The Purchasing Coach: Soft Skills

When soft skills in procurement and supply chain management are mentioned there are a number of potential responses:

• I don't do soft skills
• Soft skills are great but they don't benefit the bottom line - we need cost reductions NOW 
• Soft skills are great but we don't have time to do develop them further
• Soft skills are great but we use them every day, and already know how to use them effectively
• Soft skills are great, we've done a lot to develop them already, and have a plan in place to develop them in 2017
• Soft skills are great, what can you do to help us develop them further in 2017

I'm sure there are many other responses.

Let's start with what I mean when I use the term 'soft skills'. Soft skills are a combination of why we do what we do, and how we do it.

The why being provided by our personal:

• Identity
• Values
• Beliefs, and

the how being provided by the level of competency we have for skills for example of:

• Understanding ourselves
• Understanding others
• Managing our own state e.g level of confidence
• Managing the state of other people
• Effective communication

• Influencing others
• Resolving conflict 
• Managing change

All skills that to me are essential when dealing with other people. Essential, if you need to influence others, that is. (2017 PS Please do see The Purchasing Coach Soft Skills Toolkit for more in a series of postcards sent to Procurement from their soft skills.)

With that concept of soft skills in mind my reply to the above responses about soft skills are shown below:

I don't do soft skills
We're all human beings and get enthused and angry about different things - understanding what these are for yourself, and for others helps you to ensure you press the button for enthusiasm not the one for anger! Whether that's the enthusiasm/anger buttons of stakeholders, suppliers or colleagues.

Other blogs that explore this further include "But I don't do soft fluffy stuff" and 'the case for soft skills'.

With some people you just need to know to pull rather than push the door to understanding!

Soft skills are great but they don't benefit the bottom line - we need cost reductions NOW

Ignoring internal stakeholders and shouting at and bullying suppliers will only get you so far. If you need a step change in the outcome you're getting you're very unlikely to be able to do it alone. Collaboration requires that you utilise your soft skills - the more urgent the demand the more likely that soft skills would reach parts that stamping your feet and getting angry just won't get to! 

Soft skills are great but we use them every day, and already know how to use them effectively

Of course there are people already using soft skills effectively. Sadly there are also many procurement professionals still not doing so. I wrote a blog answering this last year 'does everyone already have soft skills'.

Soft skills are great, we've done a lot to develop them already, and have a plan in place to develop them in 2017

Great - I'm glad to hear it. Do please let me know if I can do anything to support you. I also look forward to hearing about the positive outcome achieved as result of further enhancing 'how' you do what you do. Good Luck.

Soft skills are great, what can you do to help us develop them further in 2017
It would be best to chat through where your team are currently, where you want them to get to, and we can then plot a course from one to the other, and decide where I can best add interventions to help you along the way. Please call +44(0)7770 538159 or email me on alison@alisonsmith.eu.

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Inspiring Change Inside and Out

This first week of 2017 I'm exploring the topics that make me tick - those topics that inspire my action (including the odd rant), and that are subjects that I share often in the procurement consultancy, speaking and coaching work that I do. They're also subjects that I have expertise in, enjoy, and that also make a difference when applied well.

Posts so far this week have covered:

• Don't leave your humanity at the door - because I get frustrated when I hear people tell me that we have to leave our authentic selves/humanity at the office door, and instead apply rules that cause other people and the planet great distress. I believe taking our humanity to work with us is what being a B Corp is all about, and is something I'm going to be talking to B Corporations about during the year. (Post script links to two posts that explain more about this. My response to the excuse for the lack of humanity in business "that's just the way business is", and "the sky is not the limit" a reminder that nothing is impossible.) 
• Language - because words have power, and we often unconsciously use words that hinder us achieving our goals.  
• Soft skills - as above.

Topics to be covered later in the week include:

• Procurement in large corporate organisations - because it's the environment I've worked in for over 30 years. 
• Creativity and Innovation - because there's a law of diminishing returns, and if we keep doing what we've always done we get what we're always got!  
• Use of unconventional tools - because they're particularly good at bypassing barriers to change. 
• Inspiring change - because effective change comes from motivated people. 

Another means of finding out more about who I am, what I do and the results achieved can be found be reading 2016: My year in blogs which was written at the end of 2016.

The Purchasing Coach: Language

In this first week of 2017 I'm going to be sharing more about what I as the Purchasing Coach get up to. The posts won't be written in any particular order - just prompted in a particular line of thought as I see things, or have conversations, or set about my to-do list.

Yesterday's post for example was prompted by the 10 minute task for the #64MillionArtists which tapped into my values, and why I do what I do in the way I do. The post that arose from that was entitled 'Don't leave your humanity at the door.' 

Today's prompt came from a more mundane activity - the good old New Year spring clean. From conversations with others it would seem it's not only me that has an urge to make order of the chaos at this time of year, that here in Fife seemed to mount up at home after returning from every trip away last year!

As I tidied up my office I came across this box of plasters/band-aids. I'd kept it with the intention of writing this blog....   

Language has power. 

When their child has hurt themselves no parent continues to say "ouch". 

Just think about doing that for a moment - what happens when you say "ouch". What happens when you think about having cut yourself, and then saying "ouch". To me it feels like we're poking ourselves where it hurts, ie increasing the pain!

