Self awareness helps resolve issues

Here we continue the journey to explore the many solutions to purchasing's problems. One cause of problems is lack of self awareness of those within purchasing. I'd suggest it's also a common cause to many business problems but we can only change ourselves not others and therefore the solution discussed in this blog lies within. 

Many of my blogs share my own personal journey of self awareness which didn't really start in earnest until 2000 when I attended an NLP workshop. Once started it never stops - now I'm always looking at the impact of my own thoughts, feelings and actions on whatever I'm doing. Especially if the outcome I'm getting isn't the one I want.

It's so easy to blame others for the wrong/off tangent outcomes we find ourselves in. You know the sort of thing:

• It's their fault

...mmm there I was expecting to type a list and realised as soon as I started typing it's simpler than that. As long as we're acting as if it's someone else's fault we are saying we can't do anything to change the situation and that's not correct.

Others' reactions to us are impacted by our behaviours (body language, tone or words) and our behaviours are impacted by our:

• Identity
• Values
• Beliefs
• Skills
• Behaviours
• Environment

So when in conflict with others, or blaming them for the lack of success it's useful to explore which of these may be impacting the outcome and what changes we may want to try to shift the situation - after all if you keep doing what you've always done you'll get what you've always got. Forth coming blogs will discuss the impact of a number of these (I'll add links as I write the blogs).

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Sowing the seeds for self awareness in your purchasers

picture source: amazon.ca via Alison on Pinterest