, keeps the supply chain team aware of their customers’ goings-on, and helps focus on solving problems instead of fighting with people. Once you’ve decided to start engaging with your internal customer’s staff meetings, there are some clear do’s and don’ts for supply chain team members.

DO: 

• Seek an invitation. This may border on inviting yourself to the meetings, but do make sure you’re invited. You may need to seek the support of your supply chain leader, who may need to discuss your presence  with their peers. Be careful of company politics so you don’t start off attending meetings with resentment that you forced your way in.
• Attend consistently. Other than being out of office, don’t schedule over your customers’ staff meetings. You worked hard to be in the room, so make good use of the time and show your customers you’re willing to be there. Be attentive and engaged. If the meeting is online and some attendees have cameras on, have your camera on if at all possible. Treat this meeting like a sales call, because that’s what it is–you’re selling the value supply chain brings.
• Note things to follow up on later. This includes long-term projects with a procurement component, new team members that might appreciate a little extra training, and potential policy or guideline compliance issues. Make a note of these things and don’t bring them up during the meeting–usually there is a point person for these items and they don’t concern the whole group. So follow up later with only those key personnel and avoid derailing the conversation or criticizing your customer “in public.” 
• Bow out if the team needs to discuss more private matters. This looks different for every team, but be willing to leave the meeting part way through if requested and do so gracefully. Even if they discuss items of concern to the supply chain, the goal is to build trust with the customer and not to catch every little thing that might need supply chain team involvement. Fighting a request to bow out temporarily will not help build the relationship; keep your eye on the long term goal.
• Build relationships outside the meeting. Especially if the team is in the office or you have an opportunity to visit their physical workplace, the staff meeting can be your bridge to a deeper relationship with individual team members. Consider inviting someone in the meeting to lunch or coffee, or just to have a 30-minute chat. Use this time to stay curious and understand why their team does things the way they do, while also getting to know your customers as fellow humans.

DON’T: 

• Don’t tell your customers what to do. The fastest way to get uninvited permanently from a customer staff meeting is to lecture them on procurement policy, ways the team is violating that policy, or how important it is that the supply chain is involved in projects early. Instead, express gratitude for being invited briefly if appropriate, and be an observer for at least the first several meetings. This is not your meeting, and you are there to learn what is important to your customers and how you can help them achieve their goals. If you see a major compliance issue, discuss with the meeting leader after the meeting. 
• Don’t overwhelm your customers with too many supply chain team members. You, your supervisor, and the buyer team you work most closely with do not all need to be in the meeting. I’ve seen multiple times where the supply chain team secures a meeting invite and then brings 5-6 people along. Send one person as a representative who brings notes from the meetings back to their team instead of overwhelming the customer with a full entourage. Especially in the beginning of an engagement, it’s best if the customer almost forgets the supply chain team is in attendance to the meeting. 
• Don’t focus only on the supply chain. This meeting is a huge opportunity to see how the supply chain function fits into your larger organization. Use this opportunity to build your mental map of the organization and think about how the upstream and downstream processes to your own fit together to build the whole. Supply chain is in a unique position where it touches every department in the business, so put effort into reading between the lines and figuring out how your customer team interacts with other teams in the business.

The key component of attending an internal team’s staff meeting is remembering that this team represents your customer. Keep focused on good customer service and don’t make assumptions about why they approach their issues a certain way. Remember you are there to build relationships, which is where you truly build value instead of simply being “the team that processes POs.”