Are you unconsciously incompetent?

Are you, or are your stakeholders or suppliers unconsciously incompetent ?

Please watch this YouTube video - it's GREAT. See BBC Breakfast's Mike Bushell having a go at synchronised swimming :-)

I'm sure the seemingly effortlessness of the synchronised swimmers, gymnasts or cyclists at the Olympics might have lulled some of us into a false sense of security - that we too could do that! Or is that just me?

Such a GREAT reminder that when learning anything we start unconsciously incompetent. It's only when we try it that we realise what we don't know, and become consciously incompetent.  As we practice we may even manage conscious competence, and over time that conscious awareness slips into our unconscious.  

It's a process we follow when learning any skill - even procurement.  

The task many procurement professionals have when dealing with stakeholders therefore is remembering many of them don't know what they don't know, and just like Mike think they too can have a go themselves. 

Procurement's task therefore is to help others understand that the skills required to do procurement well take time to develop, and have been achieved through lots and lots of practice. Like any of the medals won this last few days Procurement's medals will only be achieved by the professionals who spend time in the pool daily, rather than those who haven't set foot in it since childhood! 

How will you help your stakeholders understand Procurement is more like the 100 meters than the egg and spoon race?

Alison Smith

The Purchasing Coach

Inspiring change - inside and out

PS The same can of course be said when we try to tell our suppliers how to do their job!

PPS For more Olympic themed blogs see yesterday's about wining gold together with suppliers or seeing them as the opposition to be beaten.

Winning together, or are your suppliers the losers?

The Olympics, whilst being about doing your best, is also about winning. Whether that winning is by being faster, stronger, higher, longer, or by being more precise, creative or strategic. I suspect that won't cover every event, but you get my point.

Winning is something that often crops up in procurement workshops - particularly when discussing negotiations. 

Winning is great if, just like the Olympics, you're opposition is on another team. That is, all participants have the same but mutually exclusive aim - doing their best, and if at all possible coming first, and beating the opposition. No holes barred, and no negative impact as a result of doing so. No relationships to maintain, nor alliances to covert. 

Winning isn't appropriate if it's against those in the same team - the aim then is about working together to achieve a common goal, against a common opposition. Each participant collaborating to achieve the agreed objective. Each bringing their own expertise to bare on achieving that outcome. Sharing the work load, and sharing the benefits.

I'd contend that tactical negotiation is more like the former, and strategic negotiation is like the later. 

Problems arise when we treat suppliers we'd like a relationship with as if they're the opposition in the 100 meters hurdles or the heptathlon, rather than one of our fellow runners in the relay, or part of the same synchronised swimming team. 

What will you choose?

Alison Smith

The Purchasing Coach

Inspiring change inside and out

Blogs with insight from the London 2012 Olympics include:

• Let actions provide the inspiration
• Do your suppliers have passion 
• Success is more than gold
• Are your suppliers like Olympic athletes
• We get what we focus on
• Anything is possible
• Acceptance not comparison