Start 2018 as you mean to go on

Get back on track and in the flow of 2018 

The new year is such a great time for vision and goal setting, for removing what's holding us back and just getting back into the flow of our lives, and making a positive difference in what ever way we can. Personal coaching session and group webex's are available to help support you doing that.

1:1 Coaching 

I wanted to remind you to get in touch if you'd like to understand more about how personal coaching sessions work, and how they might help you succeed and have a fabulous 2018 alison@alisonsmith.eu +44 (0)7770 538159

Coaching can include a number of 1 hours sessions over a few weeks or months; a slightly longer but single session; or even a 0.5 day to 2 day retreat where you get to explore a wider range of topics you'd like to focus on for 2018.

Posts written to help you understand the role of coaching include: How I coach, the tools available when being coached, the art of asking powerful questions, and the use of unconventional tools in coaching.

Webex Seminars

An alternative to 1:1 coaching is to get involved in a webex, which is a mix of lecture, discussion and Q&A between a small group of like minded people. Topics can include:

• Vision and goal setting
• Finding motivation
• Building confidence
• Understanding self and others
• Creativity 
• The art of doing something different every day

Again let me know if this is something you'd be interested in alison@alisonsmith.eu +44 (0)7770 538159


More about services available to organisations can be found here and here.

Here's to a fabulous 2018 full of inspiration and joy.

Alison Smith
Unlocking your potential - with the odd unconventional tool thrown in when needed
alison@alisonsmith.eu +44(0)7770 538159 

How is 'maverick' spend setting you back?

Words have power and in this post originaly written for Future Purchasing I explore the negative and unintended consequence using the word 'Maverick' has on our relationship with the very people we're describing as such.

I love exploring the power of words to unlock potential and ideas, and their ability to lock it out too. Other posts written on the subject include:

• Are they answers or solutions because using one of these may help you find what you're looking for when using the other won't! 
• Is defining it as a problem the real problem? 
• How do you spell CAN'T? ..... wont
• The language of change and transformation
• What's in a word - procurement 
• No pain no gain 

Is there barbed wire between you and your stakeholders?

Is it procurement that's behind the high walls surrounded by barbed wire in this picture, or your stakeholders defending themselves?

Procurement doesn't take place in a vacuum. Instead procurement is undertaken in a complex environment with multiple parties, often with conflicting objectives, and various beliefs about who is responsible for what.

Effective stakeholder engagement, cooperation and communication is therefore essential for any procurement activity to be successful.

It's a topic I return to often here (see links at the bottom of this post to other posts I've written on the subject), and certainly something we explore in coaching and training sessions.

Human relationships are not always easy. Especially when we often start with the premise that we're right, and it's the other person who needs to be persuaded of the error in their thinking.

The challenge is then about us putting our beliefs down long enough to understand the impact our behaviours are having on the situation, and then as a result of that insight making changes to our own communication.

Earlier in the year, during a creativity session on a category management workshop, I asked one team to draw the problem they were having with a stakeholder. (Another group were asked to explore the situation using pipe cleaners, another used problem reversal.)

The above picture was the outcome of that request.

The group described their stakeholder sitting behind high walls, which were also surrounded by barbed wire. 

I then asked them to draw what the end result they wanted looked liked, and they drew this:

As they drew the two images they were discussing the reasons behind the situation, and options to positively change the relationship.

This post "it's like talking to a brick wall" takes the use of metaphor a little further than we went during the workshop.

One thread of discussion included the group wondering who had built the walls, and a solution emerged once they took responsibility for the current situation. It would seem they'd felt isolated from their stakeholder, and unable to talk the same language to get them to listen. I may have even asked if it was really the stakeholders behind the high walls or procurement. 

As they explored dismantling the walls other solutions appeared, and a confidence emerged that the current situation wasn't set in stone. They discovered they did have much they could do to alter the situation.

If you've tried to resolve a situation using more conventional means you may want to try more unconventional tools, after all where has convention ever got us?

Always happy to help you and your team unlock your potential using conventional and unconventional tools and ways of thinking alison@alisonsmith.eu

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Unlocking procurement potential

Other popular posts written on stakeholder engagement include:

• 10 things to remember when communicating.
• We assume other people think just like us, and therefore give them what we would want in this situation. 
• The world that you see is not the whole truth.
• Is your language stopping you from finding a solution.
• Standing in their shoes to get an alternate perspective - a tool I use with most coaching clients because it's the quickest way I know to get a different perspective on a situation.
• Are Procurement set back by arrogance? a question a procurement team asked themselves during a strategy day I facilitated.

I've written a blog on that part 2

I've just had one of those great months full of what I'm passionate about.

Just in case you're not sure what I do, therefore, I thought I'd summarise why I'm so enthused, and then share a few posts that I've mentioned to people recently in a "I've written a blog on that" sort of way.  

Over recent months I've been busy with:

• Category management / procurement workshops - including stakeholder engagement, value levers, and creativity. Keeping the energy up, minds open and constantly looking for new ways to bring the 'theory and process' alive.
• 1:1 Coaching - OMG - I love the diversity of challenges we explore, and real difference it can make. Always searching for those powerful questions that unlock people's potential - in procurement, business and personally.
• Vlogging - thanks Tina for reminding me how much I enjoy exploring ideas this way  - even if I'm rarely in front of the camera :-). (see my YouTube channel for more)
• Writing - more very soon on this - with great things planned for 2018. 

