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Profile: Attitude Adjustment
Bob Dye Has a New Model for PMAC
For someone who retired a few months ago, Bob Dye is one busy guy. But retirement is a relative concept. And when he left CMA Canada in February, after helping run the organization for two decades, to take up duties as president and COO of PMAC in March, this Chatham, Ont. native took on a familiar task: steering a professional association through a major review of its strategic mandate in an attempt to make it more relevant to its members, more effective in its mission and a critical player in the profession it serves.
Hes a quiet speaker who chooses his words with care, but dont see that as a sign that Dye shrinks from telling it like it is. That much becomes very clear as soon as you ask him what brought him to PMAC. More on that later.
The basics: Dye is married with two grown children. He enjoys travel, gardening and when he has time for it golf. He earned his CMA designation in 1965 and started his work career at the truck manufacturing facility of International Harvester in Chatham. Since then hes spent his whole career in financial and general management positions, working for about 10 years in Saskatchewan before moving back to eastern Canada with TransCanada PipeLines. Hes been living and working in Toronto for some 40 years now.
In 1981 Dye was awarded the Fellowship of the Society of Management Accountants, becoming the executive director of SMA Ontario the following year. He held that position until he joined CMA Canada as president and CEO in October 1997. Accounting and association-building are in this mans blood... but purchasing has been on his radar for years too.
Buying In
Purchasing has always been part of my portfolio, says Dye. And over the years I had known people in PMAC. In the association world when you have a problem or need information youll often call another association for help. I used to get calls from people in leadership positions at PMAC, so the organization was known to me, and CMA is certainly known to people at PMAC.
Dyes involvement with PMAC began two years ago, when he served on the PMACs Education Task Force. In June last year he joined the organization as an external director, and finally in March he became president and COO after the departure of Stephen Van Houten.
The quiet frankness we noted earlier asserts itself when Dye is asked about the problems hes come on-board to address.
This organization has not treated itself kindly, he says. It has been very undisciplined in its management and governance. Theres been considerable conflict between the provincial and territorial entities and the national entity. The mentality here for some time has been to try and create an organization where the national body was the organization.
Dye intends to replace what have often been confrontational relations with the provincial and territorial bodies with a new, consensus-oriented partnership model where the role of each level is clearly understood. He feels that in the past the national organization has viewed itself as a deliverer of products, programs and services a role that properly belongs to the provincial and territorial bodies, with the national office providing coordination and support.
The only way an organization like this can operate efficiently is to operate as a partnership where each partner with a specific role understands and fulfills that role. While past problems revolved around attempts to build a strong national association, what were doing is to create a strong association nationally.
Higher Degrees
With the renovation of PMACs management and governance model underway, Dye is setting his sights on PMACs broader task of building the stature and quality of the C.P.P./a.p.a. accreditation and firmly establishing an accurate definition of the profession of supply management itself.
You have to tell the world who you are and what youre all about, and quite frankly PMAC has not done that. The profession has to define itself. The field of practice needs to be properly articulated, because supply management can mean different things to different people.
Getting the word out will take more feet on the streets, Dye says. PMAC has a product, and the more it makes the more impact the supply management message will have.
PMAC hasnt built a critical mass of C.P.P.s in the marketplace to demonstrate the value that supply management professionals can deliver. The goal is to produce the quantity and the quality. The product has to perform or it has no credibility. b2b
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