Communication - keep trying

I came off the phone the other day knowing that I hadn’t got through to the person on the other end about my point of view.

The indication was that I had not, because if I had got my message over effectively, the person on the line would have been as annoyed as me, and the reaction would have been: “Let’s get this sorted”, rather than :“Okay, let’s look at that in a few weeks when X has happened” (meaning never).

I knew I’d forgotten to say the one thing that would have made all the difference. So to find out what that might be, I went back to a great book by Shelle Rose Charvet to remind myself what I could have done differently to improve the communication.

In this situation there were two things I should have remembered and paid attention to:

1. The type of information he needed
Did he need to see, hear, read or do something with the information? Over the phone he was only ever going to hear what I said, so perhaps I should have sent an email or information to back up the call? Or would PowerPoint or Excel have worked best for him? In this instance, using a webinar and spreadsheet worked a treat.

2. What was his motivation?
As I’ve written in a previous blog, I’m motivated by affiliation. The challenge for me is I often jump straight to saying that the problem is causing “unhappy or demotivated staff”, “friction” or “upset”. Those people motivated by achievement may well be turned off by these words unless I start talking about the potential outcome being “failure” or a “delay”. In this particular instance I think power, via financial security, was more the issue. In a subsequent call I simply mentioned the cost implications of ignoring the information (backed up by the Excel document) and he was suddenly on side.

Next time you walk away from a situation where you’ve failed to convince someone of your opinion, just think about what you could have done differently and try again. But, a word of caution, please don’t then become angry as I blogged about last week.

Alison Smith
Sowing the seeds of effective communication in procurement

* Previously blogged on Supply Management

Picture Source: repairmyexcel.com via Alison on Pinterest

There's 3 versions of any story - yours, theirs and the truth

This post has moved to my new blog 

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Sowing the seeds for effective communication in all purchasing relationships

Original Source of picture used above: fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net via Alison on Pinterest

The cost of getting purchasing wrong

The hardest task I and my procurement and purchasing colleagues have is convincing our stakeholders and other managers of the positive benefit to the business of applying more rigour to how they purchase. The skills I have developed over 27 years are seemingly discounted with a belief that goes something like "anyone can purchase" or as someone said the other day "it's just shopping."

Until it goes wrong that is when the realisation starts to dawn that we might have helped them avoid the hole they're now in.

How we get around the problem I really don't know - we've been trying for so long and yet the profession doesn't really seem any more well recognised than when I started, other than in the larger corporates.

So here's how I'm going to try........ I've set up a Pinterest board and when I find examples of the impact of purchasing gone wrong I'll add to it. That way we'll all have an expanding visual reminder of what effective purchasing can help businesses avoid.

Today I've added examples of buyers going to jail, project overspend, contract termination, accusations of wrong doing in the media, delays, cancellation costs, ministers apologising on your behalf and complete service failure! And that's just been in the media over recent weeks! oh yes and one company's share price slumped due the cost implications of a product recall.

The most bizarre decision made of the examples found so far has to go to one authority who felt it acceptable to claim a deduction of £84,450 for a mousse that was 24 hours out of date. No wonder the court upheld the ability of the supplier to terminate on the grounds of breech of contract. Just think though of the cost to the business of retendering - one reason for getting it right first time I'd suggest.

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Sowing the seeds of effective purchasing in your business

Share price picture Source: bbc.co.uk via Alison on Pinterest