And if that's not enough I'm still managing to open water swim here in Scotland which all adds to the high. (This picture was taken at 0745 one November morning just before sunrise with frost on the ground and an air temperature of 3 degrees. We think the sea will have been about 8 or 9!)

 

After a busy few months of workshops I've a number of new followers for this blog, and as I've also mentioned a few posts during those workshops I thought I'd provide an index of them here.

But first, a few indexes of posts any new followers might also find helpful:

• I've written a blog on that - part 1 - an index from 2 years ago of posts covering the softer skills covered on the workshops at that time (I'll add any additional ones written since then and mentioned on the workshops below) 
• The Top 10 Purchasing Coach posts - written in February this year 
• Purchasing coach's year (2016) in posts - a great insight into what I'm passionate about
• Applying unconventional tools to some of procurement's biggest challenges (those who have attended the workshops won't be surprised where this goes.)

Posts written since the last index, and mentioned either in conversation or whilst facilitating include:

• Don't leave your humanity at the door 
• Building Confidence - which for me is one of the 7 keys for optimal performance
• 10 things to remember when communicating
• Standing in the shoes of your internal stakeholders
• We see people through our own lenses
• Are you searching for 'solutions' or 'answers' - because words have power
• Is your language getting in the way of you solving your problem?
• The language of change and transformation.
• What to do when you're going around in circles 
• Where has convention ever got us? 
• How could pipe cleaners have the answer?
• When did you last have a walking meeting?
• Do you have all the information? 
• Getting on the same page as stakeholders
• A Pinterest board of examples of procurement gone wrong - because they didn't think it would happen to them
• You may also like the advent series of posts sharing more about 25 unconventional tools used in coaching, facilitation, problem solving and innovative thinking. 

And for anyone interested in reading more about the subject of the book I'm writing then do see my Landscaping Your Life blog.

I have also written a number of more procurementy posts for Future Purchasing (even if with an Alisony twist), including:

• The critical success factors of Category Management 
• Marry in haste and repent at leisure - in life and in category management 
• The similarities between Category Management and elections
• Sustainable training - getting learning to stick 
• The similarities between parenting and category management 
• Have you taken your eye off the ball on coaching?
• Inspiring creativity and innovation in your category and supplier management 
• How you can gets the most from attending workshops
• How managers can ensure their teams get the most from attending workshops
• Do you want adaptive of generative learning from your teams?
• Communicating business requirements differently.
• Do procurement find it easy to be creative? 
• Processes that drive wrong behaviour
• Procurement's sat nav
• Relationship forecasters
• Channel hopping stakeholders

I hope something here will have had you exploring a post or two, and a nugget of insight obtained as a result.

Topics for future posts always welcome (please be kind :-)). 

Discussions about opportunities to make a difference with your team most welcome too +44 (0)7770 538159 alison@alisonsmith.eu

Alison Smith

The Purchasing Coach

Unlocking personal and procurement potential - with a smidgen of unconventional tools thrown in for good measure

The Critical Success Factors of Category Management

You may like this post written for Future Purchasing on the critical success factors of procurement.

World Kindness Day

I celebrate a mid decade birthday today - not quite as profound an impact as my 50th birthday but never the less thought provoking as time ticks by and another milestone birthday approaches.

I often use my birthday as a means of reflecting on progress, resetting intentions, and inspiring future action. Which means a Transformation Game won't be far away.

As I revisited my Fab at 50 post from 5 years ago, and mulled on the fact that 13th November is also World Kindness day, I realised my to-be list at that time, whilst not addressing kindness directly, certainly mentioned other ways of 'being' that align with it:

35. Loving
36. Open
37. Trusting 
38. Enthusiastic
39. Joyous
40. Positive
41. Challenging
Are on my To-Be list to be the change I want to see in the world.

Just like kindness isn't for one day, neither is being loving, trusting and open. What today does help me do though is reflect on how well I'm meeting my intention, and identify ways I can model more of what I want to see in the world - every day - not just my birthday.

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Inspiring change inside and out
alison@alisonsmith.eu
+44 (0)7770538159

You may also like my Is there room for kindness in Procurement post from the archives in answer to someone's suggestion that there wasn't room - to which my response was "we're doomed" :-)

In life as in nature

I've been busy vlogging and thought you may want to see what I've been up to - they're all insights from nature that can be applied to our lives.

This vlog is about how to build bridges when we're resisting because we still don't really like the other person.

In this vlog I return to not being able to see the wood for the trees and realise you don't have to - you just need to keep moving.

I saw this Sycamore tree on the side of Derwent Water in Cumbria and realised we're often in the same predicament and forget there's things we can do to get more grounded.

This next vlog might be my new favourite Landscaping Your Life vlog - see what you think - I certainly had fun, and as weird as it might seem I'm sure it will shift something if you're in need of turning a new leaf or two - better if you go out into the woods and do the same. 

This is from a recent swim in the sea (yes in November!!) and helps remind us that we sometimes need to go through the pain to get to the pleasure.

More vlogs using nature to inspire can be found on my Landscaping Your Life YouTube playlist and you'll find more posts on my Landscaping Your Life blog.

Landscaping Your Life is just one of the unconventional tools in the purchasing coach toolkit for unlocking potential and getting individuals and teams back on track and achieving their goals.