Parents know when a child comes for a plaster to utter words that support the outcome they want - "there, there", "shall I kiss it better", "you poor thing" and so on.

Isn't that therefore the intention of the plaster - not for us to think it's going to make us hurt more but that it's going to alleviate our pain,

The following image seen in hotels all around the world speaks to the same issue:

In big bold letters in bathrooms in every country of the world we're being reminded to forget something - ie to leave something in the hotel!

It's not the intention of the hotel chains nor the plaster manufacturers but unconsciously we're receiving the opposite message to the one they're wanting to convey.

I love language, and as a result have written a number of other posts exploring how our language can give us more control over the outcome and can either help or hinder us in achieving our goals. Examples include:

• Are they 'answers' or 'solutions' - because using the right word for you will help you find them? 
• Why I'd suggest a Head or Problem Management won't solve many problems
• When is a major incident not a major incident - insight from a cupboard!
• How do you spell CAN'T - insight from a persoanl training session. There's another post that considers the impact of using the language of impossibility to describe a situation. 
• Language of change and transformation - clarity about the words used will help others understand what to expect.
• Who, if not you, is the organisation - in response to people blaming the problem on 'they/them'
• Clarity of meaning - trust and respect will mean very different things to people
• What do stakeholders and suppliers really hear when we say "procurement"?
• Are deadlines really killing you?

I also write posts over on Landscaping Your life where I use nature as a metaphor for our lives. Posts there have explored how sayings we use to describe a situation we're stuck in can also be used to get us back on track - for example:

• No pain no gain - is a very unhelpful belief to have as it suggests we can't achieve anything without pain.
• Can't see the wood for the trees means the answer can be found by imagining and exploring real trees.
• Making mountains out of molehills reminds us that if we're the mole it can't be a mountain that we're facing only a molehill.
• I'm stuck in a rut invites us to step out of it - literally. 

Language is certainly something I often pick up on and explore in coaching and training sessions, in communication planning, and in procurement, category and relationship strategy development too.

In what way might your language be hindering your progress, and what changes can you make to the language that would change the outcome you're getting? 

Alison Smith

The Purchasing Coach

Inspiring Change Inside and Out

More on The Purchasing Coach services being offered in 2017 can be found by following the link, and do include exploring the language being used within teams and with suppliers.

Don't leave your humanity at the door

Welcome 2017 - my wish for 2017 is that it facilitates and inspires positive change in health, politics, business and procurement.

There's many ways we can feed the inspiration, and one way I'm going to fuel the fire is by undertaking the creative 10 minute tasks set daily by 64 Million Artists. 

"64 Million Artists is a national campaign to unlock the potential of everyone in the UK through creativity. We use a simple, fun and free process: Do, Think and Share to support people who’d like to use creativity to express themselves, get a bit more of a spring in their step, or connect better with others"

Yesterday's task involved writing a media headline we wanted to see in 2017. Here's my headline:  

"We didn't leave our humanity at the door"

Leaving our humanity at the office door was a topic that first arose in February last year, when we delivered a procurement workshop to a group of leaders within a supplier organisation. The post I wrote at the time 'Procurement:Mr Wolf or enlightened' explains more about the conversation that took place. 

Leaving our humanity at the office door (ie before we walk into the room) also arose many times in the latter months of 2016. When facilitating procurement clinics I often heard the words: 

• "I didn't know we could do that in business"
• "I thought I had to act this way not that way"
• "You might be able to do that but I couldn't possibly"

These were all responses to being invited to respond to a situation with humanity - or perhaps more accurately to act from their humanity, that is, from their authentic self.

I wasn't asking them, as procurement professionals, to roll over and let a supplier walk all over them. I was simply asking them to consider an authentic response, one from their mind, head or soul that felt right to them. A response that didn't rely on following a set of rules they thought they should, ought, or must use when they turn up for work everyday, but rules that apply to every day living the rest of the time. 

The collage below, made in 2015, demonstrates my interpretation of what I was hearing. The image might be an over reaction in terms of the conversations we were having, however, it certainly expresses a fear I have - that we've forgotten what being human is all about.   

I'll talk more in future posts about what I mean, and what it might look like in business and procurement. (Post script links to posts that support this. My response to the excuse for the lack of humanity in business "that's just the way business is", and "the sky is not the limit" a reminder that nothing is impossible, written after hearing colonel Chris Hadfield speak about going to the moon and space exploration more generally.) 

I will leave you with my 2017 New Year's plea - please Don't leave your humanity at the door.   

I'm going to be interviewing those who are already making this possible. I'm hoping that includes Patagonia, Ben & Jerry's, Leon's, Unilever, and other B Corporations. Any further suggestions of who to approach, or introductions to the above organisations, please do get in touch - in comments below or direct to alison@alisonsmith.eu  +44(0)7770 538159.

Alison Smith

The Purchasing Coach

Inspiring change inside and out, and encouraging us all to take our humanity with us into business not leave it at the gate, turnstile, and revolving or office doors.

#DontLeaveItAtTheDoor

For more on the year that built up to these conversations please see '2016: My Year in blogs' post, and more on what I'm going to be doing in 2017 here.