Summary: The tools I use to facilitate and coach others

I'm not going to cover the category management, sourcing, supplier management and business tools I use in the work I do for Future Purchasing or other procurement consultancies today.

This post is more about providing you with a summary of the blogs I've written about the unique tools I use in group facilitation and personal coaching - in procurement contexts and more broadly in other business settings. Whether directly with clients or via the other consultancies.

These blogs also share the benefits delivered of using these unique tools - which can be summarised as helping groups or individuals to achieve one or more of the following:

• Identify where they are
• Identify where they want to get to (for example strategy development might be a session in it's own right)
• Understand what's stopping them getting there
• Release what's holding them back 
• Take appropriate action towards their goal

More here on a pinterest board I developed on the benefits of coaching.

As I said in my "But I don't do soft fluffy stuff" post many of the reasons we're not achieving what we say we want can be found in the soft fluffy stuff. So just as it's no use looking for the car keys in the bathroom if you know you left them in your coat - it's the same with resolving what's holding you back - the answer often lies in the soft fluffy stuff and there's a number of ways of getting at that - some more comfortable than others - some certainly less intrusive than others. It sort of depends if you want to get to the root cause or not, or if you're happy just putting a plaster/band aid on it.



NLP

• A more general blog on NLP - most coaching/facilitation sessions start with some form of introduction around the subjects raised in this post to help people understand why they need to change and therefore be more open to using these tools.
• Values - impact of personal values on our success or otherwise
• Business values - do they exist - I suggest not
• How our values get in the way
• What gets them out of bed in a morning - stakeholders values
• Standing in their shoes - such an insightful process - try it and see
• Well formed outcome - better than SMART goals I'd suggest - or a great addition anyway
• Identity - and the impact it can have on how we feel
• Rapport - reminder of what it involves

Language

The language we use gives so much away about how we process information, our beliefs and our values. Which means it's also a great means of solving the problems too.

• Making mountains out of molehills - my most popular post
• No pain, no gain - another popular post
• Oh no it's Sunday - don't wish your life away
• In need of a facelift - how use of that term about the UN shed light on the solution
• Deadlines - are they killing you?
• Be careful of the paths you tread - another meaning behind the CIPS president's words
• Up a creek without a paddle - how the words give you a clue to the solution
• In a rut - and how to get out of it 
• Is your head buried in the sand - musing if it were buried in the sand - with a great picture!
• Find your inner Picard - yes of Star Trek fame
• I don't want to burn any bridges - great example of how the language used was keeping this client stuck
• What's the organisations operating metaphor - is work like war/a race or a garden?
• Is an integrated commercial landscape even possible - interesting musing on how the language might point to the solution for government procurement 
• Hate or Love - a bit of a rant aimed at the British Heart Foundation about their use of the word Hate
• What do you call your stakeholders/customers - could just be why the relationship is as it is
• What's winning in your world the good, the bad or the indifferent - language is sooooo powerful
• Language to improve rapport - a great reminder
• Language that improves understanding - ditto

Landscaping Your Life (LYL)

I could write a book on metaphors - if a picture paints a thousand words then a metaphor paints a thousand pictures. One metaphor I use a lot is landscapes and nature. I describe it as 'using nature as our teacher'. Nature has been used for thousands of years as a tool of insight and it's still used as such for a reason - because it works.

• LYL Pinterest Board - a number of examples of how nature can be used to explore challenges you might have
• YouTube Channel - a LYL playlist with a number of video blogs on the subject
• An insightful walk in nature - insights from just going for a walk
• Incomplete patterns - expanding your thinking to include the whole picture
• Connecting with your audience - using the LYL process
• Business strategy development - a board of management's strategy away day
• Speaking with confidence - using the process
• Are your relationships crumbling - a series of blogs using nature to improve your communication with others
• Impatience does not serve us well - insight from nature on timing
• Are you getting enough perspective
• How's the weather with you - wondering if the national weather has an impact on how we do business - musing really
• Don't keep doing the same things - a personal favourite
• The solution is right infront of you - :-) it was

I also use gardening as a metaphor for purchasing when training internal stakeholders what it's all about.

• Pinterest board
• Sowing the seeds of cost reduction in your business
• Also see YouTube channel for LYL above

Postscript: a Landscaping Your Life website was launched in November 2015 - so for more on this effective process do please go and visit.

Collage

I only started using this tool in November 2014 and have been blown away by it's effectiveness in a business setting. I'd thought it was purely for personal coaching, and yet am finding it a great addition to the other business tools used.

• Facilitating change for the Scottish Institute for Business Leaders
• Collage applied to improving relationships at work
• Overview of the collage process

Frameworks for Change Coaching Process (FCP)

This process is the business version of the tool below, and I've been successfully using it in business sessions since 2005.

• FCP - applied to improving relationships at work
• Youtube - a playlist with a couple of video blogs on the subject
• Staying on track - insight from use of the FCP
• Coaching insight on being heard - how to be
• Keeping on track in a down turn - a session with the Scottish PSA

Other card sets I have used include Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies and Roger Von Oech's Creative Whack pack. All tools that help you to explore a situation to gather more data about what might be holding you back.



Transformation Game

Of all the tools I use this is the only one that is only applicable in a personal setting. It's a game and takes 2.5 hrs per person to play and is hugely insightful. I'm not sure these blogs do it justice but I had to try

• Transformation Game - applied to improving relationships
• I intend to have work life balance

So far this week I've shared summaries of blogs written on soft skills, procurement and the rant's I have on our disconnection from what it is to be human!

Congratulations if you got to the end of that list - such a great reference for me and anyone wanting to know how I do that I do, and the benefits that I deliver as a result.

Do call me if you think any of these tools might be of interest +44 (0)7770 538159 Alison@thepurchasingcoach.co.uk

Alison Smith
Inspiring change inside and out when what you're doing isn't working

Summary: Procurement

Yesterday I jumped straight into Miss angry mode, with a summary of blogs that questioned whether we're losing our humanity, I therefore felt it only right that today's summary blog concentrated on the profession that I live, breath and love - procurement.

I wonder if I'm the only person who went into procurement on the advise of the careers adviser - she said my analytical bias and extroversion were perfectly suited to procurement - and 30 years later (did I just type that - oh my!!) I think she might just have been right. I've tried a few times to escape but my passion, enthusiasm and expertise for the profession seems to keep me rooted here.

As you will have noticed many of my blogs concentrate on the soft skills required for procurement, and business more widely (and there will be a separate summary blog to cover that subject tomorrow). So yes I am more likely to blog about influencing skills than I am Kraljic. I'm also more likely to be sharing insight on procurement to those who don't work in procurement rather than those who do. On the basis that if others understand the breadth involved in best practice/ world class or just down right great procurement they'd leave it to us and not try to do it themselves. An area I think procurement has failed to tackle that effectively if recent - horsegate and payment terms fiasco's are anything to go by.

That said, I do at times blog more directly about procurement here, and also for Future Purchasing and Supply Management:

Procurement the basics

• Anyone can buy - my response to that belief using my favourite and often used metaphor for procurement - gardening - more here on that on my Pinterest board.
• PR disasters and Procurement
• Purchasing - trade, profession and something anyone can do
• Reducing your costs isn't just about negotiating lower prices
• The cost of getting procurement wrong - the horror stories
• Performance measurement and improvement

Procurement Process

• Don't cut corner's unless it's safe to do so
• Strategies need evidence
• Low cost vs ethical pricing

Procurement Management

• Would you win best in show
• Are you tools just for show
• Too busy with the day job - to do it properly!
• What's at the top of the procurement Christmas tree
• Is there room for kindness in procurement - and I think the answer should be YES
• Raising procurement awareness
• The excuses we give for not communicating with our stakeholders - and what they really mean
• Talk to them - about engaging stakeholders

Supplier Management

• Are your suppliers running riot like Japanese knotweed - I said I liked using the gardening metaphor
• Are you suppliers over stretched
• Are your suppliers like Olympic athletes - or just running the egg and spoon!
• Do your suppliers have passion
• Do your suppliers sleep at night
• Are suppliers afraid to say no - very relevant
• If the earth was a supplier

General Management

• What's your organisation's operating metaphor
• Cultural web
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• Under cover boss - labour is still too cheap
• Business Values and payment of the living wage
• Do business values even exist?

There will be another summary blog tomorrow on soft skills and all things influencing, change management, communication, collaboration and personal development.

Alison Smith
Inspiring change inside and out - when what you're doing isn't working

Summary: what it means to be human

This week I'm summarising my blogs - that is I've written a lot of blogs on a few key subjects and to assist those interested in a specific subject I'm going to develop a contents page with links to every thing (ok perhaps not everything) I've written on the subject. It will be a great help to me for reference too.

Last week's news of ID chips being placed under the skin of employees in Sweden had a number of bloggers and tweeters taking to social media to express their concern. Me included, and had me reflecting that a large majority of my most angry blogs have been about what I see as the erosion of our humanity namely (although they only represent 3.5% of my content):

• "I don't do soft fluffy stuff" - unless you're an android your every action is motivated and impacted by the soft fluffy stuff. So get over it and realise that the solutions to a large number of our problems lie in the soft fluffy stuff.
• Don't turn a blind eye - don't leave your humanity at the door when you walk into work take it with you.
• The science fiction Armageddon where the robots take over is here - on the right to die rather than let science maintain our bodies beyond what is humanely and compassionately enough.
• If earth was a supplier - treating our home as a convenience store where everything is free.
• Planetary sustainability - suggesting we're selfish and have little consideration for long term survival of humanity.
• The battle for business's soul - with self interest and desire for profit at all costs driving unacceptable behaviours.
• Business values and payment of the living wage - on the basis that everyone should earn enough to be able to live.
• The conspiracies we support on our wellbeing - We do often seem to forget we're human with a body that needs looking after.
• The recent issue at RBS isn't their fault - it's yours - If we don't speak up when we see things that aren't working we can't blame others when they don't - a white lie here condones a big fat juicy one there.

and whilst not as angry as some of the above, never the less a sad sign of the times:

• Is there room for kindness in business - to which I'd hope the answer was yes but seems to often to be no.

Although I realise that getting angry changes nothing and all I can hope to do is be the change I want to see in the world and business, and hope that the business archetype that's worryingly inhumane at times is replaced by a more enlightened one.

• Enlightened business

Don't worry I do blog about other less emotive subjects such as procurement, influencing, language, and well being and will share contents pages for those as the week progresses.

Alison Smith
Inspiring change inside and out - when what you're doing isn't working